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According to ABC news , authorities nabbed more than 500 suspects in a child prostitution sting and rescued forty-seven children as part of a three-day raid.
The FBI and police from twenty-nine cities rescued these children from seventy-three alleged pimps and more than 500 others who were exploiting them. A 12-year-old from Texas, a 10-year old from Ohio and a 14-year old from Michigan were found and rescued. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, organized crime is responsible for moving these kids from city to city. This has been a problem for many years and is happening on Main Street USA
Authorities targeted cities such as Alexandria, VA; Atlanta; Las Vegas; Miami; Dallas; Houston; Honolulu; Phoenix; and San Diego. Since 2003, the Justice Department and FBI have increased their focus on the child sex slave problem through a project known as the Innocence Lost National Initiative. The Initiative has developed 24 dedicated task forces and working groups throughout the U.S. involving federal, state and local law enforcement agencies working in tandem with U.S. Attorney’s Offices.
These dedicated groups have successfully rescued over 400 children and led to the conviction of more than 300 pimps, madams, and their associates who exploit children through prostitution. In addition, these convictions have resulted in lengthy sentences including multiple 25-year-to-life sentences and the seizure of real property, vehicles, and monetary assets.
Sad but true, the Justice Department estimates that as many as 300,000 U.S. children are engaged in prostitution, most of them runaways. If you have information contact the NCMEC hotline at 1-800-THE-LOST or file a report through its CyberTipline.
When the U.S. invaded Iraq, soldiers were given playing cards with the most wanted terrorists photograph and description to help them identify terrorists. Recently local Minnesota’s prisons received decks of playing cards using the same type of methodology.
These cards distributed by Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Corrections and law enforcement agencies statewide, are using the deck of playing cards to help solve cold cases. These cards highlight 52 violent unsolved homicide, missing person, and unidentified remains cases that have occurred throughout the state in the past 50 years. These cards have been distributed to 515 police departments and sheriff offices as well as 75 countywide jails and annex facilities.
Other states such as Florida, Indiana, Missouri, New York and Washington have used similar playing cards. In Florida, at least two cold case crimes were solved. Every cold case clue has the potential to bring law enforcement one-step closer to obtaining justice for cold case victims and a sense of closure for their surviving family members.
If you have information regarding any of the cold cases featured on the playing cards call the Minnesota BCA tip line at 877-996-6222 or you can see these cards on their web site .
Recently the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has acquired three automated DNA analyzers that will shorten the time it takes to process samples from crime scenes. In the past, analyzing DNA samples would take up to six months. However, with the new DNA analyzer 100 samples can be analyzed in just a few hours.
All of this was made possible through the President’s DNA Initiative of 2006. The National Institute of Justice has provided more than $107 million in funding that covers a 5-year plan to ensure forensic DNA reaches its full potential to solve crimes, protect the innocent and identify missing persons.
CBI received a $1.2 million in grants from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) for these machines and was part of a DNA Field Experiment. In collaboration between NIJ and local law enforcement in five communities, Los Angeles, Topeka, Denver, Phoenix and Orange County, CA, were targeted in this effort. In June 2008, NIJ released the results of this study that showed that suspect identifications and arrests doubled, prosecutions doubled, suspects were arrested through DNA identifications were more dangerous because of the number of prior arrests, and that DNA was twice as effective in identifying suspects as compared to fingerprints.
From property crimes to violent crimes, law enforcement now has a very important tool to help solve crimes faster and ensure accuracy for better prosecutions.
It was August 27, 2008, the week of the Democrat National Convention in Denver, Colorado when a young, up and coming District Attorney was viciously gunned down in his own backyard. The murderer shot Sean May in the back of his head and lower back. Because the Democrat National Convention was being held in Denver that week, his murder didn’t get a lot of attention.
However, an article that week in the Rocky Mountain News wrote about Sean May as “one of the best.†He was smart and personable who chose a career in public service in the Adam’s County District Attorney’s office instead of a lucrative job with a big law firm. He worked with child victims to help prosecute pedophiles. The tragic part of this story is that he and his wife were expecting their first child this fall.
The only clues police have was that someone saw a white or Hispanic man in his 20’s, 5-foot-11 with a medium build flee the scene soon after the shooting. They also believe that his work as a prosecutor may have played a role in his murder.
Police are offering a $125,000 reward for information about the shooting. If you have any information call Denver police at 720-913-2000 or Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867. Let’s get Sean May’s killer off the street and in jail and give some closure to his family.
Today the Star Tribune reported that Hennepin County has won a federal grant that will be used to help solve cold cases in the county. This is great news for family members and friends who have been waiting a long time to catch criminals that have caused so much grief in their lives.
A recent article in the Star Tribune also reported that after nineteen years the cold case of a Minneapolis woman who was viciously murdered has been solved by using DNA found under her fingernails. She was stabbed repeatedly while sitting beneath a footbridge across Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis. Back in 1989 DNA was in its infantcy but today with new methods and procedures DNA is capturing more criminals and solving more cases.
The criminal was already in custody for unrelated charges. When the DNA came back it was matched to his DNA and the police knew they got their man. Alfred L. Moen age 44 was charged with second degree murder. Moen claims he didn’t know the woman and of course that he didn’t do it. But DNA doesn’t lie. The motive is still unclear as to why Moen killed the woman. At least now the family of the victim will get closure to her death.
The Department of Public Safety of the State of Minnesota announced that the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) with the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office has installed a new Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). This new database system has a larger storage capacity and offers a more rapid matching fingerprint response time.
Before it took hours to match fingerprints now it only takes a few minutes. Just like in the CSI shows!
This technology also makes it possible to match more fingerprints of lower quality that you may get at crime scenes. Even partial fingerprints and palm prints can be matched. This helps in both investigating and solving crimes.
The state of Minnesota funded $5.4 million and a matching $5.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security funded the AFIS upgrade. St. Louis County received AFIS workstations and rapid identification units through the partnership.
If you want to see a demonstration of this technology, check out the BCA website.
The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Forensic Science Laboratory just celebrated 60 years in service. Originally housed in the Shubert Building at 488 North Wabasha Street in Saint Paul, the lab occupied 350 square feet. It started as a one-person lab offering chemical analysis and microscopy.
The lab grew quickly, in 1962 moved to University Avenue and became a division of the Department of Public Safety. In 1990, the BCA became one of the nation’s first forensic laboratories to offer DNA analysis. Shortly thereafter, the BCA was the first laboratory in the country to identify a suspect based solely on DNA.
Now the Saint Paul headquarters located on Maryland Avenue is a state of the art facility housing the BCA’s Forensic Science, Investigative, CriMNet, and Criminal Justice Information Services. The building has grown to 224,000 square feet with almost 106,000 square feet occupied by the laboratory. The laboratory became one of only four laboratories in the nation selected by the FBI to serve as a regional mitochondrial DNA laboratory.
The BCA’s mission statement is committed to protecting Minnesotans by providing high quality services to the criminal justice community. Through their efforts they provide timely, personal service in partnership with law enforcement and other criminal justice agencies.
The Sun Newspaper reported that burglars recently broke into a Minnetonka gun store and stole about 30 firearms. These burglars tried earlier that night to break in the Glen Lake Gun Shop but the alarm stopped them.
When police arrived the first time, no guns were reported stolen. After the police left, the burglars came back and within an hour before the first employee came to work, the thieves left behind shards of shattered glass after they smashed and grabbed four cases full of guns. The types of guns missing are 30 handguns, including .22s, .38s, .45s and Glock’s.
About three years ago, 70 guns were stolen at a store in Richfield. In the following months, guns turned up at a high school, on a school bus, one was used to shoot at a police officer and others have been used in violent crimes. Of the 70 firearms stolen three years ago, only a few have been recovered.
It is important that these criminals and guns be found. If you have information, call Minnetonka Police at 952-939-8500 or call the confidential tip line at 952-935-8000.
On June 2, 2008, Matthew Gretz admitted to a judge that he killed his artist wife, Kira Simonian, last June 29, 2007. This highly publicized murder in Hennepin County, Minnesota is now finally closed.
But what makes this crime so bizarre is the way Matthew Gretz committed the crime. On the morning of the murder, neighbors heard violent arguing in the couple’s apartment. Then they heard a man yell, “Do you love me?” and moments later, a woman screamed, twice, and then silence. Moments later Gretz was seen leaving the apartment and getting into a cab heading to the airport. Gretz who worked for Target claimed that he was on a business trip and knew nothing about the murder until he returned.
Here is where this murder has a similar pattern to Scott Peterson’s bizarre murder of his wife Laci. When Gretz returned, he had the audacity to play the role of grieving husband just as Scott Peterson pretended to be. Gretz even spoke at a public vigil three weeks after his wife’s death. He was crying and talking about how hard it was to cope everyday with the loss of his wife. When in reality, he was the one who stabbed her in the neck and chest 15 times and bludgeoned her head with a claw hammer.
Actually, police suspected Gretz from the start. Police thought it was unusual for Gretz to fly home from New York while he shipped his suitcase via Federal Express to relatives in Chicago. When the police seized and searched the suitcase, they found blood on the suitcase and other items in the suitcase. A DNA test matched Gretz and his wife’s blood. Gretz also had scratches and bruises consistent with a fight.
On the morning of the jury selection Gretz changed his mind and plead guilty to second-degree murder. What is still a mystery is “why†he killed his wife. Just like in the Scott Peterson’s case, we will probably never know why he killed his wife.
Another bad guy is off the streets in Minnesota.
A St. Louis Park man who was a suspect in at least one bank robbery recently was apprehended. He was running away from the police but after shots were fired, he surrendered. Once apprehended, the D.A indicted him on five armed bank robberies.
Suresh Harlan Small, age 26, was no stranger to bank robberies. In the past, he was charged with just one count of bank robbery from a holdup at a TCF Bank in St. Anthony. He was convicted of robbing this bank. He was out on bail when a federal grand jury issued an indictment on May 6th adding charges related to two more robberies at the same St. Anthony bank and two more at a St. Louis Park TCF Bank.
According to the indictment, Small allegedly used force, violence and intimidation to rob the St. Anthony TCF Bank Nov. 2, 2007, Jan. 11 and March 28 and the St. Louis Park TCF Bank at 8020 Hwy. 7 Feb. 1 and March 13 of this year.
If convicted, Small faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison for each bank robbery count. According to my calculations, this gives him 125 years in prison. And, oh yes, he is in custody awaiting his court appearance. This time Mr. Small won’t be getting out to commit more bank robberies.
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