Story Archive

Family Business

After a shooting in Spokane, Wash., police arrested Thaishaun Hunter, 17, as a suspect. When they heard that witnesses in the case had been threatened, they tapped the phones in the Spokane County Juvenile Detention Center. They apparently didn’t hear anything about threats, but they did learn, they say, that Hunter was a pimp who had a stable of underage girls — and was giving instructions to his brother, Dionte Hunter, 15, on how to run the business. “Make them think they’re going to be reimbursed, even if they’re not,” he told his brother, and “Treat them right, that way they stay around, and make sure they do the calls.” Undercover officers found ads for the girls on a web site and got appointments with a couple of them. When the girls found out their johns were cops, they admitted the scheme — and noted they gave a quarter of their earnings to the boys’ mother, who was raising bail for Thaishaun. Yet the mother isn’t being identified: there are no charges against her, since she claims she knew nothing of her sons’ business activities. (RC/KHQ Spokane) ...This never happened in the old days, before bureaucrats shut down enterprising kids’ lemonade stands.