{"id":311749,"date":"2026-08-02T02:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T02:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/311749\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T02:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T02:27:09","slug":"queens-residents-rally-to-call-for-end-to-human-trafficking-prostitution-in-flushing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/311749\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens residents rally to call for end to human trafficking, prostitution in Flushing"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of New Yorkers are demanding change to end what they say is a years-old problem \u2013 human trafficking and prostitution along Roosevelt Avenue<\/a> in Queens.<\/p>\n

Saturday, neighbors gathered to call on police, prosecutors and lawmakers to clean up 40th Road in Flushing.<\/p>\n

“All day long, we have prostitution, we have drugs,” Queens resident Ramses Frias said.<\/p>\n

“A few feet away from this park, we have prostitution, human trafficking, open-air drug use,” another speaker said.<\/p>\n

The street sits just south of Roosevelt Avenue, where CBS News New York has reported on NYPD crackdowns<\/a> over the last few years from Jackson Heights to Corona.<\/p>\n

But those who rallied Saturday say criminals are still trafficking women, and even children, in Flushing and beyond.<\/p>\n

“We get all these new people coming from other countries, and they’re exploiting them and they’re selling them,” private investigator Manuel Gomez said.<\/p>\n

Richard Ortiz, a senior assistant district attorney from Brooklyn, spoke at the rally, saying it’s not just happening in Queens. He called on New Yorkers to unite against the problem.<\/p>\n

“No human being was ever created to become another person’s commodity,” he said.<\/p>\n

The Queens district attorney and the NYPD would not agree to an interview Saturday, but an NYPD spokesperson says police arrested 89 people across the city in a human trafficking crackdown during the World Cup tournament<\/a>. Police say that operation helped 43 victims and rescued seven minors.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of New Yorkers are demanding change to end what they say is a years-old problem \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123,7590],"class_list":["post-311749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-roosevelt-avenue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}