FOLEY, Ala. — A recent sting operation by the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office at the Pitcher Plant Bog on Baldwin County Road 17 in the Weeks Bay area resulted in arrests for loitering for sexual purposes.

Two men were arrested, but a BCSO spokesman said more could have been arrested had circumstances been different.

“The low number of arrests belies the amount of activity on that day. There were 10 people or more coming and going at the site,” said Lt. Tony Nolfe.

Two men were arrested for allegedly demonstrating intent to participate in sex acts with an undercover officer. Those men were identified as William McDaniel, 56, of Sunray Court in Foley, and Kenneth Saccocia, 71, of Livingston, Texas. Both men were booked at the Baldwin County Corrections Center on April 24 and released on $500 bonds.

“We will be out there doing more of this,” Nolfe said of the sting operation, noting that BCSO is taking the issue of people loitering in parks seriously.

A BCSO press release issued in connection with McDaniel and Saccocia’s arrests noted that Alabama law defines loitering in part as “remaining in a public place for the purpose of engaging or soliciting another person to engage in deviate sexual intercourse.”

While the Pitcher Plant Bog, an isolated area, has been the site of numerous arrests for loitering for sexual purposes in recent years, Nolfe said it isn’t the only place where such activity is taking place.

There is a place in Foley and Daphne as well, and the Causeway and Overlook on the Eastern Shore, as well as the park on County Road 99 in Lillian, are sites where loitering for sex takes place, Nolfe said.

“We wish they’d quit,” Nolfe said of those who loiter at these sites.

Nolfe is adamant that BCSO is not singling out a certain group for prosecution.

“We are not targeting homosexuals or homosexuality. We are not targeting a lifestyle,” he said. Rather, it’s the simple fact that certain activity should not take place in a public setting such as a park, Nolfe said.

A case in point, Nolfe said a mother who home schools her children recently took them to the Pitcher Plant Bog for a field trip.

“The kids saw something they wish they hadn’t seen,” Nolfe said.

Also, some months past BCSO received a call concerning a dead person at the Pitcher Plant Bog. Upon arrival, officers found the body of a 90-year-old man who had apparently had a stroke in the middle of a sex act. Nolfe said the dead man’s partner is probably the one who made the anonymous call to BCSO.