The cover story in the new issue of the South Florida Gay News takes a look at a five-year sting conducted by the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office against gay men in county parks. It’s a very frustrating story, though sadly it’s also rather predictable: Two cops, Peter Lazar and Van Garner, made over 600 arrests between 2005 and 2010 by convincing men to expose themselves to the officers on public property.
Allegedly the detectives were there in response to a request from the Palm Beach County parks department, but the paper’s investigation reveals that no such request was ever made. The director of the parks department, at least, says he had no idea about the operation, even though it took place under his nose for five years.
It’s not surprising that the parks department didn’t make a claim about a rampant sex problem, though, because public sex seems to happen only rarely in Palm Beach County. During Garner and Lazar’s five years on the job there were a grand total of four arrests for men having actual sex with other men in the parks. (And if there were only four arrests, that might have only been two actual sex acts.)
