With crime down, local prostitutes feel safer on city streets

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Just two years ago, LaTawnya considered carrying a gun for self-defense, just in case things got ugly.

These days, though, the 36-year-old prostitute doesn’t even bother with pepper spray. 

“It just feels so much safer out here now,” LaTawnya, who asked that her last name not be used, said on a recent late Friday evening in front of the Burger King on Chamberlayne Avenue.  “The gunshots ain’t as frequent, my baby daddy stay at home, my other baby daddy not gettin’ all drunk and, hol’ on,” she says as a car approaches, “wait a sec’ for me, hunny.”

She stops speaking as her eyes turn to a burgundy 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass with its right blinker flashing, slowly rolling toward the curb. 

You can hear the driver shift from “D” to “P” as LaTawnya throws her white feather boa back across her shoulders and the man at the wheel, perhaps no older than 30, rolls his window one-third of the way down. 

A rolled wad of bills - fives, tens maybe - emerge from the dark interior along with the aroma of Northern Lights-brand marijuana, the heavy thump of bass rattling the partially-rusted trunk.  He whispers something to LaTawnya; she nods her head and enters the passenger seat, gently winking at a Tobacco Avenue reporter as they drift into the night, seemingly disappearing into the grandly illuminated Richmond skyline.

And with that, LaTawnya was off to her next gig - and likely safe one, at that.

With Richmond having just barely fallen from the top 25 most dangerous cities in the U.S., local hookers such as LaTawnya say they feel much safer spending all night walking the streets, waiting for the next client upon whom to turn their next trick.

Private research firm CQ Press said in November that Richmond dropped from last year’s 15th-place spot to 29th, out of nearly 400 major metropolitan regions.  The fall was hailed by city officials, credited largely to police chief Rodney D. Monroe’s aggressive crackdown on violent crime since his arrival in February 2005.

“I promised that we would drop out of the Top 25 and we succeeded. This is great news,” Monroe said. “As you might imagine, with most violent activity, felonies and hilarious security-camera footage of would-be convenience store robbers occuring in the dead of night, this is also excellent news for some of our town’s round-the-clock employees like doctors, Taco Bell drive-thru attendants and of course, harlots.”

Local pimps say the drop in violent activity has increased sales to the point they have had to hire new associates, particularly to monitor the Chamberlayne and East Belt Boulevard corridors for potential clients.

“Great for business,” said local hustler Rashay “Silk Eyes” Butterworth, now in his third year in the industry. “Man,” he tells Tobacco Avenue, “you don’t even know. You don’t even know, man. Our gentlemen’s-entertainment procurements is up 25 percent year-over-year.”

Yet the decline in crime hasn’t been good for all of the city’s employees, Monroe noted. 

Many of the recent local unemployment claims, according to the Virginia Employment Commission, have come from yellow crime-scene tape putter-uppers, dead-guy chalk outline illustrators and various news reporters who - in the moments following a loved-one’s death - quickly rush to the doorsteps of next of kin to ask, on camera, how they feel.

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