Rarely do stories about Utah in the national and worldwide media about anything but how to navigate our liquor laws (some of my friends still ask about private clubs), the Temple or our little quirks turned up the the nth degree. When I woke up this morning something different caught my eye. “Vice” had done a story about Utah, about a Utah politician, about the Utah Attorney General. “Oh, good grief. What did they do this time?” Is the first thought I flashing across my slow-processing mind. Then I scrapped the sleep from my eyes and took a closer look. “Utah Attorney General Posed as Bodyguard in Undercover Sex-Trafficking Sting in Columbia” from “Vice” – possibly one of the few actual news organizations who put feet on the street where stories actually happen when they aren’t reporting on getting a happy ending at your nearest massage parlor.
As of late it’s been all about our freedoms to breath dirty air and burn wood in our stoves because we are Americans. More so, we are Western Americans. We don’t take shit from anyone when it comes to what we shoot or what we burn. We won’t let the Feds come in and tell us where our cows can and can’t eat. If you try we will put up the Tea Light, bringing our well-armed friends over to show the world our autonomy. In short: we usually look stupid when it comes to our fly-over state quirks. Sometimes it’s laughable. Sometimes you shed a tear and dread the next time you travel abroad, having to explain yourself as if you are Utah culture incarnate.
That’s why this story is so refreshing. Not only a person who publically represents Utah has done something exceptional on the world stage, but a Utah’s Attorney General did something that is actually courageous and heroic, not hyperbole. He didn’t say, “Obama can take this gun from my cold, dead hands” to the applause of the NRA or at CPAC. Sean Reyes saved kids who were being held captives as sex slaves in South America – a crime of ultimate evil. It’s an infraction that is THE crime against humanity.
A politician fighting evil? In this day and age? Who would have thought? Certainly not I. This is the kind of thing that gives us hope our leaders aren’t self-serving, money-raising creeps.
Even scarier the operation didn’t go off without a hitch:
“Reyes said police were meant to spring into action 3 to 5 minutes after the men gave authorities the secret signal, but that an operational “snafu” involving one of the officials involved delayed the raid for nearly an hour. You can.”
Read the full article at Vice.
Three cheers for Sean Reyes.
