American Liberty Forum of Ramona hosts the county's top law enforcer - Ramona Sentinel
(Julie Gallant) When schools closed in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of crimes against children rose, according to San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan.
Internet crimes against children tripled, increasing by several hundred cases, Stephan told an audience of 150 at the American Liberty Forum of Ramona event on Oct. 30. Those crimes included sending child pornography, enticing a child online and asking children to meet to engage in sexual activities, according to the DA’s office.
In addition to the children being exploited through Internet crimes, runaways are being coerced into sex trafficking, Stephan said.
Children were vulnerable in the early days of the pandemic because they were not at school or engaged in sports and were on their computers and tablets all day, Stephan said. Internet criminals are masterful at technology, and that combined with parents who had to go to work made it more difficult to monitor the children’s online activity, she said.
The District Attorney’s office responded by setting up covert operations, and networks of law enforcement intercepted predators, she said.
“I wrote a seven-page letter documenting the data and asked state leaders and school superintendents to look at the epidemic,” she said. “We led a push to let kids participate in healthy activities like sports and to have more eyes and ears in schools.”
State law mandates that schools educate students about human trafficking, Stephan said, but not every school has followed the mandate. The District Attorney’s Office is committed to pushing it forward in every school in the county, she said.
Students need to know that adults will pose as a 16-year-old online and promise the victims “the moon and the stars” — such as a modeling job — if they agree to go with the person. Ultimately, they may use them for prostitution, she said.
One tactic to get their victims’ cooperation is to take compromising photos of them and then threaten to release the photos to peers, she said. The victims fear humiliation and suffer psychological abuse as a consequence, Stephan said.
The average age of entry into sex trafficking for victims in the county is 16.1 years, she said.
“Strangers come through the Internet and call themselves friends,” she said. “Not every school has taken on this project and followed the mandate. We need to push this to be in every school in San Diego County.”
(Julie Gallant) Crime has also risen recently as a result of prisoners gaining access to Employment Development Department unemployment checks, Stephan said.
Over the past year and a half the state has lost $20 billion as a result of these wayward EDD checks, with multiple millions of dollars coming out of just San Diego County.
Stephan said people supervising the prisoners noticed they were getting items from Amazon and having fancy meals delivered. The DA’s office put a stop to the fraud, Stephan said.
“It was not just about money being lost to the state but we were noticing gangs were able to buy drugs and guns and we saw a surge in gang-related crime,” said Stephan, who has 31 years of experience in public safety. “There was a proliferation of guns and drugs among gangs and we saw crime go up.”
Along with the EDD crime, the numbers of robberies, murders, and domestic violence cases were increasing along with gang crimes and children being exploited, she said.
She said her office is trying to find solutions to help the victims. For example, a new system is being put in place to extract victims of domestic violence and human trafficking and to quickly place them in shelters.
Another new development is the introduction of a community-based crisis stabilization center that opened a few weeks ago in Vista. The center, which gives much-needed support to people who might typically end up at a local emergency room or in jail, provides around-the-clock, urgent care for those with a mental health issue or drug-related crisis, she said. The center offers to connect people to services and families get the assistance they need, Stephan said.
It also provides law enforcement officers with another tool to legally place people in crisis and have them stay for less than 24 hours, she said.
“In two weeks, the police utilized this 80 times,” she said.
The District Attorney’s Office also lends assistance to victims when criminals are released from jail, Stephan told the crowd at Ramona Mainstage. The office will call victims to let them know when a prisoner is getting out and asks what they need to feel protected.
Stephan said she opposes the state’s move to release 70,000 prisoners in California. She said she joined eight other prosecutors and sued the state for the release of these prisoners.
“I don’t know if we’ll win in court, but the more we stall the safer we are,” she said. “We’re getting a sizable portion of the 70,000. The problem we’re seeing is they’re being released without a plan. That results in a new element of people on the streets.”
Stephan credits the success of her office to her staff, which includes 315 prosecutors and 120 police officers, describing them as “the best of the best.”
She said together they have won major cartel, drug dealing and organized crime cases, and witnesses are willing to come to court to testify because of the protections they offer.
“Why do they come to court? Because these guys make sure they’re protected,” she said. “We are fighting the good fight to make sure San Diego is one of the safest urban areas.”
source: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/ramona-sentinel/news/story/2021-11-03/american-liberty-forum-of-ramona-hosts-the-countys-top-law-enforcer
Your content is great. However, if any of the content contained herein violates any rights of yours, including those of copyright, please contact us immediately by e-mail at media[@]kissrpr.com.