On April 14, 2024 a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Officer was patrolling Wardlow Park off Stanbridge in Long Beach. Performing his usual task in the park the officer noticed the anomalous behavior of the occupants of the vehicle. There was a white male in his mid to late 50’s yelling at a younger Spanish girl who was crying. The officer initiated contact to make sure the female was ok. Upon making contact with the young girl who was in tears she stated that she was a student at Renaissance High School and that she was being pressured to perform oral sex on the older gentlemen driving the vehicle. The officer then approached the driver and requested ID and identified the driver as AL Parent.
The driver was wearing a company shirt that said LBS Financial and he stated that he was the Vice President of the credit union. Sergeant Morales responded to the scene to further interview the young girl. She stated to Sergeant Morales that she was 16 years old and that she had been meeting AL Parent every week for sex.
AL Parent was then taken into custody for sexual assault on a minor and booked into the Los Angeles County Jail. Due to the emergence of sexual predators like AL Parent the county of Los Angeles under Sheriff Robert G Luna has assembled a Human Trafficking Task Force with over 80 law-enforcement agencies consisting of Federal, State and Local officers.
Agencies such as the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Los Angeles Police Department, San Luis Obispo District Attorney’s Office, Saving Innocence, Zoe International and National Center on Sexual Exploitation. With a focus on arresting sexual predators like AL Parent, the task will also rescue victims of sexual slavery and human trafficking.
Provide victims with much needed services, identifying and arresting their captors, seeking successful prosecutions, and disrupting the demand for vulnerable victims by targeting their customers. Police agencies and other task forces throughout our state joined in the enforcement operation to send the clear message that California law enforcement shares a unified mandate: human trafficking must not be tolerated in our state. There are over 200 investigators working around the clock to apprehend criminals like AL Parent and to rescue victims like the high school student whom he was victimising.
These individuals should and will be arrested, jailed, and held accountable so that the youth of our communities can prosper and develop into successful adults free from the fear of sexual predators.
The task force has been working hard around the clock 139 people were arrested in a sweeping multi-agency crackdown on child sex abuse and child pornography this month, the Los Angeles Police Department announced Wednesday.
The operation, labeled as Operation Online Guardian, had more than 100 different agencies in it that are part of LAPD’s ICAC Task Force.
“Child exploitation is without doubt one of the worst crimes our society has to come across as children are the most valuable elements in our society,” Joe McNally, Assistant U.S. Attorney General, said at a news conference Wednesday morning. “Through these crimes, predators target those who can’t protect themselves.”
Two phases were involved in the effort. The first one involved detectives going undercover on social media and then ascertaining the ones who were trafficking child porn, according to the LAPD. In the second phase, we conducted search warrants on five counties located in Southern California. A vulnerable child was rescued from further abuse, and the personal experiences of victims who had been silenced by the heinous sexual crimes of a child were significantly transformed into speaking up,” LAPD said in a statement.
The police were tight lipped as to how many children they rescued and who the suspects were and they did not release the names of any of the suspects to the public. Charged with the offenses are sodomy of children, lewd acts, sexual abuse of a child, ownership of child pornography and failure to register as a sex offender.
Law enforcement is aware that their resources are limited as they pertain to uncovering most of the cases where children are being abused on the internet. This gap has produced the rising of the crime-hunting groups like the CC Unit in southern California. They arrange stings takedowns revealing case information to the police.
The LAPD is requesting the community to join the fight against child sex exploitation by keeping a close eye on their children online. In addition, the campaign informed parents to log in missingkids.org/NetSmartz for internet safety tips and sources.
“Operation Online Guardian has been over but the LA ICAC Task Force will go on to maintain their guard against the sexual abuse of children. Although the LA ICAC Task Force is provided with numerous resources which enable the task force to combat the sexual abuse of children they have many victims who are not noticed,” LAPD has stated.
