Trinity Mount Ministries

Showing posts with label Trinity Mount Ministries Website. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trinity Mount Ministries Website. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Trinity Mount Ministries - Help Find Missing Children:


                           The U.S. Department of Justice reports
  • Nearly 800,000 children younger than 18 are missing each year, or an average of 2,185 children reported missing each day.
  • More than 200,000 children were were abducted by family members.
  • More than 58,000 children were abducted by nonfamily members.
  • 115 children were the victims of “stereotypical” kidnapping. These crimes involve someone the child does not know or a slight acquaintance who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently.
[Andrea J. Sedlak, David Finkelhor, Heather Hammer, and Dana J. Schultz. U.S. Department of Justice. "National Estimates of Missing Children: An Overview" in National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, October 2002, page 5.]


The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention funds ongoing research about missing children through the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART). These researchers published their latest data in 2002, NISMART-2. The researchers will be collecting new data over the next year to use in an update to this study, NISMART-3. To discuss the previous research, please contact Andrea Sedlak at 301-251-4211, SEDLAKA1@WESTAT.com

For more information, see: 



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Friday, November 2, 2012

FBI - Crime in the United States, 2011:


Crime in the United States, 2011

11/02/2012
Mollie Halpern: The FBI’s 2011 Crime in the United States Report shows that violent crimes, such as murder and rape, dropped for the fifth year in a row. They decreased 3.8 percent when compared with 2010.
David Cuthbertson: Property crimes declined for the ninth consecutive year. They were reduced approximately .5 percent compared with 2010.
Halpern: I’m Mollie Halpern, and this is FBI, This Week. Crime in the U.S. is a statistical compilation of reported crimes voluntarily provided to the FBI by more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide. It shows what crimes were reported in specific areas. David Cuthbertson, the assistant director of the Criminal Justice Information Services, cautions against using the data to rank the safety of cities.
Cuthbertson: Many socio-economic factors go into whether a community is considered safe or not.
Halpern: The data can impact FBI resources…
Cuthbertson: Our special agents in charge in the field will use Crime in the United States to help them decide where to deploy our resources in conjunction with the already existing FBI priorities.
Halpern: For more, visit www.fbi.gov.
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Thursday, November 1, 2012

Justice Department Officials Raise Awareness of Disaster Fraud Hotline:

U.S. Department of Justice

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Justice Department Officials Raise Awareness of Disaster Fraud Hotline:
WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice, the FBI and the National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) remind the public there is a potential for disaster fraud in the aftermath of a natural disaster.  Suspected fraudulent activity pertaining to relief efforts associated with Hurricane Sandy should be reported to the toll-free NCDF hotline at 866-720-5721.  The hotline is staffed by a live operator 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the purpose of reporting suspected scams being perpetrated by criminals in the aftermath of disasters.
NCDF was originally established in 2005 by the Department of Justice to investigate, prosecute and deter fraud associated with federal disaster relief programs following Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma.  Its mission has expanded to include suspected fraud related to any natural or man-made disaster.  More than 20 federal agencies – including the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General and the FBI – participate in the NCDF, allowing the center to act as a centralized clearinghouse of information related to disaster relief fraud.

In the wake of natural disasters, many individuals feel moved to contribute to victim assistance programs and organizations across the country.  The Department of Justice and the FBI remind the public to apply a critical eye and do due diligence before giving to anyone soliciting donations on behalf of hurricane victims.  Solicitations can originate as emails, websites, door-to-door collections, mailings, telephone calls and similar methods.
Before making a donation of any kind, consumers should adhere to certain guidelines, including the following:
  • Do not respond to any unsolicited (spam) incoming emails, including by clicking links contained within those messages, because they may contain computer viruses.
  • Be cautious of individuals representing themselves as victims or officials asking for donations via email or social networking sites.
  • Beware of organizations with copycat names similar to but not exactly the same as those of reputable charities.
  • Rather than following a purported link to a website, verify the existence and legitimacy of non-profit organizations by using Internet-based resources.
  • Be cautious of emails that claim to show pictures of the disaster areas in attached files, because those files may contain viruses. Only open attachments from known senders.
  • To ensure that contributions are received and used for intended purposes, make donations directly to known organizations rather than relying on others to make the donation on your behalf.
  • Do not be pressured into making contributions; reputable charities do not use coercive tactics.
  • Do not give your personal or financial information to anyone who solicits contributions. Providing such information may compromise your identity and make you vulnerable to identity theft.
  • Avoid cash donations if possible.  Pay by debit or credit card, or write a check directly to the charity. Do not make checks payable to individuals.
  • Legitimate charities do not normally solicit donations via money transfer services.
  • Most legitimate charities maintain websites ending in .org rather than .com.
In addition to raising public awareness, the NCDF is the intake center for all disaster relief fraud.  Therefore, if you observe that someone has submitted a fraudulent claim for disaster relief, or observe any other suspected fraudulent activities pertaining to the receipt of government funds as part of disaster relief or clean up, please contact the NCDF.

If you believe that you have been a victim of fraud by a person or organization soliciting relief funds on behalf of hurricane victims, or if you discover fraudulent disaster relief claims submitted by a person or organization, contact the NCDF by phone at (866) 720-5721, fax at (225) 334-4707 or email at disaster@leo.gov.

You can also report suspicious e-mail solicitations or fraudulent websites to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.
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Police search for missing Hanford teen, baby:

Hanford Sentinel
Police search for missing Hanford teen, baby:
RUNAWAY MOTHER MAY HAVE JOINED UP WITH MURDER SUSPECT
3 hours ago  •  


HANFORD — The Internet lit up on Tuesday night with the story of a local 16-year-old girl who disappeared with her infant daughter. 
Diana Laura Zamora Cardenas was last seen at home with her month-old child, Davina Alcala, on Sunday. Cardenas’ mother reported them missing later that day. 
Police believe Cardenas may have fled to Mexico to be with her boyfriend, Nicholas Alcala, who is wanted for murder in Fresno County.
Authorities believe Alcala shot and killed 34-year-old Pedro Aispuro during a gang altercation in Huron five months ago. Alcala, a known gang member who goes by the name “Nico,” is considered armed and dangerous.
Police Lt. George Hernandez said Cardenas may still be in the area, staying with friends of the suspect before traveling south. Investigators are looking for her near Avenal and Kettleman City, but have received little help from those who know the teen runaway. 
Foul play is not suspected in her disappearance as police believe she left home voluntarily. 
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children issued a flyer about Cardenas and her daughter’s disappearance. They describe Cardenas as a Hispanic woman standing about 5 feet 1 inch tall with black hair, brown eyes and a distinct birthmark on the inside of her left arm. 
Anyone with information about Cardenas’ whereabouts is urged to contact the Hanford Police Department at 585-2540 or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678. 
The reporter can be reached at 583-2425 or jjohnson@HanfordSentinel.com

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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Google + Amber Alert for Missing Children:




Google now includes Amber alerts for missing children

The company's search and maps products will include the alerts for nearby users who may be able to help.

Google said today it would include Amber alerts in search and maps as part of an effort to heighten awareness of missing children and assist in their safe return.
Amber alerts, which are coordinated by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, will provide data about new cases through Google's Public Alerts platform.
The alerts will pop up in Google Search and Maps in both desktop and mobile whenever a user searches for related information in a particular location where a child has recently been reported missing. The alerts will also appear if users search for a related subject, such as the name of the missing child or child abductions in general.
"By increasing the availability of these alerts through our services, we hope that more people will assist in the search for children featured in AMBER Alerts and that the rates of safe recovery will rise," Google's Phil Coakley said in a blog post.
The alerts will include information about the child and details about the case, such as the type of vehicle the child was last seen in or information about the person believed to have abducted the child.
Google eventually plans to bring the alerts service to Canada and Europe.



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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

FBI - Law Enforcement Bulletin - October 2012




The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin is published monthly by 
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 935 Pennsylvania Avenue,
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20535-0001. 
Contributors’ opinions and statements should not be considered 
an endorsement by the FBI of any policy, program, or service.

October 2012September 2012August 2012
 FBI Law Enforcement July 2012 cover small
 FBI Law Enforcement July 2012 cover small
 FBI Law Enforcement July 2012 cover small
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Monday, October 29, 2012

Pierre Barnes, 12, Missing On French Island:

Sky News

Pierre Barnes, 12, Missing On French Island

Fears are growing for the safety of a British schoolboy who disappeared on a holiday island off the south of France during a severe storm.
Twelve-year-old Pierre Barnes vanished on Saturday after going for a bike ride on the island of Porquerolles, near Toulon on the Mediterranean coast.
Rescuers found one of his shoes on a coastal path on Sunday, alongside his bike with its chain off, it was reported.
His father Stephen, 57, from Grantham, Lincolnshire, told French television of his hopes that his son had survived the storm, the Daily Telegraph said.
Mr Barnes said: "I am certain he went off on an adventure on his bicycle but, in the forest, all the little tracks look the same.
"He is lost but he is a strong boy and I hope he found a place to sleep where there was not too much wind.
"It's difficult to say what you can do when you are cold and frightened."

Pierre disappeared just hours after he and his family arrived on the island for a week-long half-term holiday.
More than 150 local volunteers are believed to have helped search for him on Sunday.
A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: "We can confirm that a British national has been reported missing in France.
"We are in touch with the French authorities and we are providing consular assistance."


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Geeks Get Clever to Help Find Missing Children with Custom 404 Pages:

Welcome to blogs.houstonpress.com

Geeks Get Clever to Help Find Missing Children with Custom 404 Pages

 


Over the years, enterprising programmers have taken advantage of 404 pages by automatically redirecting visitors to useful and sometimes wildly creative pages. Not surprisingly, a lot of people visit incorrect pages on websites leaving that error page ripe for creativity. Now, a group has decided to put these error pages to use locating missing children.

NotFound.org, a initiative of missing and abused children non-profit organizations, has tasked website owners with using 404 pages as a place for information about missing children. The virtual milk cartons show a photo of the child and information about him or her along with the headline, "Page not found. Neither is..." and the name of the child.
It's a pretty inventive way to distribute information about missing kids and something a lot of people will see. Several companies have already agreed to begin providing the custom error pages for their websites.
Frankly, this is the kind of thing sites like Facebook, Twitter and the like should adopt. It provides and invaluable service and the amount of traffic they get daily potentially leads to thousands of visitors every day seeing missing children they might never have known existed. It's a good use of otherwise unused space on a website.



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Facebook used to kidnap, traffic Indonesian girls:



Facebook used to kidnap, traffic Indonesian girls

In this Friday, Oct. 19, 2012 photo, Indonesian youths browse at an internet cafe in Jakarta, Indonesia. There are growing numbers of incidents involving internet social media networks being used as a mean for children trafficking in Indonesia, at least eight reported this month alone of young girls being abducted and enslaved by men who approached them randomly on Facebook, raising concerns that the overall number of trafficked children remains grossly underestimated in the sprawling archipelago of 240 million. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)

The Associated Press

In this Friday, Oct. 19, 2012 photo, Indonesian youths browse at an internet cafe in Jakarta, Indonesia. There are growing numbers of incidents involving internet social media networks being used as a mean for children trafficking in Indonesia, at least eight reported this month alone of young girls being abducted and enslaved by men who approached them randomly on Facebook, raising concerns that the overall number of trafficked children remains grossly underestimated in the sprawling archipelago of 240 million. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)


DEPOK, Indonesia (AP) When a 14-year-old girl received a Facebook friend request from an older man she didn't know, she accepted it out of curiosity. It's a click she will forever regret, leading to a brutal story that has repeated itself as sexual predators find new ways to exploit Indonesia's growing obsession with social media.
The junior high student was quickly smitten by the man's smooth online flattery. They exchanged phone numbers, and his attention increased with rapid-fire texts. He convinced her to meet in a mall, and she found him just as charming in person.
They agreed to meet again. After telling her mom she was going to visit a sick girlfriend on her way to church choir practice, she climbed into the man's minivan near her home in Depok, on the outskirts of Jakarta.
The man, a 24-year-old who called himself Yogi, drove her an hour to the town of Bogor, West Java, she told The Associated Press in an interview.
There, he locked her in a small room inside a house with at least five other girls aged 14 to 17. She was drugged and raped repeatedly losing her virginity in the first violent session.
After one week of torture, her captor told her she was being sold and shipped to the faraway island of Batam, known for its seedy brothels and child sex tourism that caters to men coming by boat from nearby Singapore.
She sobbed hysterically and begged to go home. She was beaten and told to shut up or die.
____
So far this year, 27 of the 129 children reported missing to Indonesia's National Commission for Child Protection are believed to have been abducted after meeting their captors on Facebook, said the group's chairman, Arist Merdeka Sirait. One of those befriended on the social media site has been found dead.
In the month since the Depok girl was found near a bus terminal Sept. 30, there have been at least seven reports of young girls in Indonesia being abducted by people they met on Facebook. Although no solid data exists, police and aid groups that work on trafficking issues say it seems to be a particularly big problem in the Southeast Asian archipelago.
"Maybe Indonesia is kind of a unique country so far. Once the reports start coming in, you will know that maybe it's not one of the countries, maybe it's one of a hundred countries," said Anjan Bose, a program officer who works on child online protection issues at ECPAT International, a nonprofit global network that helps children in 70 countries. "The Internet is such a global medium. It doesn't differentiate between poor and rich. It doesn't differentiate between the economy of the country or the culture."
Websites that track social media say Indonesia has nearly 50 million people signed up for Facebook, making it one of the world's top users after the U.S. The capital, Jakarta, was recently named the most active Twitter city by Paris-based social media monitoring company Semiocast. In addition, networking groups such as BlackBerry and Yahoo Messenger are wildly popular on mobile phones.
Many young Indonesians, and their parents, are unaware of the dangers of allowing strangers to see their personal information online. Teenagers frequently post photos and personal details such as their home address, phone number, school and hangouts without using any privacy settings allowing anyone trolling the net to find them and learn everything about them.
"We are racing against time, and the technology frenzy over Facebook is a trend among teenagers here," Sirait said. "Police should move faster, or many more girls will become victims."
The 27 Facebook-related abductions reported to the commission this year in Indonesia have already exceed 18 similar cases it received in all of 2011. Overall, the National Task Force Against Human Trafficking said 435 children were trafficked last year, mostly for sexual exploitation.
Many who fight child sex crimes in Indonesia believe the real numbers are much higher. Missing children are often not reported to authorities. Stigma and shame surround sexual abuse in the world's largest Muslim-majority country, and there's a widespread belief that police will do nothing to help.
An ECPAT International report estimates that each year, 40,000 to 70,000 children are involved in trafficking, pornography or prostitution in Indonesia, a nation of 240 million where many families remain impoverished.
The U.S. State Department has also warned that more Indonesian girls are being recruited using social media networks. In a report last year, it said traffickers have "resorted to outright kidnapping of girls and young women for sex trafficking within the country and abroad."
Online child sexual abuse and exploitation are common in much of Asia. In the Philippines, kids are being forced to strip or perform sex acts on live webcams often by their parents, who are using them as a source of income. Western men typically pay to use the sites.
"In the Philippines, this is the tip of the iceberg. It's not only Facebook and social media, but it's also through text messages ... especially young, vulnerable people are being targeted," said Leonarda Kling, regional representative for Terre des Hommes Netherlands, a nonprofit working on trafficking issues. "It's all about promises. Better jobs or maybe even a nice telephone or whatever. Young people now, you see all the glamour and glitter around you and they want to have the latest BlackBerry, the latest fashion, and it's also a way to get these things."
Facebook says its investigators regularly review content on the site and work with authorities, including Interpol, to combat illegal activity. It also has employees around the world tasked with cracking down on people who attempt to use the site for human trafficking .
"We take human trafficking very seriously and, while this behavior is not common on Facebook, a number of measures are in place to counter this activity," spokesman Andrew Noyes said in an email.
He declined to give any details on Facebook's involvement in trafficking cases reported in Indonesia or elsewhere .
____
The Depok girl, wearing a mask to hide her face as she was interviewed, said she is still shocked that the man she knew for nearly a month turned on her.
"He wanted to buy new clothes for me, and help with school payments. He was different ... that's all," she said. "I have a lot of contacts through Facebook, and I've also exchanged phone numbers. But everything has always gone fine. We were just friends."
She said that after being kidnapped, she was given sleeping pills and was "mostly unconscious" for her ordeal. She said she could not escape because a man and another girl stood guard over her.
The girl said the man did not have the money for a plane ticket to Batam, and also became aware that her parents and others were relentlessly searching for her. He ended up dumping her at a bus station, where she found help.
"I am angry and cannot accept what he did to me. ... I was raped and beaten!" said the lanky girl with shoulder-length black hair. The AP generally does not publish the names of sexual abuse victims.
The girl's case made headlines this month when she was expelled after she tried to return to school. School officials claimed she had tarnished the school's image. She has since been reinstated, but she no longer wishes to attend due to the stigma she faces.
Education Minister Mohammad Nuh also came under fire after making remarks that not all girls who report such crimes are victims: "They do it for fun, and then the girl alleges that it's rape," he said. His response to the criticism that it's difficult to prove whether sexual assault allegations are "real rapes," drew more condemnation.
The publicity surrounding the story encouraged the parents of five other missing girls to come forward this month, saying their daughters also were victimized by people they met on Facebook. Two more girls were freed from the captors in October and are now seeking counseling.
A man who posed as a photographer on Facebook was recently arrested and accused of kidnapping and raping three teenage girls. Authorities say he lured them into meeting him with him by promising to make them models, and then locked them in a house. Police found dozens of photos of naked girls on his camera and laptop.
Another case involved a 15-year-old girl from Bogor. She was recently rescued by police after being kidnapped by her Facebook "friend" and held at a restaurant, waiting for someone to move her to another town where she would be forced into prostitution.
In some incidents, the victims themselves ended up recruiting other young girls after being promised money or luxuries such as mobile phones or new clothes.
Police are trying to get a step ahead of the criminals. Detective Lt. Ruth Yeni Qomariah from the Children and Women's Protection unit in Surabaya said she posed as a teenager online and busted three men who used Facebook to kidnap and rape underage girls. She's searching for a fourth suspect.
"It has been getting worse as trafficking rings become more sophisticated and underage children are more easily targeted," she said.
The man who abducted the Depok girl has not been found, and it's unclear what happened to the five other girls held at the house where she was raped.
"I saw they were offered by my kidnapper to many guys," she said. "I don't know what happened. I don't want to remember it."
____
Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini contributed to this report from Jakarta, Indonesia.
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Sunday, October 28, 2012

Former suspect in Etan Patz case to be freed:

DAILY NEWS

Jose A. Ramos was investigated for the 1979 disappearance of 6 year old Etan Patz, when the admitted child molester was dating Etan’s babysitter.

Jose A. Ramos was investigated for the 1979 disappearance of 6 year old Etan Patz, when the admitted child molester was dating Etan’s babysitter.

A man who was the prime suspect in the 1979 disappearance of Etan Patz is about to go free after more than two decades in prison for molesting other children.
Jose Ramos was declared responsible for Etan’s death in a civil court, but the Manhattan district attorney’s office said there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him criminally.
After serving 25 years for child molestation convictions in Pennsylvania, he’s set to be freed Nov. 7 — about a week before prosecutors are due to indicate whether there’s evidence enough to keep going after new suspect Pedro Hernandez.
Hernandez was charged with Etan’s murder after police said he emerged as a suspect and confessed this spring. But there’s no public indication that authorities have found anything beyond his admission to implicate him, and his lawyer has said Hernandez is mentally ill.
These two threads in the tangled story are set to cross next month, a twist that evokes decades of uncertainties and loose ends in the search for what happened to the sandy-haired 6-year-old last seen walking to his Manhattan school bus stop.
It stands to be a coincidence fraught with anguish for Etan’s parents, who brought a successful wrongful death lawsuit against Ramos, and for the former federal prosecutor who went to lengths to pursue him.
At the same time, it offers a glimmer of vindication for Ramos, who has denied involvement in the boy’s disappearance, though authorities have said he made incriminating remarks about it.

Etan’s disappearance made national news and raised awareness about children’s safety, turning him into a symbol for the issue in a now-familiar response: He was among the first vanished youngsters ever pictured on a milk carton. The day of his disappearance, May 25, is now National Missing Children’s Day.
After years of investigation as far afield as Israel, an arrest was finally made on the eve of this year’s anniversary. Hernandez, who worked at a convenience store near Etan’s home when the boy disappeared, wasn’t a suspect until a tipster contacted police this spring after the case, long quiet, returned to the headlines when officials dug up a neighborhood basement looking for clues.
After his arrest, the New York Police Department announced that Hernandez had admitted strangling the boy and leaving his body in a trash bag.
There has been no signal that an extensive probe in the months since has turned up further evidence against him. Hernandez’s attorney, Harvey Fishbein, raised further doubts about the case, saying Hernandez is schizophrenic and bipolar and has heard voices.
During the decades when Hernandez wasn’t on investigators’ radar, they explored many other leads and possible suspects, including Ramos.
The 69-year-old came under suspicion early on because he had a relationship with Etan’s former babysitter, but investigators didn’t find anything solid. In the early 1980s, Ramos was arrested, though not convicted, on charges that he tried to lure children to a drainage pipe where he was living. Photos of young, blond boys were found in his backpack.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/original-suspect-etan-patz-case-free-article-1.1194299#ixzz2AdQzFhMJ

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