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Operation rescues 122 missing and exploited children across Florida
A nationwide child recovery mission led by the U.S. Marshals Service rescued 122 missing and endangered children across Florida, including 14 in Orlando, in what officials call the largest operation of its kind in U.S. history. FOX 35 cameras were granted exclusive access as investigators tracked leads, knocked on doors, and worked to find children who often didn’t want to be found.
ORLANDO, Fla. - For two weeks straight – morning, afternoon, and night – the U.S. Marshals (in partnership with FDLE, local law enforcement agencies, hospitals, and community organizations) worked to recover missing children across Florida.
It's one of the largest child-recovery operations in American history, bringing 122 Florida kids to safety.
The operation
The backstory:
The kids could be missing for a variety of reasons. Some were human trafficked. Some had turned to drugs or crime, and some had warrants out for their arrest. Some were fleeing their home life, either from a parent or a foster home. Some of that was due to abuse, some situations were a bit more trivial.
Many of those missing kids didn’t want to be found.
Every single case is different. But all matter equally to the marshals.
The Marshals
FOX 35’s Marie Edinger went around with Deputy Kailee Healey and Deputy Justin Bankert from the U.S. Marshals Service as they knocked on doors, went on patrol, searched around. They were trying to figure out who knows what and who’s seen who, who likes to go where.
That’s all on top of trying to keep aware of the dangers they could encounter along the way. Some of the kids they’re searching for have felony warrants for their arrest, or are known criminals or have known gang affiliations.
They also have to be sensitive to the trauma the children may have endured throughout their lives.
The Marshals say about half of the kids they locate will wind up running away again. Deputy Healey says one of the girls she helped recover during Operation Home for the Holidays was someone she’d also saved a few months prior.
"It sometimes takes recovering them a couple times for them to realize we’re there for them, and they’re not just a stat, and we actually do care about them," said Deputy Healey. "All it takes is that one time."
Central Command
The work starts at Central Command, which the FDLE hosted.
That’s where the FDLE and local law enforcement agencies work together to gather tips and information, run checks on leads, and send teams out to actually find the kids.
The deputies out in the field have to piece together a puzzle, but they have to find those puzzle pieces first.
The recoveries
One day, the Marshals got a call about a 17-year-old who’d run away from his grandparents’ house a couple of weeks before. He’d been suspended from school. Deputies know he’d at least dabbled in drug use.
Some family members had been in contact with him, but they didn’t know where he was. Eventually, deputies were able to contact a sister who had a working number for the boy.
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"You’re not in trouble, but you are on our list of critically missing kids, so we just have to make sure you’re safe," Deputy Healey told the boy over the phone.
The teen knew the deputies were going to find him one way or another – so he agreed to meet up with them and then go to The Hub.
The Hub
The work isn’t done when you find the missing kid. They need care after, too.
Marie Martinez is the Director of the Howard Phillips Center for Children and Families, who set up the Hub for that very purpose.
"If the a child is a runway, usually there's reasons that they're running," she explained. What's going on at home? Is there significant violence? Is there child abuse?"
The Hub gives kids access to a shower or a bed, healthcare, mental and behavioral health counseling career services, contact with DCF, you name it.
The master’s level licensed clinical physicians on staff are trauma-informed and trained on how to get the kids to talk about what they’ve been going through.
They can also help them understand when situations aren’t normal or when someone doesn’t have the kid’s best interest at heart.
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"To be honest, a lot of kids come in and say, ‘I'm fine. I'm not being taken advantage of. Why am I here?’" said Martinez. "In the case of trafficking, many times, what we view as a victim thinks that that's their boyfriend. And so they think that, why is someone trying to rescue them?"
The idea is, intervening now could make a difference for the rest of these kids’ lives. Without it, Martinez explained:
"It's less likely those kids will ever get high education attainment. It's less likely they will have a high income. Those are career-related things, right? But they're more likely to attempt suicide, to be depressed. They're more like to misuse substances."
The final tally
In the end, Operation Home for the Holidays recovered 122 children. That included 14 from Orlando, 57 from Tampa, 22 from Jacksonville, and 29 from Fort Myers.
Any of the cases the marshals took on, they will finish even though the operation has ended.
So far, the operation has resulted in six felony arrests. Investigators expect to file more charges soon.
The Source: This story was written based on information shared by the U.S. Marshals Service.