Irvine officer joins O.C. human trafficking task force

For Irvine police, a new way of handling commercial sex crimes has already taken hold, but the department is now making that new approach official and hoping others will follow their lead.

Last month, Irvine city officials announced they’d join the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force and dedicate a full-time officer to the cause.

The task force, which has existed since 2004, uses a diagram to explain its purpose: Like a series of gears, it joins different law enforcement jurisdictions with community services organizations with the intent of making a more efficient machine to lock up human traffickers and rescue their victims.

Irvine police say they’ve worked with the task force since its inception but now — as the department is adding officers — was the time to make their participation official.

“We just believe this is the right thing to do,” Irvine Deputy Chief Mike Hamel said. “We just believe this is a very important issue.”

The move will make it easier for the group to operate in Irvine’s jurisdiction but it also formalizes a collaboration that can help crack expansive cases that often cross local, state and national boundaries.

“A lot of times these cases are complex,” Hamel said. “They involve intricate networks of criminal enterprise.”

Without help from other agencies, pursuing a large trafficking investigation can be daunting, Hamel said. He used an example from his own department.

Last year, an Irvine officer stopped to talk to a 17-year-old girl on the street and eventually coaxed her into telling him what was wrong, Hamel explained.

“Something wasn’t right about her demeanor,” he said. “Come to find out she had been enslaved and forced into sex for several days by a pimp and two madams.”

But the case was geographically expansive, Hamel said. The girl had been lured from Sacramento and at least one of her captors was still there, according to police.

With the task force’s help, Irvine officers found the perpetrators and arrested them, Hamel said.

But, beyond police work, a key component of the task force’s role in the case was how it handled the victim, he added.

A small team of victim-assistance workers gave the 17-year-old clothes, found her shelter and ultimately reunited her with her family, Hamel said.

Lita Mercado oversees this portion of the task force in her role as program director of community service programs. She says taking care of victims is a key component to solving their cases.

Usually trafficking victims in Orange County aren’t from the local area, she said, and “Often they don’t have anything other than what they have on their person.”

Unless the victim feels safe, they’re not likely to cooperate with police, Mercado explained.

This often means finding them a temporary place to stay, reuniting them with their family and — when there’s an arrest — bringing them back to testify against their abusers.

“We’ll call them and we’ll fly them down for their court cases and sit right beside them as they testify in court,” she said.

This new attitude toward women in prostitution is one Mercado is working to spread. It’s also one Irvine has embraced, she said.

“Irvine [made] a lot of sense because they’re already trained; they’re already doing a lot of good work,” Mercado said.

Irvine is the third local police department to join the task force.

Anaheim and Huntington Beach police are already members, along with larger organizations like the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, CHP and Orange County district attorney’s office

Even so, the task force operates with a relatively small full-time staff.

Once Irvine selects an officer to send over, there will be a grand total of six law enforcement personnel in the group.

“It’s always a huge deal when we can ever get a single person,” Mercado said.

He or she will be one more gear in the task force’s work.

“It’s just one streamlined efficient machine to deal with human trafficking,” Mercado said.