In a recent social media alert, Jared Trujillo, a CUNY professor and civil rights attorney, raised alarms about a potential sting operation by Amtrak police at New York’s Penn Station targeting queer men via the dating app Sniffies. Trujillo alleges officers have used the app to arrest men on charges of public lewdness even when the interactions appear wholly innocuous. While his account is so far unverified by other sources, it echoes distressing patterns documented in previous years and raises significant concern about ongoing discrimination and policing tactics aimed at LGBTQ+ communities.
The allegations bear unsettling similarities to a scandal that erupted in 2017 involving the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD). At that time, officers were accused of systematically targeting men they perceived as gay or gender non-conforming in the bus terminal restrooms, arresting them on baseless charges related to public lewdness and exposure. One plaintiff from that case, Miguel Meija, described being arrested after feeling watched in a restroom, a fate that befell numerous men leading to a class-action lawsuit. The officers involved, sometimes referred to as employing homophobic tactics such as those by a figure known as The Gay Whisperer, reportedly sought to inflate arrest statistics by singling out queer individuals without cause.
This practice, rooted in a long and painful history of police hostility toward LGBTQ+ people, continued to reverberate well beyond New York. For instance, a 2022 case in Orlando also spotlighted deputies using Sniffies as bait in sting operations targeting gay men, particularly those with public visibility. Authorities defended such tactics as necessary to curb illicit public sexual activity, but the approach remained deeply controversial.
Critically, these enforcement strategies disproportionately affect Black and Brown queer men, compounding the risks for undocumented individuals who face harsher consequences, including jeopardised immigration status, from lewdness charges. A legal aid representative involved in the 2017 New York case testified to endemic police misconduct that led to wrongful arrests of racial minorities simply for using public restrooms during their commutes. The demographic when targeted also included anyone perceived as gender non-conforming, amplifying the scope of discrimination.
Despite broad recognition of the historic harms caused by such policing—including public apologies issued by New York’s police commissioner in 2019 for pre-Stonewall era raids on gay bars—there is an alarming resurgence of similar tactics. Trujillo described the practice as “really disgusting,” suggesting a regressive return amid heightened anti-LGBTQ+ conservatism in the post-Trump era. Legally, undercover operations like these remain permissible; entrapment laws generally require law enforcement to induce a criminal act, and mere undercover surveillance or engagement is often defended as legitimate policing.
Source: Noah Wire Services
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