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Paula Savage Cohen, President of End Abuse Long Beach, presents Lt. Dan Pratt with an award recognizing the LBPD Vice Investigations Team for their efforts in combating human trafficking. Photo by Brittany Woolsey

The Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) Vice Investigations Team was recognized Thursday morning for its efforts in rescuing victims of human trafficking since the Human Trafficking Task Force section of the Vice Investigations Team was created in February of this year.

The ceremony, hosted by End Abuse Long Beach at the Alpert Jewish Community Center, honored Sgt. Eric Hooker and the six members of the Vice Investigations Team for rescuing 22 girls ages 12 to 17; referring 54 women to nonprofit organizations for assistance and help; and arresting 91 criminals—more than any other city in Los Angeles County.

The key tactic for getting victims to cooperate was just that—treating them as victims, and not as criminals, said Lt. Dan Pratt, who the six members of the Vice Investigations Team reports to. Many of these girls or women are not prostituting themselves by choice, he said, adding that if they are comforted, they’re more likely to talk.

“Not every girl is cooperative,” Pratt said. “But what we discovered is if we treat every one of them as a victim, some of them will actually start to talk to us. We started putting them into what we call ‘soft rooms’ instead of interrogation rooms. You put them on a couch, like you would to a rape victim or a victim of child abuse, and you ask them questions and treat them like human beings.”

Pratt said that the task force has been successful because it used part of its $650K allocated to them by the city to teach other departments the importance of treating these girls and women as victims. It trained all LBPD detectives, as well as the Long Beach Fire Department (LBFD), Long Beach Unified School District and local hospitals, about how to comfort these victims so they’re more responsive.

“These are people who are experts in what they do,” Pratt said. “Now that they understand the human trafficking aspect, we can go out and do these large operations. Gang investigators are able to help us track down pimps only known by their gang names.”

Pratt referred to a case in which two men were put behind bars for prostituting two women and a 16-year-old girl. In this case, one of the women had her pimp’s moniker tattooed on her forehead. Members of the Vice Investigations Team brought the woman to Homeboy Industries, which removed the tattoo to help the woman move on with her life.

“Three years ago, a case like this would have been very hard for us to accomplish,” Pratt said, referring to times when prostitutes were not treated as victims and would therefore not cooperate with the police.

City Prosecutor Doug Haubert applauded the efforts of the Vice Investigations Team for their accomplishments.

“It’s a pleasure to work with these guys every day,” Haubert said. “Thank you so much for your leadership in helping us combat human trafficking.”