Another stop that we made on our whirlwind series of film shoots in Philadelphia was at Philadelphia Police Headquarters, where we first interviewed Officer Stanley Kaluza. Working in another job in a completely unrelated field, Stan surprisingly felt the call to become an Officer, took a pay cut, and stepped into a journey he never imagined he would have.
Five years after becoming an officer, Stan was moved into the Vice Unit, which investigates prostitution-related crimes, illegal lottery, speakeasies, narcotics, human trafficking, horse betting, illegal poker machines, and pool selling. Along the way, he also became a Special Deputy US Marshal and was appointed to an FBI Task Force that has made national headlines for their efforts to recover child and adult victims of sex trafficking and to arrest traffickers and buyers, often referred to as “johns.”
Stan shared with us how sex trafficking and prostitution investigations have hit home to him as a father and the concerns he has for his daughter. He also shared with us the stories of prostituted women that have stayed with him – like the nurse who was in an automobile accident and was prescribed pain pills that led to addiction and then being sold on the streets of Kensington, or the woman whose husband had no idea that she was on the streets while he was at work, or the young women with college degrees and even an athletic scholarship who ended up as well on the notorious streets of Kensington. We could have talked with Stan for hours about his experience, the stories that he carries with him day after day and the lessons he has learned about how unexpected tragedies, romantic relationships with a “boyfriend” who sees a vulnerable woman as a way to make money, or other circumstances can drag a person from what one might consider a normal life into the dark world of addiction, violence and being prostituted.
It was an honor to interview Officer Kaluza and to see him in action during the undercover sting we filmed a few weeks later.
