Family has to take matters into their own hands after police and Dallas Mavericks give them the run-around.
Unbelievable. And totally believable at the same time.
A 15-year-old girl was kidnapped at a Dallas Mavericks NBA game and taken to an Oklahoma hotel where she was sex trafficked. According to the family, local police, the NBA, and the Dallas Mavericks did nothing to help. Family members rescued her after launching their own investigation and finding she was listed for sale online.
Imagine you make plan a big father-daughter night in Dallas to go watch the NBA Dallas Mavericks play.
During the game, your daughter gets up to go to the bathroom. And she never comes back.
You panic and try to get some help at the arena. You report her missing to the Dallas police officers stationed at the arena right away, but you are told to go home and make the report to your local police department in North Richland Hills. So, you call the police back home in your suburb only to be told they can’t do anything about it — sorry, the incident took place outside our jurisdiction in Dallas.
Your local police won’t do anything. Dallas PD won’t do anything, they won’t even open an investigation. The Dallas Mavericks won’t do anything.
Media largely ignores your daughter’s plight. No help from the NBA. The Dallas Mavericks issue a minimal statement hoping the “investigation” goes well.
A break comes when surveillance footage is found of the girl being led out of the American Airlines Center by a man. It appears the man used a fake ticket to enter the venue.
Still little response from police, the American Airlines Center, the Dallas Mavericks, and the NBA.
The family finds the non-profit Texas Counter-Trafficking Initiative. Investigators there were able to use facial-recognition technology and reverse image searches to locate an advertisement selling the 15-year-old girl online. The ad is traced to an Oklahoma City hotel.
Police conduct a raid and rescue the young girl on April 18th. She was kidnapped April 8.
For 10 days your 15-year-old daughter has been sold for sex. Horrific. Sexual. Abuse.
Shockingly, police apparently made no advances in the case for a week — but the team of private investigators with the Texas Counter-Trafficking Initiative found her in just one day. One day.
A total of eight individuals have been arrested and charged with the crimes related to the kidnapping and trafficking. This is not a crime of opportunity. These predators, both male and female, are organized and are profiting from sex trafficking.
The police and NBA teams will do nothing to help you.
We are on our own.
Watch your children like a hawk and be prepared to fight to keep them.
Train your children to fight off predators.
Fight.
Consider donating to the Texas Counter-Trafficking Initiative. (https://www.txcti.org/)
Our new book covers how to protect yourself (and your kids) from just this sort of attack. The upcoming Never Defenseless: Empowered Women's Self-Defense teaches strategies and techniques of the Stay With People principle. Check back here to see how you can get access as it becomes published.