Sex trafficking suspect Evan Anthony Cole was taken into police custody July 11 following a lockdown at the Travelodge motel on Bypass Road, with police lingering in the Cracker Barrel parking lot across the street. While Cole has been apprehended by police, the proximity of his capture to campus calls into question the prevalence of human trafficking in the Williamsburg area.

I didn’t get my driver’s license until halfway through my freshman year of college. Don’t gasp - I know it’s unusual for a teenager in America. To be fair, I lived right in the middle of my town, a sprawling suburban landscape just west of DC. I walked to school, I biked to work, I took the metro, and I inevitably bummed rides off my friends. Given my reliance on public transportation, when I came to Williamsburg my freshman year, I was thrilled that students ride the buses for free.