U.S. Attorney Maria Chapa Lopez joined St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway to announce that the Department of Justice has awarded a $741,556 grant to the St. Petersburg Police Department, for three years, to create a regional Tampa Bay Human Trafficking Task Force. The Task Force is a collaboration of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies working with organizations that provide services to victims of human trafficking. **
The press conference was livestreamed on Facebook by the St. Petersburg Police Department.
The Tampa Bay Human Trafficking Task Force will focus on three areas.
1. Education: provide education and training to law enforcement and the public to build awareness.
2. Rescue: coordinate with support programs and resources to help victims.
3. Enforcement: implement technology that makes it easier to collect and share data across jurisdictions. Provide law enforcement support and assist with investigation and prosecution.
“Human trafficking is a crime that will not be tolerated in our communities,” said U.S. Attorney Maria Chapa Lopez. “Criminals who commit these horrific acts on our citizens should know that we are serious about finding them, prosecuting them, and putting them where they belong - behind bars.”
The geographic scope of the grant is within the Middle District of Florida and includes the following agencies: the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, the Florida Office of the Attorney General, the Office of Statewide Prosecution, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, State Attorneys’ Offices (Florida Judicial Circuits 5th, 6th, 12th, and 13th), the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, the Bradenton Police Department, the Clearwater Police Department, the Haines City Police Department, the Palmetto Police Department, the Sarasota Police Department, the St. Petersburg Police Department, the Tampa Police Department, the Wauchula Police Department, and the Zephyrhills Police Department. Selah Freedom is the Victim Service Provider.
** What is Human Trafficking? a) Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act is under age 18; or b) The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. (22 U.S.C. 7102(9)).
