The Los Angeles Police Department said Wednesday its officers and detectives took part in a coordinated, multi-agency effort to target predators who exploit women and children for sex work, making more than 100 arrests and rescuing at least 3 people.
Statewide, police reported 368 arrests during the weeklong operation, named "Reclaim and Rebuild," and a total of 131 women and juveniles removed from exploitation.
“The victims’ ages in this operation were found to be between 13 and 52 years of age, with 6 of them being juveniles," LAPD Chief Michel Moore said during a public announcement of the operation at the Los Angeles Police Academy in Elysian Park.
Those adults and children rescued were connected with social workers and advocates from a number of non-profit organizations that assist people who've been forced into commercial sex work, the officials said.
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The LAPD said it has officers assigned full-time in several parts of the city to combat human trafficking and sexual exploitation, but in 2021 it disbanded a headquarters unit that specialized in these cases -- following the City Council's decision to "defund" more than $100-million from the department's budget.
A memo detailing the cutbacks, obtained by the I-Team, said without the 18 officers and detectives' expertise, "the liklihood of a successful investigation and arrest of an exploiter is diminished," due to a lack of trained investigators.
LAPD Chief of Detectives Kris Pitcher said the squads working at area police stations have picked up the caseload, and noted there are plenty of detectives handling these investigations.
"Valley Bureau and South Bureau have the most activity in terms of human trafficking, and so each one of them has, I believe, 11 or 12 individuals that work nothing but that literally full time, 365 days a year," Pitcher said.
The headquarters cut, he said, "only affected the human trafficking unit at Detective Bureau, which is my entity. And so ultimately, the impact of that is … we lose a little bit of full time coordination."
