On the Raids Today at 4 Omaha Hotels

Acting Deputy Chief Williamson joins Emery.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The arrests that were made with I mean, there's just
an awful lot going on with this, but multi agency
the FBI was here, Omaha Police, State Patrol and a
raid essentially at four hotels, two residential locations, six other
commercial establishments that were known at least in the information
that we have as what they're calling eyebrow salons. Five

(00:23):
people were arrested for federal charges, and we're trying to
unpack all of the layers of that in that operation
here in Omaha today. And to help us with that
is Acting Deputy Chief of the Omaha Police Department Keith
Williamson on our line. Officer, really appreciate, Deputy Chief, We
really appreciate this information that you're going to give us today.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Happy to help, Happy to be here, Emory.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
All right, what would be the first thing that we
should know as the general public has this been? How
much information did you guys even have before the operation
on this?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Well, that's a great question. This is a years long,
multi jurisdictional operation that the Oma Police farmer kind of
got involved with at the beginning of this year in
January of twenty twenty five. Obviously, it kind of culmulated
today with the operations we served where we have some
a warrants that we served at fourteen different locations throughout
the metro area. You know, two of those locations were

(01:13):
here in Omaha with the two hotels and stuff. So
this was again started several years ago with the Sarby
kind of Sheriff's department with some complaints on some hotels there.
Those hotels were owned by a couple and they owned
some hotels here in Omaha where we also had some problems.
So this was just a bringing together of a lot
of just different law enforcement agencies and partners that resulted

(01:35):
in the in the operation that you saw today and
some arrests, and undoubtedly it made the Omaha and the
metro area safer with some of this. And then, you know,
unlike what we see on TV or on a Netflix
show or something, police work isn't wrapped up, you know,
in the tidy little bow in an hour. We still
have months of more investigative follow up to work on
these cases, more evidence to comb through, possibly more suspects

(01:58):
that might be brought to light that we need to
investigate them and possibly apprehend and everything. So we don't
want to make it sound like our work is done
and we're patting ourselves on the back and walking away.
Our detectives still have to testify in court in these cases,
and there's still just more work that needs to be done.
But you know, I can say confidently the Omhar area
in the metro area is safer today with the operation
that we.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
Did, no doubt.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Keith Williamson, Acting Deputy Chief of the Omaha Police Department,
joining us today. Five people are currently getting federal charges
here and they're from this area. And the first thought
is are the only these the only five people? Because
this sounded like it was quite an elaborate operation. Like

(02:42):
you mentioned, it took a long time to get everything
he needed to be able to execute this type of operation.
So are we done trying to find people who might
be involved in this ring or is this something that
could be you know, still expanding even beyond those five people.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, so it's not done yet. Like I said, those
five people were our primary targets. They were our priority
to get into custody this morning with our operation, and
that was successful. So we were able to round up
those five targets and that's who we had our site
set on. Could this lead to some more arrests or
we don't know. That's why I said, we still have

(03:19):
more dogged investigative work to do, and we're going to
do that thorough follow up. So it could open the
door the more arrests. You know, that's speculation right now.
So I don't want to I don't want to die
if I don't have a crystal ball. You know. This
isn't the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report where I can
predict what can happen, you know what I mean. So
I don't want to go down that road. But it's
it is not an open a shot case yet, it's

(03:40):
not done, it's not completed. We could see more arrests,
DEMI from this, but the primary targets of what we
had with the information that we had today, they have
been placed into custody. And those are the charges that
you heard asat cow talk about at the press conference
at the FBI building.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yeah, let's let's revisit that.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
So the victims and I, you know, well, it's this
the kind of thing that we just can't forget is
happening in our country. That it's trafficking, right, so sex trafficking,
labor trafficking, and we do we know the number of people.
We know that the age ranges go down to as
young as twelve years old here, and there were already

(04:18):
a bunch of people that were rescued that we're having
to live in these conditions. What can you tell us
about the number of victims and what they were having
to endure in this operation.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yes, we want to be careful because again this case
isn't like I said, it isn't completed yet, So we
don't want to get too many details about the victims
because they're our priority. Right we want to protect people.
We want to protect them. The last thing we would
want is to release something that is sensitive in nature
that could maybe lead to either a cooperating witness or
a victim to maybe change their mind on helping us

(04:52):
with prosecution or open up the door for anything else
like that. So we want to be careful and sensitive
with that. And I understand people's needs they want to
know and everything, but again, balancing what we want to
get out into the public and also protecting the victim
and these sensitive situations like sex trafficking and stuff is
something that we need to juggle and balance and everything

(05:13):
on that end. So there are multiple victims in this case,
and then also multiple witnesses that have come forward and helped.
And again, like you excellently stated, there's two different trafficking
incidents here, with one being sex trafficking. We've had three
different cases at two of these hotels involving sex trafficking
that just the Omah Police Department has investigated within the

(05:34):
last several years. And then labor trafficking meaning people are
being brought in, being forced to work in unsanitary conditions,
long hours, not being allowed to leave, being paid substandard
living wages, or even not being paid at all in
some cases. So there's that aspect too, and then there's
the threat of harm being done to them if they
don't comply with these working conditions and stuff. So we're

(05:56):
investigating both of those avenues and those are underserved population
that are usually targeted in both of those are vulnerable populations,
like you know, juvenile runaways that are just trying to
seek shelter and stuff and then be enforced and do
sexual acts to pay for a room to stay and
all that stuff. So those are the two things we
want that we are focusing on with this operation, and
those are extremely sensitive, so we don't want to release

(06:18):
too many details at this point. When this case unfolds further,
you know, those that information will be shared and stuff.
Obviously some identities probably won't be shared, but again we
want we want to be very victim centric with what
we do and protecting the victims because again this is
this is not a done deal.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
It's very very good information just to know kind of
where we're at on this, and I kind of stated
last hour, I'm not even stroll to get the chance
to talk to anyone because of how sensitive a lot
of the information is. So we're just grateful to have
what information you're able to give us. We are speaking
with Acting Deputy Chief of the Omaha Police Department, Keith
Williamson on our phone line here. So the next steps

(06:57):
you kind of alluded to the fact that you know,
there's still a law long way to go, you're still
early in the process on this.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
This is the first bit of publicity.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
That we know, like the actual random joe's around the
Omaha area are hearing about this particular situation and you're
just kind of getting started here. So what would be
next from the police Department's perspective, and how does the
OPD fit in with state authorities as well as the
FBI in this mix.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Great question. Obviously, the next step we want to interview
everybody that wants to be able to talk to us, so,
you know, that could be the suspects. Obviously they have
a right to get an attorney and all those things
to be people that work there just to gather more
information and see and then just other investigative means that
things we work for. We collected evidence today, so we'll
be taking cellular devices or laptops and computers get into

(07:45):
there to see if there's any you know, chat or
communications back and forth, things that will help us collaborate
information that we have. Obviously, we're going to still be
in contact with the victims, will continue to communicate with
them if they can provide anything else you know, they
might have you might be able to provide more information
in our case or even remember something further that we
undercover or that we discover in the process. And then

(08:08):
anything else that we bring up we want to follow up.
So if we find, you know, we get more tips
from the public that there's you know, somebody comes forward
that there's another victim, then we're going to do that
So how the Omahall Police Department fits in with all
this is we work well with our federal partners. We
are on several task forces with the FBI, the DA
the atf US Marshall, so we all come together and
work with us. Like a chief Motorers said, we had

(08:31):
over one hundred Omaha Police officers, ranging from detectives and
our Criminal Investigations Bureau to troll officers that people see
out on the street every day. And why I understand
that most of Omaha is just learning about this, But
two of these hotels have been problem arias you know,
for the neighborhood around there for many years now, you know.
To give a quick example, there's one hotel off of

(08:52):
one hundred and eighth there, the new Victorian. That hotel
is only four floors. It had over seven hundred calls
for service of that hotel in the last three years
since it changed ownership to the current people that have
been placed into casties today. To give comparison to a
different hotel downtown, that hotel has ten more floors, probably
ten times the amount of people that go in and

(09:13):
out of that downtown hotel, and it had over I
want to say two hundred less calls for service, So
that just tells you the crime magnet some of these
hotels can be for the people that live in and
around that community, and we've known about that, we've done
operations there. We wanted to make sure that we were
not just targeting a problem person in that hotel, but
actually getting to the route and the systemic cause of

(09:35):
that problem, which was the owners.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
And it makes a complete sense, especially when you put
it in those details of context. Last thing at Acting
Deputy Chief from the Omah Police Department, Keith Williamson joining
us for people who want updates, and I know that
you guys can only release what is safe to release
as it happens, but I know that you guys are
trying to be as transparent with the Omaha community and

(09:58):
the surrounding area as best that you can. Is there
a place that people can go just to kind of
follow in case you guys are giving updates not on
just this case but other cases like it as you
complete investigations.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Absolutely, when we can, we'll share information with the public
as much. The two places I would recommend us first,
you know, the Omah Police Department Facebook page or their
ex or Twitter account and then same thing with the
Omaha FBI Field Office. They do a great job of
pushing out information on their ex account that Kala does
a good job of updating everybody is at too, So

(10:31):
those two places would be a great place to go
to for more information on this.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
We will keep in touch with that, and of course
anything that we hear on any of those channels or beyond,
we will have in our newsroom and also here on
the show. Keith Williamson, Acting Deputy Chief of the Omaha
Police Department, thank you so much, sir for giving us
this information. I know the last couple of hours have
been very busy just trying to get that information out
after a very busy day, but thank you so much

(10:54):
for the work that you guys do in blue here
in this community.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
And we'll chat with you guys again, I'm sure very soon.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Am good stuff, good stuff, glad we got that on
and big things to Chief Touch Moderor for helping set
that up for us today.