HERO + REAL HEROES OF ENVIRONMENTALISM, POLITICS, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE ARTS, PAST AND PRESENT

1517765878

Veteran Navy SEALs and Law Enforcement Teamed up to Save Kids From Child Sex Trafficking — For Free


The nonprofit Saved In America, which goes by SIAM, was created by veteran Navy SEALs and retired law enforcement to save children from sex trafficking. To date, they’ve rescued 58 girls and they’ve done it all completely for free.

As a police officer in the 1980s, pastor and private investigator Joseph Travers saw the street gangs, cartel, and prison gangs form a triad to successfully take over the drug-trafficking trade.Then, from 2007 to 2009, the same apparatus was used to take over the child sex-trafficking trade. Around that time, 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel disappeared and her story sparked Travers’ curiousity. 

"When I saw this, this missing kid, I wondered what happened to Brittanee?" he told IJR. "With all this knowledge I had." Then he read an article about Navy SEALs going overseas to rescue children from child sex-trafficking "hot spots" in Asia and an idea started to form.

He connected with the Navy SEALs from the article, and over time, they created SIAM."Number one, we didn’t want to charge the parent," Travers told IJR. "Number two, we didn’t want to pay anybody because we wanted all volunteers, which is another challenge." The third piece of the puzzle was legitimacy with law enforcement, so everyone in the organization has to be properly licensed and insured.

It may seem obvious as to why Travers only wants the "highest trained" people for his team, but there’s a specific quality Navy SEALs and special operators possess that’s invaluable."What their training does is it makes them selfless," Travers explained to IJR. "Everything is about the people around them and not about them."

The team is filled with the best of the best, and more importantly, Travers explained, the team has "heart" for what they do.

From veteran Navy SEALs to former law enforcement, every person involved is a volunteer and never receives a paycheck and it’s for a very specific reason. He explained to IJR: Whether it’s a separate business they own or another professional venture, the 34 people on his team still earn livings outside of SIAM. But when the call goes out for help, Travers explained, he’s never been in a situation when no one has responded.

While SIAM is unique in that they rescue children for free, it’s also unique because of its success rate. Since its first operation in 2014, they’ve recovered 58 girls — 100 percent of the cases they’ve taken on. Travers told IJR the average time of recovery is only five-and-a-half days and they’ve found missing children in as little as 12 hours. 

He explained that studies show a child will be approached by a sex trafficker within 48 hours of leaving home. "The trafficker is like the wolf and the small child is like an innocent sheep, and the wolves are out there looking for their sheep," he said.

SIAM uses elite trained special operations volunteers, people who understand gangs and the narcotics trade, and top-notch social networking investigators, which is a mix Travers credits as key to the organization’s success.

"This is the new slavery, right now," he said. "It’s human slavery and it’s being perpetrated by the street gangs. If you show me a drug dealer, that’s a child sex trafficker."

The best part about his job? When a child is brought back home — specifically to her mother."Every time we rescue a child when you return the child to mom — to see the look on mom’s face makes it worth it," he told IJR. 

Travers called on all of the people profiting off an event where children are "getting abused and sold" to speak out against it. He added that it would "absolutely" help save lives and foster change if there was more of a spotlight on the rampant issue.

"I’m sure if it was one of their daughters it would be different, but that’s how they should look at all these girls — as their daughters," Travers told IJR.

As SIAM continues to expand its operations, Travers, the private investigator, advised all parents to know their children’s cellphone and computer "as good or better as they do" because "that’s where it’s happening."

If your child has gone missing, Travers, the pastor, recommends seeking help with your church and surrounding yourself with family. After you contact the police and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, "call us because we’ll help you for free."

by Jenni Fink
 Feb 4, 2018 
America/Independent Journal Review
1512729983
1512729991

Through sanctuary and advocacy, Neda DeMayo has devoted herself to saving wild horses — and to helping people re-connect to the natural world.


To understand Neda DeMayo, you have to understand her lifelong devotion to wild horses. At age 6, after watching a helicopter chase and capture horses on television, she declared to her stunned parents that she would make a place for these horses. 

Decades after witnessing the scene, the visionary behind Return to Freedom Wild Horse Conservation has done just that.DeMayo (whose first word was horse, according to her 94-year-old mother, Stella) began taking riding lessons at age 5 near her rural Connecticut home and at 8 years old had her own horse with an unruly pony to keep him company. 

A week after graduating from high school, she jumped in her car with her dog and best friend and traveled across America, landing in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she became a holistic practitioner and was active in theater arts. While enjoying the creativity of working in the theater and film industry, 

DeMayo was shocked to discover through press reports in the early ’90s that there had been no end to the helicopter roundups of wild horses she had seen as a child and decided it was time to take action on their behalf."Although in my heart I hoped for true preservation — where wild horses, wildlife, and our vast habitats could remain untouched — I knew there needed to be an educational element to bring an awareness that there were still wild horses in America, what they are, their value, and what threatens their survival threatens our own," DeMayo says. "The value of creating a sanctuary is not only to provide refuge for the animals that live there, but to be able to effect change to save thousands more through education."

Exploring the logistics of what might be involved in operating a wild horse sanctuary, DeMayo began to delve into the politics surrounding wild horses. Traveling to observe herds in California, Nevada, and Oregon, she quickly understood that America’s wild horses were caught on the front lines in a battle over the use of our federal lands and natural resources, so she turned her focus to finding solutions.

DeMayo and her parents had visited a wild horse sanctuary in Northern California. The experience inspired the DeMayos to pool their assets and buy a rundown 300-acre ranch — and in November 1998, Return to Freedom launched its American Wild Horse Sanctuary near Lompoc, California, 60 miles north of Santa Barbara. With it, DeMayo’s dream of a safe haven for many of America’s wild mustangs became a reality. Her fundamental purpose for the sanctuary was to explore alternatives to how wild horses and burros were being managed both on the range and after capture. 

The sanctuary was created as a model for solutions that could be applied on the range to replace the government’s endless and costly capture-and-removal management program.The first 25 horses arrived at the sanctuary from the Hart Mountain Fish and Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in December 1998. The horses were among 279 that were gathered on horseback from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service land by the late wild horse advocate Jim Clapp, one of a very few individuals skilled enough to do so. The small herd now had a new home in the hills of California’s Central Coast. 

The next group of horses came from the Sheldon FWS Refuge in Nevada. Upon hearing that the USFWS was planning to remove horses from the Sheldon Refuge. "We got involved there because horses captured off FWS lands are not branded and most end up sold for slaughter," says DeMayo.  "When you understand how deeply bonded they are — and how they suffer when they are ripped from their herd and their range — if you are able to keep families together and release them into a sanctuary where they can live out their lives, unbothered, it’s all worth it."

Over the next 15 years, Return to Freedom’s sanctuary became home to harem bands representing the diversity of the American mustang. These include dwindling populations of Spanish mustangs descended from Spanish Barbs, 100 percent pure-in-strain Choctaw Indian ponies, Cerbat, Wilbur-Cruce Colonial Spanish Mission horses, Sulphur Springs horses, and larger horses whose herds returned to a natural state over the past few hundred years in the challenging habitats of the American West.

Return to Freedom has advocated for almost 20 years for the redirection of funds spent on expensive and traumatic roundups toward viable and minimally intrusive alternatives that would enable wild horses and burros to remain on their rangelands."We need to find solutions that ensure that wild horses and burros receive a more equitable share of the public lands designated for their protection in 1971. We have to strike a balance that benefits wild horses and other wildlife as well as ranching interests," DeMayo says. "Congress could change the discussion by creating tax credits or incentives for public-land ranchers who reduce their livestock grazing on designated wild horse Herd Management Areas and by increasing water and rangeland restoration projects through university and volunteer programs."

DeMayo’s father passed away three years ago, but he lived long enough to see the addition of a 2,000-acre satellite sanctuary in San Luis Obispo, California, provided by a generous and committed family through Return to Freedom’s wild horse conservator program. Today, Return to Freedom provides refuge to 500 wild horses and 46 burros at four locations, two of which are leased temporarily.

Two locations are open for guided tours and photo safaris. Guests can photograph and observe the diverse strains of the American mustang and meet the "ambassador" horses like Spirit, the Kiger mustang stallion who was the muse for DreamWorks’ 2002 animated feature film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron."

Return to Freedom’s sanctuary functions as a living history museum so that people can see the important role the horse has played in the development of our country, as well as their importance as an integral part of the ecosystem," DeMayo says. "Education has been the foundation of our advocacy work and has inspired others to find their voice."Advocacy remains high on DeMayo’s agenda. 

The organization also has relationships with reform-minded ranch owners, government agencies, other sanctuaries, and animal-welfare organizations. At the two-decade mark, DeMayo remains a tireless advocate. In the coming year, she’ll be focusing on fundraising for a larger preserve and educational center.

Zeroing in on the crux of the matter, DeMayo poses something to all of us: "A question for the American people should be whether it is acceptable to have a future in which there are no wild horses living on their public lands. Return to Freedom contends that public lands are part of our collective inheritance as citizens and that the wildlife, resources, and habitats on those lands — including wild horses and burros — are part of our shared responsibility."We believe our country will be poorer if future generations cannot see wild horses run free." 

by Wendy Wilkinson
January 2018 
Photos by Tony Stromberg 
1513959690
PHOTO BY TONY STROMBERG
PHOTO BY TONY STROMBERG
1514392446
“Today is not a holiday for the Highway Patrol. Today is about a tragic loss of one of our own, one by the name of Andrew Camilleri, who we will consider a hero now and forever,”
“Today is not a holiday for the Highway Patrol. Today is about a tragic loss of one of our own, one by the name of Andrew Camilleri, who we will consider a hero now and forever,”

CHP officer killed in Christmas Eve freeway crash in Hayward


A California Highway Patrol officer, just hours from getting off duty and going home to open Christmas presents with his wife and three young children, was killed when an impaired driver swerved off the road and slammed into his patrol vehicle, which was parked near an on-ramp to Interstate 880 in Hayward, the CHP said Monday.


The California Highway Patrol officer killed in the crash on 880 was identified as Andrew Camilleri, 33. He leaves behind a wife and three children.


Andrew Camilleri Sr., 33, of Tracy, a CHP officer for a year and a half, was killed in the crash at 11:20 p.m. on Christmas Eve, CHP officials said. His partner, Officer Jonathan Velasquez, was treated at a hospital for lacerations and released Monday, said Sgt. Rob Nacke, a CHP spokesman.


“Today is not a holiday for the Highway Patrol. Today is about a tragic loss of one of our own, one by the name of Andrew Camilleri, who we will consider a hero now and forever,” CHP Assistant Chief Ernest Sanchez said at a news conference Monday in Hayward.


“I come to you with a broken heart, but also anger,” Sanchez said. “This person chose to drive while under the influence of alcohol and also drugs, and this needs to stop.”


The two officers were assigned to a “maximum enforcement” Christmas Eve patrol for drunken drivers and speeders and were parked on the shoulder of southbound I-880 near the Winton Avenue on-ramp when a red Cadillac moving at a high rate of speed drifted off the roadway and struck their vehicle from behind. “This individual was coming home from a party and obviously had too much to drink and maybe too much to smoke,” Sanchez said. Sanchez said the driver who hit the officers, a 22-year-old Hayward man, was hospitalized with serious injuries. He is suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, specifically marijuana. The driver’s name has not been released.


Sanchez said both officers were sitting in the patrol vehicle with their seat belts on. Velasquez was in the driver’s seat, while Camilleri was in the front passenger seat.

“The impact was so severe that it turned a utility vehicle into a very small compact vehicle,” Sanchez said. “So it kind of gives you an idea of the speeds that were involved.”


He said he had to notify Camilleri’s wife, Rosanna, of her husband’s death. The couple have a 12-year-old daughter and two sons, ages 2 and 6. “ The children were expecting their father to come home and help open Christmas presents,” Sanchez said.


Camilleri joined the Highway Patrol in August 2016 and graduated from the CHP Academy on March 3, the patrol said. He was assigned to the Hayward area office.


“Andrew was drawn to this profession due to his courage, his integrity and his desire to serve,” said Capt. Tim Pearson, commander of the CHP Hayward area office. “Andrew was a great man who loved his job, who loved his family.”


Gov. Jerry Brown and his wife, Anne Gust Brown, released a statement Monday lamenting the loss of Camilleri. The governor said flags at the state Capitol would be flown at half-staff in the officer’s honor.



For those wishing to help Officer Camilleri’s family, the CHP says the California Association of Highway Patrolmen Credit Union will establish a benevolence fund that will direct all donations to the officer’s immediate family members.


The fundraising site will be available at www.facebook.com/chpgoldengate.



San Francisco Chronicle

by Bob Egelko

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.


California Highway Patrol officers across the state arrested more than 790 people for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol over the Christmas holiday weekend.

1512500164
1512315847
1512315939

- 1 - - 2 -