“Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t that exactly what they were? Aren’t Massage Parlors considered part of the sex trade?”
I have to wonder if the women working in the massage parlor are victims of Trafficking. Maybe that is the real story.
It's common knowledge that "massage parlors" are fronts for prostitution.
It's also common knowledge that the "Asian" massage parlors are staffed by recent immigrants, legal and illegal.
They promise them jobs in America, take their passports, seclude and control them and force them into prostitution.
I'll bet the shooter was a customer of every one of these places.
“I have to wonder if the women working in the massage parlor(s) are victims of [Human] Trafficking.”
It would be hard to tell without investigation. Certainly, in the past, some were, both in Asian and Eastern European staffed Massage parlors. I cannot imagine that the same is not true today. Complicating the investigations, the IDs of the Trafficked girls would be stolen and used to smuggle in other women to work in these places. [When massueses apparently in their 20s have IDs/Visas/Passports of women in their 30s and 40s, one begins to suspect ID theft] But local vice squads would not have the resources, or the inclination, to track down the potential international connections.