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Courtesy of the U.S Marshall Service - Press Release

‘Operation Summer Rescue’ helps U.S. Marshals recover 11 kids in New Orleans – ‘This won’t happen on our watch’

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NEW ORLEANS, LA – The U.S. Marshals announced that they recovered 11 children in a two-month rescue operation in New Orleans. 

Operation Summer Rescue 2020 ran from August 1 to September 30, 2020. It focused on missing and endangered runaways and was sponsored and funded by the agency’s Missing Child Unit.

A 16-year-old runaway boy was one of the recoveries. He was believed to be involved in illegal gang activity involving firearms in New Orleans.

A 14-year-old girl was rescued in Nashville, Tennessee. This was with the help of the USMS Middle District of Tennessee Task Force, Metro Nashville Police Department, and the FBI New Orleans Field Office.

During this two-month operation, the U.S. Marshals made several arrests. On included an adult male arrested for aggravated statutory rape.

New Orleans was one of the original U.S. cities to begin a USMS pilot program for the Missing Child unit in 2016. The U.S. Marshals Service deputies in New Orleans have provided instruction to other USMS districts and state agencies regarding how to coordinate the MCU operations. These operations have gained national media attention in 2020.

The New Orleans MCU pilot program in 2016 led to the recovery of multiple at-risk kids, and several adult suspects for human trafficking. One case featured on New Orleans metro news outlets helped in the recovery of two at-risk teens and a baby. They were rescued at a local hotel on St. Charles Avenue. 

 

During the fiscal year 2020, the USMS New Orleans Task Force contributed to the recovery of an additional nine missing/endangered children.

They also arrested one of those recovered in Lafourche Parish. This resulted in the seizure of a stolen AR-15 rifle, and narcotics.

The task force helped find a missing pregnant teen and arrest her boyfriend, who was an escapee from the Orleans Parish Juvenile Justice Center. 

In March 2020, several children, who were considered to be in extreme danger, were recovered. The mother, who was wanted on first-degree murder in Laurel, Mississippi, was arrested. The warrant for her arrest was issued after she killed her 11-year-old son at a hotel in Laurel.

The USMS New Orleans Task Force rescued the mother’s boys, ages six and nine, who were sitting in a vehicle in New Orleans East.

The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 enhanced USMS authority to assist federal, state, and local law enforcement with the recovery of missing, endangered, or abducted children. This act helps the Marshal’s regardless of whether a fugitive or sex offender was involved.

The USMS established its Missing Child Unit to oversee and manage the implementation of its enhanced authority under the act. 

In 2019, the USMS helped recover 295 missing children based on requests for assistance from law enforcement.  They have helped with the recovery of a missing child in 75 percent of cases they have gotten. They have a 66 percent rate of the recoveries being made within seven days of the USMS receiving the request for assistance. 

Since 2005, the USMS has recovered more than 1,800 missing children.

U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of Louisiana Scott Illing said:

“This is a very important mission that the USMS has been tasked by Congress to oversee, as the safety of children across the country is paramount to this nation’s future.

“While 11 recoveries may not seem high, this time-consuming work was accomplished while also running our normal day-to-day violent felony offender investigations and sex offender fugitive operations in the district, along with our other judicial missions.”

Many of these kids are human trafficking victims. In 2019, juveniles made up 58.6 percent of human trafficking reported through Louisiana’s social services agency. This is a 26 percent increase over the 2018 report.

The majority of those trafficked, according to data, are African Americans and females. These victims of sex trafficking are forced to engage in commercial sex acts and labor trafficking against their will. Most of the victims are age 17 and younger.

Data showed that 106 victims were 12 and under in 2019. The victims ranged anywhere from two months to 63 years of age.

The common trafficking locations are East Baton Rouge, Caddo, and Orleans parishes for 2019. sexual trafficking victims made 87.3 percent of those locations, 2.4 percent were labor trafficking victims and 3.7 percent were both.

According to the advocate, Louisiana lacks an organized response. This means that they don’t have one agency to respond to and gather data on this type of information, a state auditor found in a recently released report.

Agencies like the Department of Children and Family Services and State Police are at the forefront of the trafficking battle, but their reach is limited. And they are hamstrung by a lack of data. This makes it nearly impossible to see the true extent of Human Trafficking in the state.

DCFS Secretary Marketa Walters said:

“The scope of this is much larger than anybody, I think, in our country really understands and believes.”

As the problem has escalated, state leaders are trying to increase resources and training. A statewide Human Trafficking Prevention Commission, established in June 2017, assists local leaders in coordinating anti-trafficking efforts across the state.

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There is a clear consensus that something must be done to prevent the crime. The audit found a shortage of resources and a scattered response to the problem.

Laura Murphy, a professor, researcher, and consultant on human trafficking who has done extensive work in Louisiana said:

“Agencies and organizations tasked with addressing trafficking in the state of Louisiana have made great headway in recent years in terms of responding to survivor’s needs. But there is still a long way to go.”

Walters says that her staff is the ones on the front lines when it comes to fighting child trafficking. Her team is responsible for shepherding traumatized youth to safety.

The team shows up at state police sting operations to get victims to counselors’ offices, and they assist in placing them in a foster home or bringing them back to their worried parents. Walter’s department works closely with the police. They call her office and alert her in advance about a planned human trafficking raid or an arrest.

Walters said:

“When [trafficked children] do get picked up [by law enforcement], they call us, and we go. So we are the front line.”  

If a child victim’s parents were not involved in their trafficking, the child is returned to them, and DCFS is not responsible for their recovery. But DCFS staff respond to every case of child trafficking until they know the parents’ role in an incident.

It takes time for children to admit they have been trafficked. This kind of admission tends to come long after a case of suspected abuse is first reported. This is after a child feels safe enough to share their experiences.  

Walters explained:

“When they are finally comfortable and trust us enough, they then tell us. Very few girls come into us in that initial investigation and say, ‘I’ve been having sex with 30 men a night and my pimp is making me do this.’ That’s just not how most of our interactions go.”

While Walters and her team try to help victims find the resources they need to heal, there is no designated entity in the state responsible for the trafficked children. And DCFS cannot take custody of trafficked adults.

The overall response in human trafficking is fragmented, and it relies on multiple government agencies, volunteers, and advocacy groups. It’s hard to understand and address the problem. This makes fewer resources available to assist victims and ensure they have the help they need.

Walters also said:

“The trauma these kids have been through is horrendous. Human trafficking is a commodity. It’s not like drugs, because you sell drugs and your product is gone. You can sell a girl over and over and over in one night, and then do it all the time.” 

Sheri Lockridge is the human trafficking team leader at Covenant House NOLA, an organization that offers shelter, medical services and advocacy support to unsupported youth on the streets of New Orleans.

Lockridge said:

“You feel hopeless and stuck, which tends to be what happens when you get re-victimized. You can’t get the resources that you need, but you still have to be able to eat and sleep somewhere. It can create a cycle for these victims. They wind up paying the biggest price.”

During the last three and a half years serving trafficking victims, Lockridge has seen survivors as young as 11 and as old as 54.  Most of the people she works with fall between ages 18 and 24. The audit said roughly 57 percent of trafficked victims are juveniles and about 91 percent are female.

Lockridge also said.

“It can happen to anybody.”

Despite human trafficking’s indiscriminate reach, Lockridge said certain factors put people at risk. Unemployment, lack of education, homelessness, and childhood physical and sexual abuse, among other struggles, are all factors that can isolate individuals and make them easy targets for predators. 

Sometimes, even after someone breaks free from trafficking, a lack of available housing means law enforcement and first responders “have no other option than to take victims to detention centers or jail,” the audit notes. 

Lockridge identified one of the audit’s gaps: that trafficked individuals are sometimes prosecuted, which can be psychologically and practically devastating. Victims are charged with prostitution or other sex crimes, which forces them to register as sex offenders or fight long legal battles with funds many do not have. 

“Organizations and shelters — even police departments — are becoming more trauma-informed.”

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