July 15, 2024 • 34 mins
Teen trafficking is closer to home than you think, and it's happening in our schools. Join us as we unravel the shocking story of a Klein ISD teacher allegedly leading a network exploiting runaway teens for prostitution. We break down the disturbing timeline revealing the tactics traffickers use to manipulate vulnerable youth. From street names to social media grooming, learn the red flags that can save lives.
Our discussion highlights the critical role of education and awareness in fighting human trafficking, urging schools and communities to stay vigilant. Tune in to understand how you can make a difference and protect at-risk youth.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, welcome to this new edition of our podcast.
We're going to be breaking downsome news stories where
trafficking is involved, andthis one is really shocking to
me.
I have my colleague Dawn righthere.
She does our intervention, doesour awareness, and I felt like
we should ask you to do thisepisode because you used to be a
(00:22):
teacher and in this specificstory we have a teacher who was
allegedly trafficking childrenand exploiting runaway teens,
youth, trafficking them inhotels and even out on
Bissonnette Street where we usedto do intervention and outreach
.
And so we were at a church thispast Sunday and my wife, Micah,
(00:44):
shared about this case andthere was this huge gasp and
people didn't know, didn't knowthe story, and this happened in
Klein, so the spring area, rightwhere you know I do a lot of.
I live right by Klein, so thisis right in our backyard.
This is a classic case oftrafficking that actually began
(01:05):
well, at least what we know, itbegan in 2022.
And it's not until 2024, just acouple of months ago that this
story really broke open and theteacher was arrested.
But there was just so manyballs dropped, so many red flags
that were going up that shouldhave been seen, these kids
(01:26):
should have got help, and so wewant to do this video to help
highlight to you, to educate youon the red flags of trafficking
, what trafficking looks like,how to spot it, and so we're
just going to dive right in.
I'm going to read this is astory from click to houston, and
the title is client isdemployee alerted school of sex
(01:49):
trafficking a year beforecosmetology teachers arrest.
And they do a good job ofbreaking down the story in the
timeline.
So, uh, it appears that thisteacher recruited troubled
juveniles from this local highschool by offering them a place
to stay, which would be a hotel.
(02:10):
So let's go.
I'm just going to move down tothe first part in the timeline
November 8th, 2022.
This is when this, this storystarts.
A 15 year old calls for helpsaying she's being sex
trafficked by a man and,according to court records, a
(02:30):
deputy goes to a hotel in NorthHarris County to investigate.
The teen tells the deputy sheis being forced to prostitute by
Grigsby's son, roger McGee.
So Grigsby is the teacher shehad, a son that was also
involved in this scheme.
Moments later, a harris countyhuman trafficking investigator
(02:51):
arrives at the hotel tointerview the teen.
During the interview, the teentells the detective that she is
16 year old and an 18 year oldwoman are all engaged in
prostitution for McGee.
The court documents state the15-year-old says McGee gave them
all nicknames so the Johnswould not know their names.
(03:11):
This is the first red flag,right?
So, dawn, you do a lot ofstreet outreach.
How common is it for someone tonot use their real name?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It's very common.
As a matter of fact, in all theyears that I've been out doing
ministry on the street, it takesusually about a year, maybe two
years sometimes, for girls totell us their real names.
Every single girl I'veencountered has what they call
their street name, and it'susually given to them by their
(03:45):
trafficker, by their pimp.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, and a lot of times this can be branded or
tattooed on them.
We know a lot of girls thatcome into our safe home.
We do tattoo cover-ups, whichis very common.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Or they'll have their trafficker's name in addition
to their own name, and sometimesyou'll see women who have gone
from trafficker to traffickerand they have multiple names on
there and they've had multiplestreet names.
We always know when a girlchanges her name she's usually
under another trafficker.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah.
So this is all importantinformation that we that can
help identify traffickingsituations, because a lot of
times the people that are beingtrafficked don't even know.
You know, thank God, this this15 year old reached out and said
hey, I'm being trafficked, butthat language isn't very common.
Most of the time they're justgoing to be seen as prostitutes
or in prostitution.
They're just going to be seenas prostitutes or in
prostitution.
So, continuing with the story,the teen tells the investigator
that McGee forced her to givehim all the money she made for
(04:53):
her prostitution transactions.
As the human traffickingdetective is searching the hotel
room where McGee and the teenstay, an 18-year-old woman walks
into the room, sees theinvestigator, turns around, gets
into a car driven by KedriaGrisby, which is the teacher,
and inside the car is a 16 yearold girl.
The detective runs a criminalbackground check on and finds
(05:20):
out she's been reported as amissing teen.
According to the detectives,the 16 year old said she'd run
away from home in october of2022 and later moved into
mcgee's home along with hisparents and siblings.
The 16 year old also tells thedetective that the 15 year old
who called for help that day wasalso a runaway.
Okay.
So this is another red flag.
(05:42):
A lot of times when children gomissing, when they're involved,
when they're being groomed intosex trafficking, many times
they're mislabeled as a runaway.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
And traffickers actually look for
vulnerabilities right.
They look for runaways, theylook for homeless within the
homeless population, they lookfor homeless within the homeless
population and you can see sheutilized that vulnerability of
not having a place to stay tobring them in.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Absolutely yeah.
Traffickers will lurk in placeslike bus stations, group homes,
even mental health facilities,hospitals, looking for this
exact population, becausethey're vulnerable, they feel
they have nowhere to go and sothey're easy targets.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, man, we have so much to cover.
We haven't even gotten past thefirst incident, so we'll
continue.
Uh, the 16 year old tells adetective she and the other
girls would make money byposting photos of themselves on
sex ads.
Okay, so here we have theonline connection.
(06:55):
We're always talking about howpornography fuels demand.
Okay, how does pornography?
How do these porn sites maketheir money off the ads that are
posted on their sites?
Where do those ads point to?
These ads that are postedonline to purchase local girls?
And how common is it, dawn,that the women are also?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
they may be out on the street, street, but they're
also posting stuff online theyall, they all have an online
profile, whether it be instagramor only fans, um, yes, every
single one of them, and a lot ofthe transactions with what they
call their dates, which are themen who are purchasing them,
happen through these sites.
They arrange, they arrange adate, a time, um, for a meetup,
(07:44):
and that's yeah, and it's verycommon and also, you know, 16
year old, this is.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
This is not pornography, this is abuse, this
is child images of child sexualabuse, right, um, and so we'll
keep reading.
So the 16 year old says shedoesn't remember grigsby's name.
But no, grigsby works as ateacher and this is also
probably, uh, a little bitagainst the stereotype is a lot
(08:11):
of time you think, oh, thetrafficker is going to be a man,
right, right, and even thoughthis lady was utilizing her son,
uh, that, that kind of woman asthe trafficker, that's not in a
lot of people's purview.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Right and she seemed like she was the head of it,
like she was running the show.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And so I'm I'm certain she utilized the fact
that she was a teacher because,you know, kids, for the most
part, are raised to think thatteachers are trustworthy.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Well, they should be, they should be Right, they
should be.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And they're people that you can confide in and who
will give you good, sound advice.
They'll get you the help thatyou need, not take advantage of
your vulnerabilities, and sadly,that's what happened in this
case.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
That's what happened in this case.
Yeah, and that's a big piece ofgrooming is a lot of times the
trafficker will appear safe orappear to be someone that's
respectable in a community orsomeone who has a lot of wealth
and influence.
That's huge.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Or oftentimes they're just good listeners.
So if you have a runaway youthand you're willing to listen to
the problems that they'retelling you that they've
encountered with their ownparents, and traffickers are
master manipulators who aregoing to take that information
that you have given them andthey are going to turn it and
(09:32):
twist it until they are the onlyperson that you think is for
them and who they can trust, andso that's another common part
of this whole process.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah, so let's go back to the story.
So she doesn't know her name,but she thinks she works as a
teacher.
So the 18-year-old woman walkedout of the hotel and into
Grisby's car, tells thedetective she'd come back to the
hotel to get her belongings andthat Grisby was her stepmom.
She says the 16-year-oldmissing teen didn't have a place
(10:09):
to stay or clothes to wear, soGrisby got a hotel room for
everyone to stay in for a fewnights.
And the 18-year old also admitshe and the other two other
teens, so there's several teensall engaged in prostitution.
She confesses that she providesmcgee with her prostitution
earnings and he protects herwhile she is on dates because he
(10:33):
is her boyfriend.
Uh, and I just think it's soimportant that we remember that.
Hey, if, if someone's 15, 16years old, their children that,
and they're involved in acommercial sex act, that is by
definition sex trafficking.
A lot of the language peopleare using is, they're saying,
child prostitutes and there's nosuch thing, right?
(10:59):
uh, so let's, so, let's continue.
So the next day, in a follow-upconversation, grigsby tells the
detectives that she was at thishotel because the 18 year old
asked her for a ride.
She also tells the police thatthe 18 year old lives at
grigsby's home and dates her son.
Uh, grisby says she doesn'tknow the other teen and she
didn't want her son to be at herresidence with all of his
(11:20):
female girls.
Therefore she got him a hotelroom.
Grisby also tells detectivesher son does not have a job.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So oh, he has a job.
Yeah, it's just not alegitimate job, right.
Right he considers this his job, because he is.
He is trafficking, he'sexploiting young women.
They all believe that he istheir boyfriend yeah, which is
which is common.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Can you speak to that , because that's yeah I think
that's hard for a lot of peopleto understand is like okay, how,
how does the trafficker gaintrust?
And they're not even referringto him as trafficker, gang
trucker, and they're not evenreferring to him as trafficker
thinking in that that way, right?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Right?
Oh, not at all.
Not at all.
Most of the women that weencounter.
Some of them have what theycall gorilla pimps, where you
know they've, they just rulewith this heavy hand, right.
But so many of them believethat they're dating their
trafficker.
They believe that he loves them, that he's for them and, like
you were saying about Grigsby'sson, the trafficker is their
(12:23):
protector and it's very ironicbecause he's protecting them yet
at the same time forcing themto go into encounters with men
that are extremely abusive, withmen that are extremely abusive.
And a lot of times, even withRomeo pimps, they also use a
heavy hand.
So there's a lot of violencethat happens within the
(12:45):
relationship and it seems almostlike a domestic abuse situation
from the girl's perspective.
But yes, they quite frequentlythink that they are dating their
trafficker, even when he willhave three, four, five other
girlfriends.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah.
So you know.
I know you're thinking like,okay, the detectives are there,
human trafficking detectives arethere.
This should be case closed.
But it doesn't.
It doesn't resolve.
So a year later, 2023, a aclient high school.
Let me share it with you guys.
A client high school employeemeets with a harris county
(13:26):
investigator involved ingrigsby's case.
The school employee tells thedetective that grigsby is an
employee at client high schooland possibly recruits young
girls to work for her and herson.
The school employee says herfamily member, the 18-year-old
arrested with McGee and released, met Grigsby's son on Instagram
(13:49):
and eventually moved intoGrigsby's home.
Okay, here's another red flag.
This is like classic scenarioof trafficking.
You know a lot of parents areworried about their kids getting
kidnapped or going to the malland a trafficker, you know
(14:09):
snatching them, throwing them intheir car and, you know,
kidnapping them, that abductionwhile that does happen, it's
such a low percentage.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
A majority of the time traffickers are on social
media and this, uh like they meton instagram yeah, yeah, they
it's, it's so common and if you,if you look at that, would you
go back and read what you justread about his encounter with
her online?
(14:40):
So, she was a student and shemet the son online.
Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
So I want you to think about that for a second.
If I'm a teacher and I want tomake money exploiting young
people, then I can identify thevulnerable kids, young people
then I can identify thevulnerable kids, give that
information to my son, who canthen befriend them through
(15:06):
social media or, by the way,video games, video game chat
rooms that's another hugeplatform for traffickers to be
operating, and so they had.
They had a whole system workedout.
It sounds like.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, and I mean even you know, for the 18 year old
system worked out.
It sounds like yeah, and I meaneven you know, for the 18 year
old this is coercion.
This is manipulation,absolutely.
She doesn't see the the kind ofplayers behind the trap that
she's fallen into right or doesshe understand what's going to
come?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
you know it.
You know what's in the futureyeah, so let's keep reading.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
The school employee said she believed her family
member was held at grigsby'shome against her will and forced
to prostitute between may andnovember of 2022.
The school employee tells theinvestigator that the family
member said eight girls wereworking for mcgee and grisby.
However, the school employeedid not know the teen's.
(15:54):
Wow, so, um, this is, this is atrafficking ring, right, I mean
, there's, there's a operation.
It's not, uh, an internationalring as we know there are
sometimes.
But, um, this is definitelyinvolving multiple students,
multiple teens.
Yeah, uh, so let's keep going.
(16:22):
So there was an actual complaintthat the employee rights tells
multiple senior level Kleindistrict officials that Grigsby
was involved in sex traffickingthe employee's family member as
well as other students, theemployee's family member as well
as other students.
(16:43):
She said that she aided in thesale distribution of underage
minor females minimum of eightgirls it could be more to come
forward and one female being afamily member.
The Klein High School employeenotes in their February sworn
statement to the school districtthat they do not know Grigsby
personally and haven't met herat the school.
So then you know, march 2023,they begin to do an
(17:11):
investigation.
They look into text records,phone phone report details
several text conversationsbetween grigsby and her son, and
so, in a text exchangeseptember 1 2022, mcgee
reportedly asked his mother toprint pictures showing mcgee
dressed in expensive clothes andholding a large sum of money.
(17:34):
They say detectives knowthrough training experience that
traffickers will post photos ofmoney that is made from their
victims' prostitution earningson social media to show how much
money he has made from victims.
Dawn, is that something thatyou see?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yes, so I'm on some of these platforms because I use
them to communicate with thewomen that we serve, and
oftentimes we'll see pictures ofmoney laid out.
You know, sometimes it's justfanned out, but sometimes
they'll even spell their namewith the money and you know,
it's like a status, a statusthing, like look how much money
(18:15):
I've made off of her back.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Wow, yeah, so let's keep going.
We haven't even gotten to 2024.
In another text, exchangebetween grigsby and her son.
Mcgee tells grigsby to hurry tothe hotel because the 16 and 8
18 year olds were robbed by john.
So john is a sex buyer.
Um, I don't know why we justuse that term, john.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
It kind of like john's yeah, throughout the
world um, but don I mean?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
when we're talking about trafficking, we're looking
at prostitution.
They both end up in the sameplace.
Um, whether you're beingtrafficked or you've made the
decision to be renegade andyou're going to be on your own
out on the street doingprostitution, it's still the
same dangerous place where youhave sex buyers who are robbing.
(19:09):
Just tell us some of the thingswe've seen, just how dangerous
it is.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah.
So robbery is often very commonfor the women, but also rapists
.
People don't realize that.
Can a prostitute be rapedAbsolutely?
And then you've got violencewhere when you look pornography,
one in three porn videos areviolent and a lot of the men who
(19:37):
are coming to purchase sex froma woman they want to enact that
same violence on the women.
So it is dangerous physically,it's dangerous monetarily.
And, going back to the monetaryissue, if a girl services a
customer and he takes up hertime and then she has to get out
(19:57):
of that car without money, thenthere's going to be hell to pay
with her trafficker Becauseshe's either going to have to
work longer or she, in a lot ofcases, will have to take a
beating, because time is moneyand traffickers make sure that
they are making those quotasthat they give them, that they
(20:18):
have to make a certain dollaramount every day yeah, and
that's that's very common,especially, you know, we've done
a lot of outreach out onbissonette.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I actually found this article and wanted to bring it
up because this is a part of thestory that's left out of that
other article but that not onlywere they trafficking girls out
on 1960 in the hotels, but alsoon the bissonette track, and so,
uh, let me post this right here.
So this is one of the thevictims and she was saying that
(20:53):
she was 15 years old at the timewhen she met mcgee through a
mutual friend while shopping.
So she was, you know, somewhereshopping, told mcgee, uh told
her and uh told her mcgee wouldtake care of her and give her
money.
So mcgee had a friend who tookthis girl shopping and was kind
(21:15):
of like the recruiter in thissituation.
So is that something we seelike in grooming?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Absolutely, absolutely.
We call it the intoxicationstage of it, where the
trafficker or the recruiter willpurchase things that a parent
normally wouldn't purchase for achild, or, if the child's a
runaway, they're going to beproviding for their needs, and
so we see it a lot, and we alsosee this type of thing happening
(21:44):
at malls, where traffickersthemselves or recruiters will be
out at the malls looking forgirls to start conversations
with.
They'll buy them something inthe moment and that relationship
is forged and then itprogresses very quickly from
there.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Yeah, and this is the classic.
Like you said, intoxicate, andthere's that befriend, right.
So you're gaining trust.
You begin to intoxicate,introduce some other air, and
then there's a moment where thetables turn Right and so she
explains that.
Uh, she says, you know, yeah,they were telling me all about
(22:24):
all this money, but she left outthe part that I had to sell my
body, so that wasn't talkedabout.
When he, mcgee, picked me upfrom the front of my apartment,
he was running everything downto me.
He basically told me I have noway out.
So, as a 15-year-old, what areyou going to do?
Speaker 2 (22:44):
There's not much you can do.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
So she said she started out walking along the
Bissonette track.
A week later, her pictures wereplaced on websites and she and
two other young women would beabused by 10 different men each
night in various hotels, one ofthem being Hotel Royale off FM
(23:07):
1960.
And this is I mean a lot ofpeople don't realize, but this
is happening in a lot of hotels.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
It is.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
And one of the new strategies we're doing for
intervention is taking missingchildren's posters and bringing
them to the various hotels.
So the young woman says she andher mother were arguing at the
time of her disappearance, and Ithink this is something that we
(23:40):
got to pay special attention to, because that is also something
that the trafficker willutilize, will drive a wedge
between a mother, a teacher,someone of influence a teacher,
someone of influence and, yeah,a trafficker's.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
main goal, especially during the befriending and
intoxication stages, is to turnthe girl away from any person
who is going to speak anysemblance of common sense to
them, any anything logical,anything sane, and he will
(24:23):
manipulate or she willmanipulate these vulnerable
girls to just completely turnaway from friends, from family,
from church leaders, fromteachers, anyone who is actually
a trustworthy person.
They work really hard to getthem to turn away.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, a trustworthy person.
They work really hard to getthem to turn away.
Yeah, and so I'm gonna keepreading because there's some
important parts here.
Um, so in november, she saysher daughter contacted her and
another family member from aprivate number threatening to
commit suicide.
So the mother called the policeafter getting her daughter to
tell her where she was located.
(24:59):
She and police found the girl ina hotel, heavily drugged and
disoriented.
She said he was feeding herpercocets every day to keep her
going.
And the mother said she was.
Her body was hurting, her legswas hurting, her neck was
hurting, her back was hurting,her throat was hurting, uh, and
so this, I mean we see thetrauma, um, yeah, the substance
(25:23):
abuse that's introduced, andthis is another red flag.
You know a lot of people aren'tthinking about, um, the use of
substances on victims that arebeing trafficked.
But most of the time when we'redoing outreach, I mean we, we
clearly see that the substancesare, you know, being distributed
(25:44):
to the girls either before theyarrive or while they're there,
um, but that's very common to,uh, keep the girls awake or, um,
just to be able to endure thetype of abuse that they're
experiencing.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Yeah, and especially with the younger ones, who are
mostly kept in the hotels, it'salso a way to subdue them to
where they're not going to fightas much as they might initially
, if they are not wanting to bethere, which most of them, once
they realize what's happening,they don't.
So they do have to utilizedrugs to to subdue them and and
(26:20):
so that the girl can just makeit through, um, these encounters
with men that they're going tohave to endure.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, so I mean, this is, this is just a horrific
case, and that's why we wantedto walk through all the details,
because, you know, if peopledon't stop and read this or look
into it, um, this is just goingto be swept under the rug and
problems like this will continueto happen, like this should not
(26:49):
have gone on for as long as itdid no, when the school district
was notified, that personshould have been removed Because
she wasn't removed from theclassroom, correct?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
It should have been an instant removal from the
classroom and then theinvestigation.
Even if they remove her withpay, they need to keep the
children safe and we don't seethat and we sadly in a lot of
school districts throughout.
Houston and throughout ourcountry.
(27:25):
They try to keep things quietbecause it brings bad publicity
like, oh, we hired this personwho's a danger to children, and
so they try to keep it quiet.
And sometimes what you'll seeis, rather than firing them,
they will allow them to resign,and then they go to another
school, and then to anotherschool and another school.
(27:47):
So these people, thesepredators, are just bouncing
from school district to schooldistrict to school district gosh
and don, you were a teacher, sohow relevant is the trafficking
conversation for schooldistricts?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
It's not something we can avoid talking about.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, it's incredibly relevant.
I think that every schooladministrator and teacher
Actually I think the whole staffshould be trained in what sex
trafficking is, signs, to lookfor how to combat it within the
school system.
But I also think that this isreally a relationship issue and
(28:31):
I think that if you know yourstaff really well, you might be
able to see some of the redflags.
But schools are so big nowadays, you know you might like I've
taught in a school where we had90 other teachers and so there's
no way that anyone can monitoryou know what, what, what's
happening and and see that.
And then they need to listen,like I think you were saying in
(28:52):
that, and then they need tolisten, like I think you were
saying at the beginning of thearticle.
Another educator's daughter wasbeing trafficked by them and she
reported it but nothinghappened, and so they need to
listen, because this isn'tsomething that's happening
elsewhere.
It's happening in our schools.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah, it's common and I think a lot of people are
able to dismiss it, because alot of people feel like, well,
you know prostitution yeah yeahyou know.
But everyone is like oh,trafficking, absolutely, no,
absolutely.
You know, that's evil.
I don't approve of that.
But if we don't, if we can'trecognize the connections
(29:35):
between prostitution andtrafficking, they both are
leading to the same play.
I mean, we have 15 year oldgirls being sold out on the
streets.
That that's trafficking, that'shuman trafficking.
When there's an outcry likethis, like in 2022, I mean, even
the mother of the 15 year oldwas trying to get detectives and
the school district to like dosomething, and no one did
(29:57):
anything.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, and if you look at the population that they
were targeting, these are goingto be kids who probably didn't
have a really great reputation.
They were vulnerable and so,rather than saying, hey, let's
look at the root, what's goingon here, they were looking
mostly at the symptoms and theywere saying, well, let's look at
the root what's going on here.
They were looking mostly at thesymptoms and they were saying,
well, of course, this girl might, yeah she's a runaway, of
(30:21):
course she's going to become aprostitute, because that's what
happens and they think it's achoice.
but there's no way a 15, 16, oreven a 17-year-old can make that
choice.
Their brain isn't even fullydeveloped enough to be able to
have the foresight to see whatis this going to mean in a year
and in five years if they'restill alive, you know, in five
(30:42):
years.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Yeah, and so you know the case is pending, so we'll
see what happens.
But we really just wanted toget on here and break this down
for you guys, because, guys, wehave to educate, we have to
bring awareness to this.
We can't, you know, let thisincident happen and not educate,
not begin to spread awarenessand hopefully, you know, if
(31:06):
something like this happens inyour school district, you know,
hopefully we'll be able to spotit and stop it before it goes on
for years and years and years.
And you know, the recoveryprocess, the restorative process
for victims of trafficking isextensive.
It's a lot of money, it'strauma therapy, it's physical
(31:28):
ailments, overcoming substanceabuses, which no 15 or
16-year-old should ever have tostruggle through.
That.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Absolutely not.
And, david, can I add one?
Speaker 1 (31:40):
more thing.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
You know, I taught for a number of years and I do
want to say that theoverwhelming majority of
teachers out there are fantastic.
They really do love kids.
They want what's best for kids,but there are enough in the
system to have a huge impact onthe lives of many children and
(32:04):
so you know, I want to give ashout out to all the teachers
who are doing their job.
They're loving these kids inthe right way, but teachers
themselves need to be payingattention to the person next
door and keeping door and notkeeping tabs, but building
relationships so that you know,you can see these red flags
before it spreads.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, and of course, if you're connected with Elijah
Rising, we believe in the powerof prayer, and so pray for your
school districts.
Pray for our teachers, pray forthe school officials, pray for
the students, like this morninguh, we took time to to uh, dawn
had printed out all the missingkids from this area and we just
(32:45):
began to lay their, their facesout on the table and just just
pray over them.
The power of prayer, um, iseffective.
And also, you know, share thisvideo with someone, share it
with a parent, share it with aneducator, a teacher, someone who
works in the school system,someone who works with youth.
These, I mean these red flagsare all across the board.
(33:08):
Trafficking looks different, butin many ways it utilizes the
same systems systems ofmanipulation absolutely yeah so,
thank you guys, let us knowwhat you think and hopefully
we'll be able to do some more ofthese type episodes where we
break down the news for you tobring awareness and education
about human trafficking.
Hey guys, welcome to this new edition of our podcast.
We're going to be breaking downsome news stories where
trafficking is involved, andthis one is really shocking to
me.
I have my colleague Dawn righthere.
She does our intervention, doesour awareness, and I felt like
we should ask you to do thisepisode because you used to be a
(00:22):
teacher and in this specificstory we have a teacher who was
allegedly trafficking childrenand exploiting runaway teens,
youth, trafficking them inhotels and even out on
Bissonnette Street where we usedto do intervention and outreach
.
And so we were at a church thispast Sunday and my wife, Micah,
(00:44):
shared about this case andthere was this huge gasp and
people didn't know, didn't knowthe story, and this happened in
Klein, so the spring area, rightwhere you know I do a lot of.
I live right by Klein, so thisis right in our backyard.
This is a classic case oftrafficking that actually began
(01:05):
well, at least what we know, itbegan in 2022.
And it's not until 2024, just acouple of months ago that this
story really broke open and theteacher was arrested.
But there was just so manyballs dropped, so many red flags
that were going up that shouldhave been seen, these kids
(01:26):
should have got help, and so wewant to do this video to help
highlight to you, to educate youon the red flags of trafficking
, what trafficking looks like,how to spot it, and so we're
just going to dive right in.
I'm going to read this is astory from click to houston, and
the title is client isdemployee alerted school of sex
(01:49):
trafficking a year beforecosmetology teachers arrest.
And they do a good job ofbreaking down the story in the
timeline.
So, uh, it appears that thisteacher recruited troubled
juveniles from this local highschool by offering them a place
to stay, which would be a hotel.
(02:10):
So let's go.
I'm just going to move down tothe first part in the timeline
November 8th, 2022.
This is when this, this storystarts.
A 15 year old calls for helpsaying she's being sex
trafficked by a man and,according to court records, a
(02:30):
deputy goes to a hotel in NorthHarris County to investigate.
The teen tells the deputy sheis being forced to prostitute by
Grigsby's son, roger McGee.
So Grigsby is the teacher shehad, a son that was also
involved in this scheme.
Moments later, a harris countyhuman trafficking investigator
(02:51):
arrives at the hotel tointerview the teen.
During the interview, the teentells the detective that she is
16 year old and an 18 year oldwoman are all engaged in
prostitution for McGee.
The court documents state the15-year-old says McGee gave them
all nicknames so the Johnswould not know their names.
(03:11):
This is the first red flag,right?
So, dawn, you do a lot ofstreet outreach.
How common is it for someone tonot use their real name?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It's very common.
As a matter of fact, in all theyears that I've been out doing
ministry on the street, it takesusually about a year, maybe two
years sometimes, for girls totell us their real names.
Every single girl I'veencountered has what they call
their street name, and it'susually given to them by their
(03:45):
trafficker, by their pimp.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, and a lot of times this can be branded or
tattooed on them.
We know a lot of girls thatcome into our safe home.
We do tattoo cover-ups, whichis very common.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Or they'll have their trafficker's name in addition
to their own name, and sometimesyou'll see women who have gone
from trafficker to traffickerand they have multiple names on
there and they've had multiplestreet names.
We always know when a girlchanges her name she's usually
under another trafficker.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah.
So this is all importantinformation that we that can
help identify traffickingsituations, because a lot of
times the people that are beingtrafficked don't even know.
You know, thank God, this this15 year old reached out and said
hey, I'm being trafficked, butthat language isn't very common.
Most of the time they're justgoing to be seen as prostitutes
or in prostitution.
They're just going to be seenas prostitutes or in
prostitution.
So, continuing with the story,the teen tells the investigator
that McGee forced her to givehim all the money she made for
(04:53):
her prostitution transactions.
As the human traffickingdetective is searching the hotel
room where McGee and the teenstay, an 18-year-old woman walks
into the room, sees theinvestigator, turns around, gets
into a car driven by KedriaGrisby, which is the teacher,
and inside the car is a 16 yearold girl.
The detective runs a criminalbackground check on and finds
(05:20):
out she's been reported as amissing teen.
According to the detectives,the 16 year old said she'd run
away from home in october of2022 and later moved into
mcgee's home along with hisparents and siblings.
The 16 year old also tells thedetective that the 15 year old
who called for help that day wasalso a runaway.
Okay.
So this is another red flag.
(05:42):
A lot of times when children gomissing, when they're involved,
when they're being groomed intosex trafficking, many times
they're mislabeled as a runaway.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
And traffickers actually look for
vulnerabilities right.
They look for runaways, theylook for homeless within the
homeless population, they lookfor homeless within the homeless
population and you can see sheutilized that vulnerability of
not having a place to stay tobring them in.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Absolutely yeah.
Traffickers will lurk in placeslike bus stations, group homes,
even mental health facilities,hospitals, looking for this
exact population, becausethey're vulnerable, they feel
they have nowhere to go and sothey're easy targets.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, man, we have so much to cover.
We haven't even gotten past thefirst incident, so we'll
continue.
Uh, the 16 year old tells adetective she and the other
girls would make money byposting photos of themselves on
sex ads.
Okay, so here we have theonline connection.
(06:55):
We're always talking about howpornography fuels demand.
Okay, how does pornography?
How do these porn sites maketheir money off the ads that are
posted on their sites?
Where do those ads point to?
These ads that are postedonline to purchase local girls?
And how common is it, dawn,that the women are also?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
they may be out on the street, street, but they're
also posting stuff online theyall, they all have an online
profile, whether it be instagramor only fans, um, yes, every
single one of them, and a lot ofthe transactions with what they
call their dates, which are themen who are purchasing them,
happen through these sites.
They arrange, they arrange adate, a time, um, for a meetup,
(07:44):
and that's yeah, and it's verycommon and also, you know, 16
year old, this is.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
This is not pornography, this is abuse, this
is child images of child sexualabuse, right, um, and so we'll
keep reading.
So the 16 year old says shedoesn't remember grigsby's name.
But no, grigsby works as ateacher and this is also
probably, uh, a little bitagainst the stereotype is a lot
(08:11):
of time you think, oh, thetrafficker is going to be a man,
right, right, and even thoughthis lady was utilizing her son,
uh, that, that kind of woman asthe trafficker, that's not in a
lot of people's purview.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Right and she seemed like she was the head of it,
like she was running the show.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And so I'm I'm certain she utilized the fact
that she was a teacher because,you know, kids, for the most
part, are raised to think thatteachers are trustworthy.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Well, they should be, they should be Right, they
should be.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And they're people that you can confide in and who
will give you good, sound advice.
They'll get you the help thatyou need, not take advantage of
your vulnerabilities, and sadly,that's what happened in this
case.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
That's what happened in this case.
Yeah, and that's a big piece ofgrooming is a lot of times the
trafficker will appear safe orappear to be someone that's
respectable in a community orsomeone who has a lot of wealth
and influence.
That's huge.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Or oftentimes they're just good listeners.
So if you have a runaway youthand you're willing to listen to
the problems that they'retelling you that they've
encountered with their ownparents, and traffickers are
master manipulators who aregoing to take that information
that you have given them andthey are going to turn it and
(09:32):
twist it until they are the onlyperson that you think is for
them and who they can trust, andso that's another common part
of this whole process.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah, so let's go back to the story.
So she doesn't know her name,but she thinks she works as a
teacher.
So the 18-year-old woman walkedout of the hotel and into
Grisby's car, tells thedetective she'd come back to the
hotel to get her belongings andthat Grisby was her stepmom.
She says the 16-year-oldmissing teen didn't have a place
(10:09):
to stay or clothes to wear, soGrisby got a hotel room for
everyone to stay in for a fewnights.
And the 18-year old also admitshe and the other two other
teens, so there's several teensall engaged in prostitution.
She confesses that she providesmcgee with her prostitution
earnings and he protects herwhile she is on dates because he
(10:33):
is her boyfriend.
Uh, and I just think it's soimportant that we remember that.
Hey, if, if someone's 15, 16years old, their children that,
and they're involved in acommercial sex act, that is by
definition sex trafficking.
A lot of the language peopleare using is, they're saying,
child prostitutes and there's nosuch thing, right?
(10:59):
uh, so let's, so, let's continue.
So the next day, in a follow-upconversation, grigsby tells the
detectives that she was at thishotel because the 18 year old
asked her for a ride.
She also tells the police thatthe 18 year old lives at
grigsby's home and dates her son.
Uh, grisby says she doesn'tknow the other teen and she
didn't want her son to be at herresidence with all of his
(11:20):
female girls.
Therefore she got him a hotelroom.
Grisby also tells detectivesher son does not have a job.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So oh, he has a job.
Yeah, it's just not alegitimate job, right.
Right he considers this his job, because he is.
He is trafficking, he'sexploiting young women.
They all believe that he istheir boyfriend yeah, which is
which is common.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Can you speak to that , because that's yeah I think
that's hard for a lot of peopleto understand is like okay, how,
how does the trafficker gaintrust?
And they're not even referringto him as trafficker, gang
trucker, and they're not evenreferring to him as trafficker
thinking in that that way, right?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Right?
Oh, not at all.
Not at all.
Most of the women that weencounter.
Some of them have what theycall gorilla pimps, where you
know they've, they just rulewith this heavy hand, right.
But so many of them believethat they're dating their
trafficker.
They believe that he loves them, that he's for them and, like
you were saying about Grigsby'sson, the trafficker is their
(12:23):
protector and it's very ironicbecause he's protecting them yet
at the same time forcing themto go into encounters with men
that are extremely abusive, withmen that are extremely abusive.
And a lot of times, even withRomeo pimps, they also use a
heavy hand.
So there's a lot of violencethat happens within the
(12:45):
relationship and it seems almostlike a domestic abuse situation
from the girl's perspective.
But yes, they quite frequentlythink that they are dating their
trafficker, even when he willhave three, four, five other
girlfriends.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah.
So you know.
I know you're thinking like,okay, the detectives are there,
human trafficking detectives arethere.
This should be case closed.
But it doesn't.
It doesn't resolve.
So a year later, 2023, a aclient high school.
Let me share it with you guys.
A client high school employeemeets with a harris county
(13:26):
investigator involved ingrigsby's case.
The school employee tells thedetective that grigsby is an
employee at client high schooland possibly recruits young
girls to work for her and herson.
The school employee says herfamily member, the 18-year-old
arrested with McGee and released, met Grigsby's son on Instagram
(13:49):
and eventually moved intoGrigsby's home.
Okay, here's another red flag.
This is like classic scenarioof trafficking.
You know a lot of parents areworried about their kids getting
kidnapped or going to the malland a trafficker, you know
(14:09):
snatching them, throwing them intheir car and, you know,
kidnapping them, that abductionwhile that does happen, it's
such a low percentage.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
A majority of the time traffickers are on social
media and this, uh like they meton instagram yeah, yeah, they
it's, it's so common and if you,if you look at that, would you
go back and read what you justread about his encounter with
her online?
(14:40):
So, she was a student and shemet the son online.
Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
So I want you to think about that for a second.
If I'm a teacher and I want tomake money exploiting young
people, then I can identify thevulnerable kids, young people
then I can identify thevulnerable kids, give that
information to my son, who canthen befriend them through
(15:06):
social media or, by the way,video games, video game chat
rooms that's another hugeplatform for traffickers to be
operating, and so they had.
They had a whole system workedout.
It sounds like.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, and I mean even you know, for the 18 year old
system worked out.
It sounds like yeah, and I meaneven you know, for the 18 year
old this is coercion.
This is manipulation,absolutely.
She doesn't see the the kind ofplayers behind the trap that
she's fallen into right or doesshe understand what's going to
come?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
you know it.
You know what's in the futureyeah, so let's keep reading.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
The school employee said she believed her family
member was held at grigsby'shome against her will and forced
to prostitute between may andnovember of 2022.
The school employee tells theinvestigator that the family
member said eight girls wereworking for mcgee and grisby.
However, the school employeedid not know the teen's.
(15:54):
Wow, so, um, this is, this is atrafficking ring, right, I mean
, there's, there's a operation.
It's not, uh, an internationalring as we know there are
sometimes.
But, um, this is definitelyinvolving multiple students,
multiple teens.
Yeah, uh, so let's keep going.
(16:22):
So there was an actual complaintthat the employee rights tells
multiple senior level Kleindistrict officials that Grigsby
was involved in sex traffickingthe employee's family member as
well as other students, theemployee's family member as well
as other students.
(16:43):
She said that she aided in thesale distribution of underage
minor females minimum of eightgirls it could be more to come
forward and one female being afamily member.
The Klein High School employeenotes in their February sworn
statement to the school districtthat they do not know Grigsby
personally and haven't met herat the school.
So then you know, march 2023,they begin to do an
(17:11):
investigation.
They look into text records,phone phone report details
several text conversationsbetween grigsby and her son, and
so, in a text exchangeseptember 1 2022, mcgee
reportedly asked his mother toprint pictures showing mcgee
dressed in expensive clothes andholding a large sum of money.
(17:34):
They say detectives knowthrough training experience that
traffickers will post photos ofmoney that is made from their
victims' prostitution earningson social media to show how much
money he has made from victims.
Dawn, is that something thatyou see?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yes, so I'm on some of these platforms because I use
them to communicate with thewomen that we serve, and
oftentimes we'll see pictures ofmoney laid out.
You know, sometimes it's justfanned out, but sometimes
they'll even spell their namewith the money and you know,
it's like a status, a statusthing, like look how much money
(18:15):
I've made off of her back.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Wow, yeah, so let's keep going.
We haven't even gotten to 2024.
In another text, exchangebetween grigsby and her son.
Mcgee tells grigsby to hurry tothe hotel because the 16 and 8
18 year olds were robbed by john.
So john is a sex buyer.
Um, I don't know why we justuse that term, john.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
It kind of like john's yeah, throughout the
world um, but don I mean?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
when we're talking about trafficking, we're looking
at prostitution.
They both end up in the sameplace.
Um, whether you're beingtrafficked or you've made the
decision to be renegade andyou're going to be on your own
out on the street doingprostitution, it's still the
same dangerous place where youhave sex buyers who are robbing.
(19:09):
Just tell us some of the thingswe've seen, just how dangerous
it is.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah.
So robbery is often very commonfor the women, but also rapists
.
People don't realize that.
Can a prostitute be rapedAbsolutely?
And then you've got violencewhere when you look pornography,
one in three porn videos areviolent and a lot of the men who
(19:37):
are coming to purchase sex froma woman they want to enact that
same violence on the women.
So it is dangerous physically,it's dangerous monetarily.
And, going back to the monetaryissue, if a girl services a
customer and he takes up hertime and then she has to get out
(19:57):
of that car without money, thenthere's going to be hell to pay
with her trafficker Becauseshe's either going to have to
work longer or she, in a lot ofcases, will have to take a
beating, because time is moneyand traffickers make sure that
they are making those quotasthat they give them, that they
(20:18):
have to make a certain dollaramount every day yeah, and
that's that's very common,especially, you know, we've done
a lot of outreach out onbissonette.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I actually found this article and wanted to bring it
up because this is a part of thestory that's left out of that
other article but that not onlywere they trafficking girls out
on 1960 in the hotels, but alsoon the bissonette track, and so,
uh, let me post this right here.
So this is one of the thevictims and she was saying that
(20:53):
she was 15 years old at the timewhen she met mcgee through a
mutual friend while shopping.
So she was, you know, somewhereshopping, told mcgee, uh told
her and uh told her mcgee wouldtake care of her and give her
money.
So mcgee had a friend who tookthis girl shopping and was kind
(21:15):
of like the recruiter in thissituation.
So is that something we seelike in grooming?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Absolutely, absolutely.
We call it the intoxicationstage of it, where the
trafficker or the recruiter willpurchase things that a parent
normally wouldn't purchase for achild, or, if the child's a
runaway, they're going to beproviding for their needs, and
so we see it a lot, and we alsosee this type of thing happening
(21:44):
at malls, where traffickersthemselves or recruiters will be
out at the malls looking forgirls to start conversations
with.
They'll buy them something inthe moment and that relationship
is forged and then itprogresses very quickly from
there.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Yeah, and this is the classic.
Like you said, intoxicate, andthere's that befriend, right.
So you're gaining trust.
You begin to intoxicate,introduce some other air, and
then there's a moment where thetables turn Right and so she
explains that.
Uh, she says, you know, yeah,they were telling me all about
(22:24):
all this money, but she left outthe part that I had to sell my
body, so that wasn't talkedabout.
When he, mcgee, picked me upfrom the front of my apartment,
he was running everything downto me.
He basically told me I have noway out.
So, as a 15-year-old, what areyou going to do?
Speaker 2 (22:44):
There's not much you can do.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
So she said she started out walking along the
Bissonette track.
A week later, her pictures wereplaced on websites and she and
two other young women would beabused by 10 different men each
night in various hotels, one ofthem being Hotel Royale off FM
(23:07):
1960.
And this is I mean a lot ofpeople don't realize, but this
is happening in a lot of hotels.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
It is.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
And one of the new strategies we're doing for
intervention is taking missingchildren's posters and bringing
them to the various hotels.
So the young woman says she andher mother were arguing at the
time of her disappearance, and Ithink this is something that we
(23:40):
got to pay special attention to, because that is also something
that the trafficker willutilize, will drive a wedge
between a mother, a teacher,someone of influence a teacher,
someone of influence and, yeah,a trafficker's.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
main goal, especially during the befriending and
intoxication stages, is to turnthe girl away from any person
who is going to speak anysemblance of common sense to
them, any anything logical,anything sane, and he will
(24:23):
manipulate or she willmanipulate these vulnerable
girls to just completely turnaway from friends, from family,
from church leaders, fromteachers, anyone who is actually
a trustworthy person.
They work really hard to getthem to turn away.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, a trustworthy person.
They work really hard to getthem to turn away.
Yeah, and so I'm gonna keepreading because there's some
important parts here.
Um, so in november, she saysher daughter contacted her and
another family member from aprivate number threatening to
commit suicide.
So the mother called the policeafter getting her daughter to
tell her where she was located.
(24:59):
She and police found the girl ina hotel, heavily drugged and
disoriented.
She said he was feeding herpercocets every day to keep her
going.
And the mother said she was.
Her body was hurting, her legswas hurting, her neck was
hurting, her back was hurting,her throat was hurting, uh, and
so this, I mean we see thetrauma, um, yeah, the substance
(25:23):
abuse that's introduced, andthis is another red flag.
You know a lot of people aren'tthinking about, um, the use of
substances on victims that arebeing trafficked.
But most of the time when we'redoing outreach, I mean we, we
clearly see that the substancesare, you know, being distributed
(25:44):
to the girls either before theyarrive or while they're there,
um, but that's very common to,uh, keep the girls awake or, um,
just to be able to endure thetype of abuse that they're
experiencing.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Yeah, and especially with the younger ones, who are
mostly kept in the hotels, it'salso a way to subdue them to
where they're not going to fightas much as they might initially
, if they are not wanting to bethere, which most of them, once
they realize what's happening,they don't.
So they do have to utilizedrugs to to subdue them and and
(26:20):
so that the girl can just makeit through, um, these encounters
with men that they're going tohave to endure.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, so I mean, this is, this is just a horrific
case, and that's why we wantedto walk through all the details,
because, you know, if peopledon't stop and read this or look
into it, um, this is just goingto be swept under the rug and
problems like this will continueto happen, like this should not
(26:49):
have gone on for as long as itdid no, when the school district
was notified, that personshould have been removed Because
she wasn't removed from theclassroom, correct?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
It should have been an instant removal from the
classroom and then theinvestigation.
Even if they remove her withpay, they need to keep the
children safe and we don't seethat and we sadly in a lot of
school districts throughout.
Houston and throughout ourcountry.
(27:25):
They try to keep things quietbecause it brings bad publicity
like, oh, we hired this personwho's a danger to children, and
so they try to keep it quiet.
And sometimes what you'll seeis, rather than firing them,
they will allow them to resign,and then they go to another
school, and then to anotherschool and another school.
(27:47):
So these people, thesepredators, are just bouncing
from school district to schooldistrict to school district gosh
and don, you were a teacher, sohow relevant is the trafficking
conversation for schooldistricts?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
It's not something we can avoid talking about.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, it's incredibly relevant.
I think that every schooladministrator and teacher
Actually I think the whole staffshould be trained in what sex
trafficking is, signs, to lookfor how to combat it within the
school system.
But I also think that this isreally a relationship issue and
(28:31):
I think that if you know yourstaff really well, you might be
able to see some of the redflags.
But schools are so big nowadays, you know you might like I've
taught in a school where we had90 other teachers and so there's
no way that anyone can monitoryou know what, what, what's
happening and and see that.
And then they need to listen,like I think you were saying in
(28:52):
that, and then they need tolisten, like I think you were
saying at the beginning of thearticle.
Another educator's daughter wasbeing trafficked by them and she
reported it but nothinghappened, and so they need to
listen, because this isn'tsomething that's happening
elsewhere.
It's happening in our schools.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah, it's common and I think a lot of people are
able to dismiss it, because alot of people feel like, well,
you know prostitution yeah yeahyou know.
But everyone is like oh,trafficking, absolutely, no,
absolutely.
You know, that's evil.
I don't approve of that.
But if we don't, if we can'trecognize the connections
(29:35):
between prostitution andtrafficking, they both are
leading to the same play.
I mean, we have 15 year oldgirls being sold out on the
streets.
That that's trafficking, that'shuman trafficking.
When there's an outcry likethis, like in 2022, I mean, even
the mother of the 15 year oldwas trying to get detectives and
the school district to like dosomething, and no one did
(29:57):
anything.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, and if you look at the population that they
were targeting, these are goingto be kids who probably didn't
have a really great reputation.
They were vulnerable and so,rather than saying, hey, let's
look at the root, what's goingon here, they were looking
mostly at the symptoms and theywere saying, well, let's look at
the root what's going on here.
They were looking mostly at thesymptoms and they were saying,
well, of course, this girl might, yeah she's a runaway, of
(30:21):
course she's going to become aprostitute, because that's what
happens and they think it's achoice.
but there's no way a 15, 16, oreven a 17-year-old can make that
choice.
Their brain isn't even fullydeveloped enough to be able to
have the foresight to see whatis this going to mean in a year
and in five years if they'restill alive, you know, in five
(30:42):
years.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Yeah, and so you know the case is pending, so we'll
see what happens.
But we really just wanted toget on here and break this down
for you guys, because, guys, wehave to educate, we have to
bring awareness to this.
We can't, you know, let thisincident happen and not educate,
not begin to spread awarenessand hopefully, you know, if
(31:06):
something like this happens inyour school district, you know,
hopefully we'll be able to spotit and stop it before it goes on
for years and years and years.
And you know, the recoveryprocess, the restorative process
for victims of trafficking isextensive.
It's a lot of money, it'strauma therapy, it's physical
(31:28):
ailments, overcoming substanceabuses, which no 15 or
16-year-old should ever have tostruggle through.
That.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Absolutely not.
And, david, can I add one?
Speaker 1 (31:40):
more thing.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
You know, I taught for a number of years and I do
want to say that theoverwhelming majority of
teachers out there are fantastic.
They really do love kids.
They want what's best for kids,but there are enough in the
system to have a huge impact onthe lives of many children and
(32:04):
so you know, I want to give ashout out to all the teachers
who are doing their job.
They're loving these kids inthe right way, but teachers
themselves need to be payingattention to the person next
door and keeping door and notkeeping tabs, but building
relationships so that you know,you can see these red flags
before it spreads.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, and of course, if you're connected with Elijah
Rising, we believe in the powerof prayer, and so pray for your
school districts.
Pray for our teachers, pray forthe school officials, pray for
the students, like this morninguh, we took time to to uh, dawn
had printed out all the missingkids from this area and we just
(32:45):
began to lay their, their facesout on the table and just just
pray over them.
The power of prayer, um, iseffective.
And also, you know, share thisvideo with someone, share it
with a parent, share it with aneducator, a teacher, someone who
works in the school system,someone who works with youth.
These, I mean these red flagsare all across the board.
(33:08):
Trafficking looks different, butin many ways it utilizes the
same systems systems ofmanipulation absolutely yeah so,
thank you guys, let us knowwhat you think and hopefully
we'll be able to do some more ofthese type episodes where we
break down the news for you tobring awareness and education
about human trafficking.
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