oh, i don t know all right. where should i meet you? all right. walk over there. i ll meet you. moments later officer saleda tells officers to grab the young woman for soliciting prostitution. in the old days it was a sweep. you just swept these girls off the street and didn t give a damn, just threw them in jail. and you weren t attacking a problem. you weren t solving the problem. the girls would keep coming back out and keep doing it. by attacking pimps and making them pay, they don t victimize other girls when we get them and the girls get the services, we can save one or two, then we ve done our jobs. it s modern day slavery. it truly is. four nights a week, sting or no sting operation, oakland pd s debbie hoffman works the street as part of opd s see care unit. she is the human equivalent of a life line trying to reach the unreachable. human trafficking is happening right here in our own back yard.
was probably 13 years old. 13 or 14 if i remember. and we were shocked. oakland pd knows that moments like these where they can isolate the girls from their captors are the only window of opportunity to try to offer young women help and services. i mean, some of the stories i ve heard are just horrendous. for hoffman, every story is a heartbreaker, whether it s the 10-year-old sent out to work the streets for her mother, or the 14-year-old runaway who ran into the arms of a man she thought would love and protect her, only to discover a life of daily beatings and sexual abuse. we have recognized these ladies as truly being victims. and so we re trying to educate them and let them know that they can have the power. not to give their power away to somebody else that s going to hurt them and their family. i don t know any pimp that does not roll with at least a gun.
done they just go to work. so a lot of them tell the guys at work, hey, guess what i did on the way to work kind of thing. so it spreads, you know, word of mouth. five nights a week as the light of day fades debbie hoffman of oakland pd s see care unit heads out to the track on a mission to seek and find the forgotten girls who sacrifice their health and welfare to pleasure johns for the brutal men who control them. hey, honey. can i talk to you for a sec? it may take months or years but for a decade hoffman s been there trying to save one life at a time by simply letting them know she cares. okay, honey. take care. hoffman says parents who believe it will never happen to their daughters should listen closely to the story of 19-year-old britney. on every corner you go to you will see a pimp. pimps will drive down the street in vans, jump out, and snatch girls up and throw them in the
all right, copy, we ll put them on that northeast corner. investigators with the oakland pd s human trafficking task force are out again on the city s notorious prostitution track, conducting undercover stings. but today they are not after the women, they are targeting the buy side of the equation, the johns. felicia s got one working on the green ford pickup. yeah, it looks like she s going to go over there and make contact with him in the parking lot. in the first few hours of work the team apprehends nearly 20 unsuspecting johns. but as the light fades and day becomes night, an entirely different sort of creature comes out to prowl the track. looks more like the pimp type, too. he was eyeballing me hard over here. pimps are always on the lookout for new girls. we re going to be the new booty on the street tonight, and they re going to know that. if you have a couple of fresh faces out there, new girls trying to make money, trying to work on the track, well, a pimp wi
just quick head. oh, that s going to be a hundred. i don t know all right. where should i meet you? we can go over here. all right. walk over there. i ll meet you. moments later officer saleda tells officers to grab the young woman for soliciting prostitution. in the old days it was a sweep. you just swept these girls off the street and didn t give a damn. you threw them in jail and you weren t attacking a problem. you weren t solving the problem. the girls would keep coming back out and keep doing it. by attacking the pimps and making them pay, they don t victimize other girls when we get them and the girls get the services and we can save one or two, then we ve done our jobs. it s modern day slavery. it truly is. four nights a week, sting or no sting operation, oakland pd s debbie hoffman works the street as part of opd s see care unit. she is the human equivalent of a life line trying to reach the unreachable. human trafficking is