The grant will provide funding for staffing and overtime, forensic software, survivor support services and educational outreach, Deputy Police Chief Charles Hernandez explained to the council.
Last year, the department received approximately $428,000 from the same grant program, coinciding with the launch of the anti-trafficking North Star Task Force, which coordinates the efforts of police, other law enforcement agencies, survivor advocates and prosecutors. Hernandez noted that the maximum award for a single fiscal year is $500,000.
As legally defined, human trafficking is the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain labor or a commercial sex act from an individual. Although the term may suggest movement or transportation, that is not part of the federal definition of trafficking.
Approval of the new grant was originally on the council’s consent agenda for Tuesday, but Councilmember Khara House requested the item be pulled for discussion. House then asked Hernandez if he could provide some additional context about the department’s planned use of the funds.
“Last year we embarked on the mission of addressing human trafficking in the community, focusing on sexual exploitation of the most vulnerable in the community,” Hernandez replied. The department’s efforts to date had resulted in “numerous successes,” he added.
Hernandez did not specify those successes in his remarks, but over the past year, the department’s operations have resulted in multiple high-profile arrests involving charges of luring minors for sexual exploitation or child sex trafficking, as well as at least one court conviction for the possession of child sexual abuse materials.
Among those arrested was Dave Zorn, the long-time Flagstaff radio broadcaster and journalist who pleaded guilty to luring a minor for sexual exploitation. Zorn was apprehended as part of a series of sting operations in which law enforcement officers posed online as minors. He had communicated extensively with an undercover officer over the course of a week and made elaborate plans to meet with the individual he thought was a minor.
Some of the other defendants arrested in those sting operations were charged with child sex trafficking — an offense which, under Arizona law, includes engaging in prostitution with a minor. However, none of those cases involved any actual minor victims, and so far, all of the defendants have pleaded guilty to lesser offenses.
There have been other recent cases investigated by the department that did involve minor victims, albeit indirectly. One of those led to the conviction of a Doney Park man for possession of images and videos depicting sexual acts involving minors. (He received a 100-year prison sentence in November.) Another individual was arrested in Flagstaff in early December for allegedly soliciting, possessing and distributing child sexual abuse materials via Kik, Snapchat and Discord.
“Most of these crimes occur online and digitally,” Hernandez told the council. For that reason, the new grant includes $43,200 specifically allocated to software that will allow the police department to “obtain and retain” digital evidence, Hernandez said.
The contract notes that this software includes Magnet Forensics’ Graykey, which the company boasts can provide “same-day extractions from locked iOS and modern Android devices.” Other software specified by the contract includes tools to automate or speed up the analysis of large volumes of images, and a tool to identify child sexual abuse materials using artificial intelligence.
Besides these digital tools, the grant will provide $113,700 to fund the continued assignment of a detective to oversee anti-trafficking investigations and operations, along with $112,800 in overtime pay for other personnel assisting in such work.
And it includes $40,000 for two community organizations providing services to victims of trafficking: $30,000 for Northland Family Help Center, and $10,000 for Applejack’s Ranch. (Both are part of the North Star Task Force.) Hernandez noted that this is nearly double the amount allocated to community partners in the previous year’s grant.
In addition to investigating potential sex trafficking, Hernandez said the department would also give more attention to labor trafficking this year. He noted, as anti-trafficking advocates have mentioned in the past, that Flagstaff lies at the junction of multiple major highways, including Interstate 40.
“The risk level is high,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez thanked Michelle Rucker of Northland, Coconino County Attorney Ammon Barker, chief deputy county attorney Michael Tunink and deputy county attorney Sasha Charls for their work to secure additional grants to support the North Star Task Force.
House, following Hernandez’s remarks, said she was “very encouraged to hear the success of this in the first year.”
“Although it’s hard to say looking forward to the work that you’ll do, because of just the nature of what this is for, I’m encouraged to hear how much you’re able to accomplish using these funds,” House added.
There were no other comments or questions from the council, and the grant agreement was unanimously approved.
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