Sheriff’s Offices from 5 native counties have joined state and federal legislation enforcement and two nonprofit businesses in a partnership to assist forestall human trafficking and child sex exploitation.
The task force will take a regional means in attacking child sexual exploitation and human trafficking, government stated all the way through a news convention Thursday.
Investigators from the Clay, Jacksonville, Nassau, Putnam and St. Johns County sheriff’s workplaces will paintings with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement within the task force, known as INTERCEPT. It will shape a public-private partnership with The Tim Tebow Foundation and ”Operation Light Shine,” either one of which paintings to prevent trafficking and exploitation and will be offering monetary, technical and different sources.
This is a primary for the Northeast Florida area and simplest the second one of its sort within the country backed through Operation Light Shine.
Clay County Undersheriff Ron Lendvay stated the paintings the task force will take care of is “difficult, dangerous, detailed-oriented and very technical.”
“But it is absolutely vital to keep our young and vulnerable safe from exploitation,” he stated. “All of the partners you see here are committed to work together in a task force environment to amplify our successes, erase jurisdictional boundaries and take a regional approach to protecting the vulnerable in Northeast Florida.”
Clay County Sheriff’s Office
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Cyber Tipline gained greater than 29.3 million pointers in 2021, nearly they all relating to incidents of suspected child sexual abuse subject matter, cops stated. That was once a 35% building up from 2020, when just below 22 million pointers had been gained.
In 2022, Northeast Florida accounted for greater than 2,300 blended child exploitation and human trafficking circumstances.
The task force’s task will probably be to spot, find and get better sufferers, plus supply them with the products and services and help they want. A key element of the method unveiled Thursday is that native, state and federal legislation enforcement will collaborate with nongovernmental organizations and survivors, stated Middle District U.S. Attorney Roger Handberg.
“The criminal organizations that traffic in persons, they exploit people and their vulnerabilities,” he stated. “Human traffickers sometimes move their victims from one country to another. Sometimes they move them between cities. Sometimes they move them between states. Sometimes they don’t move them at all; they just exploit them at one place.”
Operation Light Shine was once based through Matthew Murphy, a former Green Beret whose sister Sarah was once killed in overdue 2019 in Tennessee through a trafficker concerned about promoting medication and girls, he stated. Seeking assist to grasp what had came about, he in the long run discovered extra about drug habit and what number of girls fall sufferer to human traffickers as a result of it, he stated. That led him to fulfill Homeland Security officers, who skilled him on learn how to “move the needle” with an idea of getting federal and state officers collaborate with native legislation enforcement.
Working with Tebow and legislation enforcement, “that dream became a reality,” Murphy stated.
“We were able to get a task force in Nashville,” he stated. “Homeland Security moved out of their office and brought their agents. Then a federal prosecutor moved out of her office and into the task force. Then everybody just got to work.”
Tebow stated he wonders what number of youngsters will probably be be capable to to find hope and love in the future as a result of this task force “put the mission above the credit.”
“What does credit matter when lives are at stake, when so many lives are in their darkest hour of need?” Tebow stated. “That’s why it’s an honor to be here and like I said, I don’t feel deserving, but I am grateful to be here. … What this group is fighting for is real MVPs, meaning the most vulnerable people who desperately, desperately need us, need you, need all of us to work together to put the mission above the credit.”
Lendvay requested Northeast Florida citizens to record any information about human trafficking, child sexual abuse, or the trafficking in child sexual abuse subject matter right away to their native sheriff’s place of work or the Homeland Security Investigations Tip-line at (866) 347-2423. Anonymous pointers will also be reported to First Coast Crime Stoppers at (866) 845-TIPS or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children tip line at (800) 843-5678 or on-line at report.cybertip.org.
