Girls used as sex slaves rescued after DeKalb County SWAT Team standoff

swat standoff
STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. — On the heels of a recently passed Senate resolution to toughen sex trafficking laws in Georgia, two young girls as young as 12 years old were rescued from kidnapping and prostitution in this east Atlanta suburb after a two-hour SWAT team standoff.
Three people were arrested on Friday in South DeKalb County in direct connection to exploiting two young girls who police said were being forced into prostitution, a DeKalb Police Department spokesman said.
When officers arrived at the apartment near South Hairston and Redan roads in Stone Mountain, and knocked on the door, “a subject came to the window and pointed a gun at the officers,” DeKalb Public Safety Director Cedric Alexander said.
The officers retreated and requested backup. Officers evacuated the apartment building and called in the SWAT team.
The standoff ended several hours later with the arrests of two men and a woman.
“The SWAT team was able to gain entry to the apartment, made the arrest and rescued the two young ladies,” Alexander said. “One 12-year-old and one 14-year-old child was rescued from this residence and they had been using them for child exploitation and prostitution.”
The girls taken to a local hospital to be checked out for injuries and evidence and then placed into protective custody.
DeKalb police said more arrests are forthcoming, so they are withholding the names of the suspects as to not tip off the others being sought by local and state authorities.
The state Senate passed a bill earlier in February that mandates those convicted of sex trafficking to register as sex offenders and to pay into a state fund to aid the victims.
In this case, a relative of one of the people inside the apartment dropped dime to the DeKalb Special Victims Unit that two men and a woman were holding two girls as sex slaves. The girls were recruited, then held against their will for prostitution, via social media.
DeKalb police spokeswoman Mekka Parish told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution two men arrested face a number of charges, including statutory rape, aggravated child molestation and human trafficking, and the woman faces charges that include interference with custody.
This is part of the statewide crackdown on child prostitution.
In January, two Mexicans were handed 16 and 22 year prison sentences, respectively, for trafficking three young women from Mexico to Atlanta for prostitution. Arturo Rojas-Coyotl, 28, and Odilon Martinez-Rojas, 43, both of Tenancingo, Tlaxcala, Mexico, were both also ordered to pay $180,000 in restitution to the victims.
In Cobb County, a west Atlanta suburb, a grand jury indicted Khiry Deshun Price in January on trafficking, pimping, aggravated molestation, statutory rape, pandering, enticing children and batter, Attorney General Sam Olens said. Price allegedly recruited victims, some as young as 14 years old, to sell for sex after enticing them online.

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