16 missing children recovered by US marshals in the Philadelphia area

Sixteen children considered critically missing were rescued during a four-week operation that concluded this week, according to the US Marshals Service office in Philadelphia.

At least four of the recovered children were connected to child sex trafficking, the marshals service said on Thursday.

Dubbed Operation Safeguard, the initiative began on February 15 when a US Marshals Service task force took over 26 missing children cases at the request of other law enforcement agencies.

The children involved are considered some of the most at-risk and challenging cases in the Philadelphia area, the marshals service said, based on high-risk factors including child sex trafficking and exploitation, sexual abuse, physical abuse, and medical or mental health conditions.

"Our hope is for a better future for the 16 children we recovered," said Eric Gartner, the US marshal for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. "Our resolve remains steadfast in finding other children in peril."

Deputy US marshals assigned to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Fugitive Task Force led the operation along with personnel from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Philadelphia Department of Human Services, Bucks County Children Youth Services, the Philadelphia Police Department's Human Trafficking Unit, and the FBI.

Two women in right place at right time to find kidnapped child

COLUMBUS (WCMH) – Two young women were in the right place at the right time Tuesday, playing a major role in helping unite a child with his mother after her vehicle was stolen with the baby still in it.

Taeyonna Webb and Nave Dowe said in the moment they found the baby, all they could thing of is his mother and her fear during the whole situation.

Four-month-old Alpha Kamara was in the back of a maroon 2008 Acura MDX with Ohio plates that was stolen from Tamarack Circle Tuesday morning.

The pair said they got the Amber Alerts on their telephones earlier this morning, but the second alert is really what caught their attention.

Child found safe after Columbus Amber Alert 

Webb said she was charging her phone and the Amber Alert went off the second time when she was near the intersection of Ohio and Hildreth avenues.

That is when she spotted the Acura with the license plate that was listed on the alert she had received just moments before.

“I’m driving slow, it’s snow out here,” Webb said. “So I’m driving slow and I see this big red Acura just sitting here and I’m, like, ‘Maybe it’s somebody’s that live here,’ and I checked the Amber Alert again and I see the plates.”

THANK YOU TO THESE HEROES!

Taeyonna Webb & Nave Dowe found the stolen SUV with the 4mo baby inside nearly 4hrs. after the crime occurred.

Deputy Chief Becker @buckeye_becker showed his appreciation at the scene by presenting them with his Division challenge coin.💙#AmberAlert https://t.co/b1y5aNZPUz

— Columbus Ohio Police (@ColumbusPolice) February 10, 2021

Both women said it’s thanks to that second Amber Alert which drew their attention to the SUV and ultimately baby Alpha.

“I stopped, she got out and ran to the car to check if anybody was in it,” Webb said. “There was nobody in the car, but there was a baby.”

“Calm, I opened the door and the baby just looked at me and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh,’” Dowe added.

The women then called the police, who later gave them special coins for helping find the child.

Both said they were happy to help, saying all they could think about during the situation was the child’s mother.

“It does because if I was a mother, I know, I know the mother is probably in shock right now, not knowing if she would ever see her baby again,” Webb said.

Both said they urge people to be on the look out when something like this happens again.

“If you see or hear an Amber Alert, don’t just blow past it like, ‘They’ll find it,'” Webb said. “You never know, just like us. I didn’t think I would ever come across a kidnapping car. Like, don’t blow past things like that.”

Video Shows Dramatic Rescue Of Kidnapped 8-Year-Old Girl

(CNN/NBC) – Police have released video showing the rescue of an 8-year-old Fort Worth, Texas girl who was kidnapped in broad daylight.

The man who kidnapped the child, 51-year-old Michael Webb, was sentenced to life in federal prison last week.

According to evidence presented at trial, Webb grabbed the little girl as she and her mother were walking down a neighborhood street.

Web admitted to authorities that he fought off the girl’s mother and drove the child to a hotel room where he held her captive.

A family friend spotted Webb’s Ford sedan and called 911.

The video shows the tense moments heavily armed officers found her and took Webb into custody.

“My hope is that this family and this community will find solace in knowing that he will never be able to harm another little child again,” said US attorney Nealy Cox.

Photographer uses drone, thermal camera to help find missing 6-year-old:

Author: Jennifer Austin

CLEAR LAKE, Minn. — As a professional photographer, Steve Fines sometimes uses drones to help capture beautiful images from above.

But in its own way, the image he captured early Wednesday morning, just might be his most beautiful image yet.

"I had seen the shape ... that I thought was the child and dog. It didn't look like a deer. It didn't look like anything else. Then the deputy sent out the ground crew to see what it was," Fines said.

Drone with thermal cameras helps find boy
That shape was six-year-old Ethan Haus, who went missing with his dog Tuesday near his home in Clear Lake.

The Sherburne County Sheriff's Office estimates some 600 people volunteered to search for Ethan. That search went well into the night.

So around 9 p.m. Tuesday Fines says he took his drone and thermal imaging to help with the search.

"Six years old, lost out in the fields. It's 30 degrees. You can't not do something," he said of his decision to help.

Fines says it was the first time he's used his thermal camera and drone to look for a person. And as the volunteers faced the dark of night, around 1:40 a.m. Wednesday, Fines literally found brightness.

Photo by: Fines Aerial Imaging

"I saw the dog, you can tell that dog is excited and happy. It's wagging [its tail]. I knew [at that moment] what had happened and that was phenomenal," Fines said of watching his thermal camera as rescuers found Ethan.

Fines is quick to give credit to the hundreds of other volunteers who helped with the search.

"I knew to fly in this field because there were ground searchers who found a footprint [there," he said. "There were 600 people that found him last night. It wasn't just me."

The Sherburne County Sheriff says the department is in the process of getting its own drone with thermal imaging to use in cases like this.

They're currently waiting on FAA approval.

FBI and Georgia Officials Rescue More Than 200 Missing And Exploited Children

Saturday, June 1, 2019

ATLANTA— Federal, state and local officials located dozens of missing and exploited children as a result of Operation Safe Summer II. The successful efforts were led by the FBI's Metro Atlanta Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking (MATCH) task force.

A total of 27 law enforcement agencies worked together from May 1, 2019 to May 24, 2019 to locate 231 children. The FBI says, the goal was to combat all forms of child exploitation and make the community safer heading into the summer months. The operation concluded by National Missing Children's Day which was on May 25th.

The FBI released this data in conjuction with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children:

In 2018, more than 23,500 runaways were reported to NCMEC and one in seven were likely victims of child sex trafficking.

In 2016, 11% of endangered runaways were believed to be involved in gangs.

It is estimated as of March 2019, there were 419 missing/runaway children on the streets of the five-county Metro Atlanta region.

“Thanks to the month-long efforts of our partners, 231 children are no longer vulnerable to predators who would seek to exploit them,” said Chris Hacker, special agent in charge of FBI Atlanta. “Operation Safe Summer is another example of the FBI’s commitment to protecting our children before they become victims.”

According to FBI officials, with summer comes children out of school, spending more time on line and on their smart phones, leading to a hot time for sexual predators.

With an emphasis on prevention, OSS concentrated much of its efforts on locating and identifying those vulnerable children before they were targeted by sexual predators.

 

Abducted Girl's Hero Describes Car Chase Rescue:

Brett Fletcher

Abducted Girl's Hero Describes Car Chase Rescue -
By CBSNews: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories​/2010/10/06/earlyshow/main6931​787.shtml (News Video.) Thank God for heroes!

Abducted Girl's Hero Describes Car Chase Rescue - CBS News

www.cbsnews.com

The Early Show: Abducted Girl's Hero Describes Car Chase Rescue - Unemployed Construction Worker Trailed Vehicle Carrying Kidnapped 8-Year-Old; Girl Had Been Sexually Abused. (News Video)