Trinity Mount Ministries

Showing posts with label National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Show all posts

Friday, November 30, 2018

Tampa man arrested, charged with 85 counts of possession of child pornography

A Tampa man was arrested and charged with 85 counts of possession of child pornography on Thursday.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office Internet Predator Unit served a warrant for Edwin Mendez-Figueroa, 52, at his home on Otto Villa Place after receiving a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
An on-scene forensics examination of a computer belonging to Mendez-Figueroa located 85 images and videos of children depicted in various sexual acts.
Mendez-Figueroa was taken to the Orient Road Jail without incident.
Additional digital devices were located and will be examined.
Additional charges could be forthcoming.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

National campaign to find missing children launches in Indianapolis:



INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A national campaign helping to find missing children is launching in Indianapolis.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children started the campaign called “Be Here for Kids.”
The goal is to raise awareness about missing children in the community. The non-profit organization is partnering up with Clear Channel to get the message across on digital billboards.
Digital billboards similar to the ones seen at a bus stop in Washington D.C. have already launched in Indiana. Each frame will flash a photo of a missing child in that local community.
“We never give up hope on our children no matter how long they’ve been gone, no matter what the circumstances, we keep hope alive,” said Robert Lowery, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said the billboards in Indianapolis will highlight the recent cases of two missing teens: Mary Boyer, 17, and Gabriella Howard, 16.
“We want the public to be the eyes and ears of law enforcement,” said Lowery. “Pay close attention to the images of our children and report anything they might know or see.”
Howard was reported missing by her mother in April and has not been seen since.
According to a police report, Howard’s mother said her daughter was last seen at home near North Tremont and West 12th Street.
The 16-year-old left for school, but never made it to class. Her mother believes she may have met someone online.
Despite the circumstances, NCMEC is hoping for a safe outcome in all of the cases.
“We believe strongly there are other cases like what we’ve seen in Cleveland, where the three ladies escaped captivity, there’s another Jaycee Dugard out there,” said Lowery. “We are very confident and another Elizabeth Smart. We’re going to continue to look for those children and hopefully find them and reunite them with their families.”
The billboards can be seen along interstates near Martinsville, Moorseville, Greenwood and Plainfield.
If you think you may have seen Boyer or Howard before you’re asked to call police. 

Thursday, June 4, 2015

What is Child Sex Trafficking? National Center for Missing & Exploited Children:

1 in 6 runaways in 2014 were likely sex trafficking victims. 

That is up from 1 in 7 in 2013.

68% of these likely sex trafficking victims were in the care of social services or foster care when they ran.



What is Child Sex Trafficking? 

Child sex tra cking is one of the most common types of commercial sexual exploitation. Child sex tra cking is a high priority at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), because these children are often currently missing and actively being exploited. Child sex tra cking victims include girls, boys, and LGBTQ youth. Victims could be anyone – your son, daughter, neighbor, niece or nephew.

Knowledge and awareness are key in keeping your loved ones safer. 

Help keep America’s tra cking epidemic from spreading further... 
Talk to your children about the dangers. 

Child Sex Trafficking in America - A Guide for Parents and Guardians is available at http://www.missingkids.com/CSTT 

Be Aware. Be Safe. Be on the lookout. If you see something, report it.

If you suspect a case of child sex tra cking, contact the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® at 1-800-843-5678 or visit www.cybertipline.com




The CyberTipline 1-800-843-5678


The CyberTipline® receives leads and tips regarding suspected crimes of sexual exploitation committed against children....
Posted by Brett Fletcher on Thursday, June 4, 2015

The CyberTipline® receives leads and tips regarding suspected crimes of sexual exploitation committed against children. More than 4.3 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation have been made to the CyberTipline between 1998 and April 2015.
If you have information regarding possible child sexual exploitation, report it to the CyberTipline. 1-800-843-5678
The CyberTipline is operated in partnership with the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Secret Service, military criminal investigative organizations, U.S. Department of Justice, Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force program, as well as other state and local law enforcement agencies. Reports to the CyberTipline are made by the public and Electronic Service Providers. ESPs are required by law to report apparent child pornography to law enforcement via the CyberTipline (18 U.S.C. § 2258A).
Reports are continuously triaged to help ensure children in imminent danger get first priority. Analysts review reports and:
* Examine and evaluate the content.
* Add related information that may be useful to law enforcement.
* Use publicly available search tools to determine the geographic location of the apparent criminal act.
* Provide all information to the appropriate law enforcement agency for potential investigation.
The CyberTipline reporting mechanism assists law enforcement and prosecutors in their detection, investigation and prosecution of child sexual exploitation crimes. The CyberTipline helps make law enforcement’s efforts more efficient and maximizes the limited resources available in the fight against child sexual exploitation. The value of the CyberTipline as a source of leads for law enforcement has been greatly enhanced by collaboration with ESPs.
In addition to referring CyberTipline reports to law enforcement for potential investigation, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® engages with the Internet industry on voluntary initiatives to reduce child sexual exploitation online.

 Trinity Mount Ministries Website

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Kyron Horman disappearance rare among missing children cases:

Kyron Horman, now gone almost five years, is one of 41 names listed on Oregon's missing children website.
The youngest is a 1-year-old girl who disappeared in Portland on Oct. 3, 2000, and is thought to be in Mexico.

The longest is a 17-year-old boy last seen in Seaside during Weston High School skip week on May 11, 1968.

Nationally, the FBI National Crime Information Center logged a total of 466,949 children under age 18 reported missing in 2014.

Most kids are found within hours or days and returned home quickly, says Robert Lowery, vice president of the Missing Children Division of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Cases like Kyron's that go on for years without a trace of the child are becoming more rare, Lowery said. The 7-year-old disappeared from Skyline School in rural Northwest Portland on June 4, 2010.


Read: Timeline of events
Lowery credits better technology for the trend. Police have many more ways to rapidly distribute a photo of a missing child compared to the center's early days in the mid-'80s when their photos were first plastered on the sides of milk cartons.

Amber Alerts now go straight to cellphones. Faces flash on highway billboards. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter carry those faces to mobile phones. Plus, many children have their own cellphones, which can be tracked if they disappear. And video surveillance cameras capture the movements of all who come within their lens whether near a business, home or, in some cases, a school.
The missing
Most of the children reported missing are runaways, with the next largest number abducted by a non-custodial parent or people who knew the child, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Stranger abductions are rare.
Since 2005, the center has analyzed more than 9,000 child abduction attempts and found that:
-- 73 percent involved a suspect driving a vehicle
-- 34 percent occurred between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
-- 32 percent occurred when the child was traveling to or away from school or a school related activity
-- 68 percent involved girls
-- 39 percent involved children between the ages of 10 and 14
There also seem to be fewer cases of stranger abductions, Lowery said. Offenders in recent years have changed their methods, instead luring kids through the Internet, according to the national center.

The recovery rate of missing children was 62 to 64 percent when the center was first established in 1984. Today, it's 97 to 98 percent, Lowery said.

He called Kyron's disappearance "a very unusual one'' because the second-grader disappeared from an elementary school when a lot of people were around for a science fair.

That no witness has come forward, at least publicly, who saw Kyron leaving the school grounds is "particularly perplexing,'' he said.

"The fact remains we don't know what happened to Kyron,'' Lowery said.

But it's imperative, he said, to keep the Portland boy's name in front of the public and continue to search for him or his remains.
"We won't close a missing child's case until that child is physically found,'' he said. "Even though the circumstances seem very dire, children like Elizabeth Smart or Shawn Hornbeck – those children have taught us we can't give up hope.''

Smart was 14 when she was abducted from her bedroom in Salt Lake City on June 5, 2002. Nine months later, she was found alive about 18 miles from her home.

Shawn Hornbeck was 11 on Oct. 6, 2002, when he was kidnapped while riding his bicycle near his home in Richwoods, Missouri. He was missing for over four years before being discovered on Jan. 12, 2007, in the apartment of a man named Michael J. Devlin. A missing 13-year-old boy also was found in the apartment.
"Someone out there knows what happened to Kyron. That person needs to come forward,'' said Lowery, who was in law enforcement for more than 27 years and in 2011 co-authored a Law Enforcement Guide to Case Investigation for Missing and Exploited Children. He's served as an assistant police chief in a St. Louis suburb and worked the majority of his career as a homicide detective and a commander of the Greater St. Louis Major Case Squad, a homicide task force.

Multnomah County District Attorney Rod Underhill and Sheriff Dan Staton have declined to answer questions about the status of their investigation into Kyron's Horman's disappearance.

But a joint news release they issued last week said the investigation remains active with a sheriff's detective "primarily assigned'' to it. A retired FBI agent who has years of experience working on a Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team also continues his involvement in the case, reviewing evidence that has been collected. More than 4,000 tips have poured into the Sheriff's Office since the beginning.

Also last week, the Sheriff's Office reached out to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to help create a new image of what Kyron would likely look like now at age 12, Lowery said.
"As they grow, we use the pictures of siblings and their parents, and our artists use a combination of art and science to develop a composite sketch,'' Lowery said. "We need the public to continue looking for Kyron. He could be out there.''

Searching for the boy should remain a priority, he said. "An arrest is secondary,'' he said. "We want to find Kyron Horman.''

Any law enforcement-led searches in recent years for Kyron likely have been more intelligence-based, meaning they're in response to information gathered from specific leads or tips that need to be checked, Lowery said.

Marc Klaas, president of the KlaasKids Foundation that works to support families of missing children, said the pain of not knowing what's happened to your child is wrenching.

Klaas' 12-year-old daughter, Polly, was kidnapped from her bedroom at knifepoint during a slumber party at her Petaluma, California, home in October 1993. Richard Allen Davis, a wanted man, had sneaked into the Klaas home, tied up the girls and kidnapped Polly. On Nov. 30, 1993, police arrested Davis for a parole violation. His palm print had been found in the girl's bedroom. He confessed to the killing and burying the body in a shallow grave. He was convicted and sentenced to death.

Before his daughter was found, Klaas said police told him that he'd eventually have to get used to the idea that his daughter was dead. Klaas, unwilling to accept that, challenged them to "show me proof'' before he'd believe it.

"Kyron's family right now is in a never-never land,'' Klaas said, "not 100 percent sure he's alive or dead and hoping beyond hope that he's alive.

"I know the deep psychic emotional emptiness that these parents go through because I went through it myself. It cuts to your core,'' he said.

The case probably isn't getting full-time attention from investigators, he said. "I would guess that it's colder rather than hotter. You've got to be realistic. Law enforcement has limited resources.''

That's why, Klaas said, the family's role is so crucial – to be an advocate, put pressure on police and keep their child's name in the public. His foundation has sent trained professionals to help searches organized by Kyron's mother, Desiree Young.

"Kyron's parents are just left in limbo, suspecting everything but knowing nothing,'' he said. "It's agonizing, but you have to go on. You don't have any choice, and that's what your child would want.''

-- Maxine Bernstein
mbernstein@oregonian.com