158 Arrested at Indoor Party for Drugs and Sexual Crimes Amid COVID Outbreak

LA County Sheriff's Office Announces Crackdown on Super Spreader Events
Over 20,000 New Infections Daily in California Including LA

An LA Sheriff's Department official announces the arrest of attendees at a large indoor party who violated the home evacuation order. [Photo by AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy New York=Correspondent Baek Jong-min] Despite the stay-at-home orders due to the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), 158 attendees of an indoor party, who also committed drug and prostitution crimes, were arrested in large numbers.

On the 9th (local time), according to CNN, the Los Angeles (LA) County Sheriff's Department arrested 120 adults and 38 teenagers who violated the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders by attending a large-scale party.

They are accused of secretly holding a party in the basement of a vacant house in Palmdale, northeastern LA County, on the 5th.

Sheriff Villanueva said, "The party attendees violated the stay-at-home order issued by the Governor of California," adding, "If the victim of prostitution had not been rescued this time, she would have been passed on to another party location."

The police seized drugs and firearms at the party scene and rescued one 17-year-old girl who was a victim of prostitution. The police stated that if the party had proceeded normally, the number of participants would have reached about 500.

California has recently become the epicenter of COVID-19 spread in the United States. Despite mild weather, more than 20,000 new infections are reported daily. According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the number of new infections on the 8th was about 24,500. The cumulative number of infections is 1.43 million, ranking first in the United States.

Among California regions, the spread of infection in the LA area is the most severe. According to Worldometer, 8,441 new infections were reported in the LA area on the 8th alone. The cumulative number of infections is 466,321.

The California Sheriff's Department warned through a tweet on the same day, "We will continue targeted crackdowns on (COVID-19) super-spreader events."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.