Trinity Mount Ministries

Monday, June 18, 2018

Laura Bush: Separating children from their parents at the border ‘breaks my heart’

By Laura Bush

June 17, 2018 at 8:45 PM


Young occupants of Casa Padre, an immigrant shelter for unaccompanied minors, in Brownsville, Tex., on June 14. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Reuters)

Laura Bush is a former first lady of the United States.
On Sunday, a day we as a nation set aside to honor fathers and the bonds of family, I was among the millions of Americans who watched images of children who have been torn from their parents. In the six weeks between April 19 and May 31, the Department of Homeland Security has sent nearly 2,000 children to mass detention centers or foster care. More than 100 of these children are younger than 4 years old. The reason for these separations is a zero-tolerance policy for their parents, who are accused of illegally crossing our borders.
I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.
Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso. These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history. We also know that this treatment inflicts trauma; interned Japanese have been two times as likely to suffer cardiovascular disease or die prematurely than those who were not interned.
Americans pride ourselves on being a moral nation, on being the nation that sends humanitarian relief to places devastated by natural disasters or famine or war. We pride ourselves on believing that people should be seen for the content of their character, not the color of their skin. We pride ourselves on acceptance. If we are truly that country, then it is our obligation to reunite these detained children with their parents — and to stop separating parents and children in the first place.
Columnist Elizabeth Bruenig takes issue with the way Attorney General Jeff Sessions is using scripture to justify separating families at the border. (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)

People on all sides agree that our immigration system isn’t working, but the injustice of zero tolerance is not the answer. I moved away from Washington almost a decade ago, but I know there are good people at all levels of government who can do better to fix this.
Recently, Colleen Kraft, who heads the American Academy of Pediatrics, visited a shelter run by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. She reported that while there werebeds, toys, crayons, a playground and diaper changes, the people working at the shelter had been instructed not to pick up or touch the children to comfort them. Imagine not being able to pick up a child who is not yet out of diapers.
Twenty-nine years ago, my mother-in-law, Barbara Bush, visited Grandma’s House, a home for children with HIV/AIDS in Washington. Back then, at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, the disease was a death sentence, and most babies born with it were considered “untouchables.” During her visit, Barbara — who was the first lady at the time — picked up a fussy, dying baby named Donovan and snuggled him against her shoulder to soothe him. My mother-in-law never viewed her embrace of that fragile child as courageous. She simply saw it as the right thing to do in a world that can be arbitrary, unkind and even cruel. She, who after the death of her 3-year-old daughter knew what it was to lose a child, believed that every child is deserving of human kindness, compassion and love.
In 2018, can we not as a nation find a kinder, more compassionate and more moral answer to this current crisis? I, for one, believe we can.


Task force serves 147 warrants, arrests 19 alleged child predators

by Marian Camacho




ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A three-month-long statewide operation has led to the arrest of 19 alleged child predators and the rescue of two children.

New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas says the joint operation, dubbed Operation Broken Heart V, is focused on protecting New Mexico children from sexual exploitation and rape.

James Stewart and Teri Sanchez are included in the report. The parents came into the spotlight for a horrific case of child abuse involving their 7-year-old daughter. Stewart is accused of forcing the young girl into prostitution among many other charges. Sanchez is accused of hitting and slapping the girl, selling her clothing and failing to feed or bathe her. 

Balderas says in total, the Internet Crimes Against Children task force served 147 search warrants over the three-month time span.

“I’m grateful for the work of Office of the Attorney General special agents along with local, state, and federal law enforcement officers who belong to the New Mexico ICAC task force for saving children from horrific abuse and torture,” said Attorney General Balderas. “We have no higher priority than protecting our children, and thanks to our ICAC task force and successful initiatives like Operation Broken Heart V, our communities around the state are safer for children and families.”

The task force was focused on offenders who possess, create and distribute child pornography, engage in online enticement of children for sexual purposes, engage in child prostitution, engage is traveling abroad for the purpose of sexually abusing foreign children.
New Mexico’s ICAC task force is comprised of 87 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.


Saturday, June 16, 2018

FBI MISSING - LASHAYA STINE

LASHAYA STINE

July 15, 2016
Aurora, Colorado

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Date(s) of Birth UsedFebruary 8, 2000
HairLong black hair (usually worn in a bun)
EyesBrown
Height5'6"
Weight150 pounds (At the time of her disappearance)
SexFemale
RaceBlack
Scars and MarksQuarter-sized round scar on Lashaya's chest.

Remarks:

On the day of her disappearance, Lashaya was last seen wearing a black V-neck t-shirt, black stonewash jeans, silver hoop earrings, and a silver watch on her left arm.

Details:

On July 15, 2016, Lashaya Stine left her residence in Aurora, Colorado, around 2:00 a.m.  Lashaya was last seen in the area of E. Montview Boulevard and N. Peoria Street in the early morning hours.  Lashaya was scheduled for a job interview on July 16th, but never arrived.  Lashaya has not made any attempts to contact family members or friends since she has been gone.
This case is being investigated by the Denver Office of the FBI and the Aurora Police Department.

Submit a Tip:

If you have any information concerning this person, please contact the Aurora Police Department at 303/627-3100 or the Colorado Crime Stoppers at 720/913-7867.
You may also contact your local FBI office.
Field Office: Denver


Friday, June 15, 2018

Chilling NCMEC Report Shows 88% of Missing Sex Trafficked Kids Come from US Foster Care



America has a dark secret that no one wants to admit. Talk of this secret will get you labelled as a conspiracy theorist, fake news, and outlets who report on it will have their organic reach throttled by social media and Google alike. Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, many in the mainstream media and the government refuse to see this very real epidemic of child sex trafficking in the United States. What’s more, according to the government’s own data, the vast majority of a portion of these trafficked kids are coming from the country’s own foster care system.

Children are being needlessly ripped from homes at such an alarming rate that hundreds of parents in one state have gone so far as to create a counter-kidnapping organization to stop it.
As TFTP reported last week, a parent’s rights organization filed a letter in federal court last Tuesday asking a federal judge strike down Minnesota’s current child protection laws for being too expansive and removing children from loving and safe homes without due process.
“Families are being abused, and in some cases, destroyed, as a result of laws that are inappropriate,” said Dwight Mitchell, the lead plaintiff in the case and founder of the parents’ association. “This is legal kidnapping.”
This legal kidnapping is happening in states across the country and it is contributing to the very real epidemic of child trafficking. The reality of such practices within the United States foster system is outright horrifying.
In 1984, the United States Congress established the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), and, as part of Missing Children’s Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2013 they receive $40 million to study and track missing and trafficked children in the United States.
In 2017, NCMEC assisted law enforcement with over 27,000 cases of missing children, the majority who were considered endangered runaways.
According to their most recent report complied from FBI data and their own, of the nearly 25,000 runaways reported to NCMEC in 2017, one in seven were likely victims of child sex trafficking. Of those, 88 percent were in the care of social services when they went missing.
Showing the scope of the abuse, in 2017 alone, NCMEC’s CyberTipline, a national mechanism for the public and electronic service providers to report instances of suspected child sexual exploitation, received over 10 million reports. According to NCMEC, most of these tips were related to the following:
  • Apparent child sexual abuse images.
  • Online enticement, including “sextortion.”
  • Child sex trafficking.
  • Child sexual molestation.
Other governmental organizations have corroborated this horrifying trend. In a 2013 FBI 70-city nationwide raid, 60 percent of the victims came from foster care or group homes. In 2014, New York authorities estimated that 85 percent of sex trafficking victims were previously in the child welfare system. In 2012, Connecticut police rescued 88 children from sex trafficking; 86 were from the child welfare system. 
Equally as disturbing as the fact that most sex trafficked kids come from within the system is the fact that the FBI discovered in a 2014 nationwide raid that many foster children rescued from sex traffickers, including children as young as 11, were never reported missing by child welfare authorities.
Last year, TFTP reported on an example of this lack of reporting out of Topeka, Kansas. In the shocking report, the Kansas Department for Children and Families (DCF), which oversees foster care in the state, were found to have lost 70 children after a high profile case of three missing sisters garnered the attention of authorities.
This has to stop.
It should be noted that there are certainly instances of abusive parents who should not have custody of their children. There are also many kind and loving foster parents willing to take them in. However, as the recent case in Minnesota highlights, many times, these children are torn from loving homes and forced into a system rife with abuse and trafficking.
One terrifying example of kids being unnecessarily taken from their parents by the state only to be severely harmed in government custody comes out of Arizona, the state kidnapped a 5-year-old girl from her mother who had an alleged substance abuse problem and put her directly into the hands of a leader of a child sex ring.
Even after the girl’s mother recovered from her addiction, the state refused to return her daughter. Even worse, the mother found out that her daughter was being repeatedlysexually abused and no action was taken to remove her daughter from the state’s system.
Sadly, children all over the US are taken from caring parents who have admitted to using marijuana or other drugs. While there’s no national count on how many parents lose custody of their kids each year due to marijuana, Keith Stroup, founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) told The Daily Chronic that his team gets calls “three or four times a week from people who have lost custody of their children because they tested positive at birth or in a situation where parents are feuding over custody.” This kidnapping even occurs in regions where marijuana is legal.
Even high-level government officials have been ensnared in these foster care abuse scandals. As TFTP previously reported, multiple victims came forward and accused Seattle Mayor Ed Murray of sexually abusing them when they were children in Washington’s foster care system.
The records in that case, dating back to 1984, explicitly noted that Ed Murray should “never again be utilized as a certified CSD resource for children.” It also showed that a criminal case was brought against Murray by prosecutors but in spite of the multiple accusations, charges were somehow never filed and his records buried.
As Snopes and the mainstream media in general attempts to smear those who try to call attention to alleged and very real child trafficking, the government’s own data shows how irresponsible this is. While there are certainly some outlandish theories being presented online, the facts are outlandish enough to warrant serious scrutiny. Until this epidemic is taken seriously, the government, the media, and all those who deny it will remain complicit in keeping it going.
As Michael Dolce, who specializes in these horrific child abuse cases, pointed outearlier this year, “we have set up a system to sex traffic American children.” Indeed we have.

A Better Cold-Case Database - NamUs 2.0


DNA group with missing posters

A UNT Health Science Center team has upgraded and enhanced a national database for cold cases involving missing people and unidentified remains to offer more powerful investigative tools for criminal justice agencies and families searching for their loved ones.
Called NamUs 2.0, the improved website:
  • allows users access to all cases types and tools from a single dashboard
  • increases the likelihood of resolving cases through an updated case matching algorithm
  • provides faster and more complex search capabilities
  • improves mapping capabilities through precise satellite imagery
  • enhances overall system performance and response speed.
NamUs, or the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, is a clearinghouse and resource center for missing person cases, unidentified bodies, unidentified living individuals and unclaimed bodies. Based at UNT Health Science Center since 2011, it is managed by the UNT Center for Human Identification through a cooperative agreement with the National Institute of Justice.
NamUs 2.0 replaces the existing NamUs databases, which were launched in 2007 and 2008.  Since then, NamUs has received more than 15,000 unidentified person cases and over 32,000 missing person cases. More than 3,000 of those unidentified person cases and more than 14,000 missing person cases have been resolved.
What makes NamUs unique is it allows access to the general public in addition to criminal justice personnel. Families and Internet sleuths have assisted in solving cases that had long gone cold.
“It’s a one-of-a-kind system,” said B.J. Spamer, Director of Forensic and Analytical Services for NamUs. “We have had tips from the public that have helped us close cases. And the improvements to the software and website will make our databases more effective and user-friendly.”
In addition to the databases, NamUs provides access to forensic services, training, and analytical and investigative support to criminal justice agencies tasked with locating missing persons and identifying remains. All NamUs resources are provided at no cost to law enforcement, medical examiners, coroners, allied forensic professionals, and family members of missing persons.
The release of NamUs 2.0 is the culmination of a software upgrade project guided by the National Institute of Justice; Lynley Dungan, Chief Information Officer at UNTHSC; and NamUs program leadership at UNTHSC.
“While the hard work has taken place over the last two years, we began planning for this project in 2013,” Dungan said. “It’s been a true example of teamwork among UNTHSC, NamUs and the National Institute of Justice.”



Wednesday, June 13, 2018

FBI MISSING - DEVONTE JORDAN HART, HANNAH JEAN HART

DEVONTE JORDAN HART

March 26, 2018
Mendocino County, California

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  • Devonte Jordan Hart
  • Devonte Jordan Hart
  • Family Photo
  • Family Car
  • Hannah Jean Hart

Date(s) of Birth UsedOctober 24, 2002
Place of BirthHouston, Texas
HairBlack
EyesBlack
SexMale
RaceBlack
NationalityAmerican

Details:

On March 26, 2018, at approximately 4:15 p.m., the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office and the California Highway Patrol responded to a fatal traffic accident off Highway 1, north of Westport, California.  The bodies of a Washington couple and four of their six children were found in and around a vehicle that had crashed over a cliff and landed along the surf line.  Two of the couple’s children are currently unaccounted for and their whereabouts remain unknown.  The missing children could currently be traveling together and may have last been seen with their family members traveling in a brown 2003 Yukon XL SUV with tinted windows, which is the same vehicle that crashed.

The names of the missing children are:
Devonte Jordan Hart, a 15-year-old African-American male
Hannah Jean Hart, a 16-year-old African American female

The FBI, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, and California Highway Patrol are asking for assistance from anyone who has any knowledge of the whereabouts of these children, including sightings prior to the traffic accident.  The family may have traveled to, or visited, the following locations or campgrounds prior to the accident:
Ten Mile Beach in Westport, California, near Fort Bragg, California
Russian Gulch south of Fort Bragg, California
MacKerricher State Park in Mendocino County, California
Surfwood Campground in Mendocino County, California
Pinewood Campground in Mendocino County, California
Cleone Campground in Mendocino County, California

Submit a Tip:

If you have any information concerning this case, please contact the FBI's Toll-Free Tipline at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324), your local FBI office, or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate.
Field Office: San Francisco


Tuesday, June 12, 2018

More Than 2,300 Suspected Online Child Sex Offenders Arrested During Operation “Broken Heart”

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs

The Department of Justice today announced the arrest of more than 2,300 suspected online child sex offenders during a three-month, nationwide, operation conducted by Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task forces. The task forces identified 195 offenders who either produced child pornography or committed child sexual abuse, and 383 children who suffered recent, ongoing, or historical sexual abuse or production of child pornography.
The 61 ICAC task forces, located in all 50 states and comprised of more than 4,500 federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies, led the coordinated operation known as “Broken Heart” during the months of March, April, and May 2018.  During the course of the operation, the task forces investigated more than 25,200 complaints of technology-facilitated crimes against children and delivered more than 3,700 presentations on Internet safety to over 390,000 youth and adults.   
"No child should ever have to endure sexual abuse," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said. "And yet, in recent years, certain forms of modern technology have facilitated the spread of child pornography and created greater incentives for its production. We at the Department of Justice are determined to strike back against these repugnant crimes. It is shocking and very sad that in this one operation, we have arrested more than 2,300 alleged child predators and investigated some 25,200 sexual abuse complaints. Any would-be criminal should be warned: this Department will remain relentless in hunting down those who victimize our children."
The operation targeted suspects who: (1) produce, distribute, receive and possess child pornography; (2) engage in online enticement of children for sexual purposes; (3) engage in the sex trafficking of children; and (4) travel across state lines or to foreign countries and sexually abuse children.
The ICAC Program is funded through the Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).  In 1998, OJJDP launched the ICAC Task Force Program to help federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies enhance their investigative responses to offenders who use the Internet, online communication systems or computer technology to exploit children. To date, ICAC Task Forces have reviewed more than 775,000 complaints of child exploitation, which resulted in the arrest of more than 83,000 individuals. In addition, since the ICAC program's inception, more than 629,400 law enforcement officers, prosecutors and other professionals have been trained on techniques to investigate and prosecute ICAC-related cases.
For more information, visit the ICAC Task Force(link is external) webpage at: https://www.icactaskforce.org/(link is external). For state-level Operation Broken Heart results, please contact the appropriate state ICAC task force commander. Contact information for task force commanders(link is external) are available online at: https://www.icactaskforce.org/Pages/ContactsTaskForce.aspx(link is external).