Carlos Rodriguez (71:16)
So a couple of things. So, yes, I did encounter where you have people who weren't aware that they were being trafficked, you know, and they did think they were doing this for. For whatever purpose, for love or for whatever. When we built our cases dealing with. With trafficking, which is slightly different than what we were talking about earlier, we would build those cases so that we wanted a solid case so that if the. The person who was being trafficked or abused, raped, was not. We didn't need them. We didn't need their testimony. So we did extra work to make sure we had the records. We had. If they were at hotels, we had all the receipts. We had the cameras doing surveillance. So we can actually see what's going on if they choose to. If the trafficker, the pimp decides to talk to you. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. It really depends on, really their ego or if, you know, they have. If they make a wise decision or not. So trying to build it in such a way where if the person doesn't go that way, we don't really need them to testify because you have all of these other things. You have all of these, the records of what happened. And do you have coercion? Did they force them? Did they defraud them? Where's the money going? You know, who's keeping the money? Do you have your. Do you have your own id? Who's getting the hotel rooms? And then as. As you build more cases, then pimps start to realize, okay, well, now I don't do that. You know, they learn. They go back and forth. They get. They get the public disclosure and read the cases and try to see what your tactics are. So you kind of do. You have to change things up a little bit. But. But ultimately, in order for it to work, you. Someone has to show up. You have the exchange, and then you watch it so they're still at risk. So it's just depending on how you do it. And then sometimes people get tired of being in that life, or maybe they chose up or they're with a different trafficker. And they won't talk about their trafficker, but they'll talk about their other one. And you can build a case on that. So that happens a lot. I have friends that have life experience and just hearing their stories. Actually, one of them, before she was my friend, I listened to her speak. Her name's Rebecca Bender. She's amazing. And listening to her story and what she went through changed how we did things, how my task force did things. And I remember talking about, I remember talking about. That's pointing up at her at the stage when we were watching her. That's why we do this, you know, because of someone like that. You know, look at, look, this is. Even though everything that she went through that look, she's a success, you know, she's still here. She's a fighter. And so what can we do to try to keep other people from going through that? So. And then we changed how we did it. We made sure that we had, it's called trauma informed approach. Where truly, where we're actually spending the time making sure that they get resources. And not like when we would do ops, you'd set dates to try to recover somebody. But still you have your, your arrest team in a park portion of the house calling the dates. Maybe the, the pimp drop, trafficker drops person off. Person comes in, they get the buy, you get this, they push a little button. So, okay, arrest team come in, you go in, but you still, even if you're doing it really low key, you're still in, you're still the police with guns out, it isn't really right. It's very traumatic because when you see, you know, when you're a civilian and you see people with guns out, that they're not really processing everything that you're saying, guaranteed they're not remembering everything. And so just kind of changing how you, you do different things. I know there's a. Up in Canada, they have a way of doing things where they actually have someone with life experience who's in their task force and they'll set up the dates and then they just go knock on the door and explain who they are. She goes in and talks. They make sure it's clear, safe. She goes in and talks to him, says, hey, here's why we're here. She goes through her spiel because she knows how to speak with the person, goes through the spiel, offer resources. This is why we're Here, we're not here to arrest you. If you want to get out of this life, give me a call. And then they would leave. And if they could build the case on the trafficker, and they said the majority of the people that came back, they were very successful. They were able to build. I think it was over 90%, they actually were able to convict, charge and convict the traffickers from the. From doing it a different way. And. Because when you. When you meet people, like when I'd meet kids that are being trafficked, or you'd meet adults that are being trafficked that are in that life, they. They don't want to talk to you. You know, you're. You're the cops. And look at their life experience before, you know, where did they have someone that was addicted to them? Did they have someone, you know, who just kind of looked at them or treated them like they were nothing or trashed? And it takes while. It takes a while to build that up. I used to. I had one case where there was. She was 14 years old and was being trafficked. I remember the first time I talked to her, and I said, hey, look, I'm. I. Here's who I am. I know you don't trust me. You're not going to really trust me until, you know, we. We meet again. I said, no offense, I hope we don't meet again. I said, but I. When I'm doing this work, oftentimes I meet people again. And then she would say, so if I run and I go to Oregon, are you going to come get me? And I was like, yeah. I go, it may not be me, but we're going to come find you. She goes, what if I went to New York? What if I went to California? And she was asking all these questions and she ran. She ran a lot. So she had three traffickers. Two were the main one. The other one was just a brother trying to be cool like his older brother. So two went to prison. She ran again. We got her in Oregon, we got her in California. And then I think the last time I saw her, I got her out of a hotel. And it was always during the holidays, it was Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve that we'd recover her. And the last one, I think it was Christmas Eve, and pull her out of this hotel. And she's in the back of the car. And I just remember telling her. I was like, hey, you know, I'm not your dad. But, you know, I just. I just hate seeing you like this. And she's like, I know. She goes, I don't have a dad. And I. She goes, I don't hate. And I said, you probably hate me. And I was like, I don't. She goes, I don't hate you. But she points at the FBI guy. She goes, I hate that motherfucker. I don't know why. I don't know why she hated the guy. His name is Kyle was the nicest guy from Minnesota. He talks like. He talks like Owen Wilson. You know, jeepers. We. I mean, that was this guy, and he's like. But she just hated him. She could not stand him. And he was so nice. Well, he's still alive, so he's still nice. But I just remember that conversation with her, and it was horrible. I mean, part of what I missed about being in the work is I had these undercover profiles, and I was friends with her on Facebook, so I could kind of see. And she didn't know it was me, so I could kind of see when she'd post stuff that she was doing okay, which was really cool to see. And then when I retired or when I got out of it, you don't have access to that anymore. So I was like, you don't. You don't know what's happening in some of these people's lives. But hopefully, in my mind, hopefully, she's still doing really well.
