Here's What the Data Reveals About Reno Police Sex Trafficking Reporting and the Scandal
A report by Jim Fleming, who studied trafficking reporting data, indicates inadequate information provided by RPD to justify Federal grant funding, which might have led to the current investigation.
The Reno Police Department has received significant federal grant funding to combat sex trafficking. The RPD indicates that they are rescuing girls and women. They are not, as indicated by discrepancies in the data and their tactics as reported by Jim.
In many of the incidents that the RPD reports, there is no victim, only an undercover female agent POSING as a victim, and a John gets arrested, but no victims are rescued. The federal grants require the RPD to save victims. Not just “stage a bust.”
The news is full of these stories of the police stings that entrap “Johns” while failing to raid motels and rescue victims. In this article, I explain what is going on.
Link: 18 Arrested in Prostitution and Child Exploitation Sting
Link: 12 arrested in prostitution sting operation in Reno
Link: Undercover sting in Midtown Reno leads to six citations for solicitation
Link: Prostitution john sting in Reno leads to four arrests, six citations
Reno Police Staff posing with Chief Nance after a recent reorganization. The RDP leadership is currently on leave due to a scandal about which we have not been given full details.
Nevada has a Human Trafficking Problem.
Nevada ranks number one in the nation (adjusted for population) for rates of women and children in the sex trade.
In Nevada, over 5,000 women and girls are being sold for sex illegally at any time, 1,500 of whom are in northern Nevada.
Despite the police activity and sting operations, trafficking numbers are not going down. The problem is increasing.
Link: Nevada’s Trafficking Statistics
Aaron Ford pushed for SB 7, which revised Nevada’s crimes relating to prostitution, enabling cyber stings.
Aaron Ford pushed for SB7 in 2019, which revised Nevada’s crimes relating to prostitution by making it a felony offense to solicit a minor for prostitution even when the “minor” is a peace officer posing as a minor.
This change in the law had unintended consequences. It led the police to focus on cyber stings rather than on raiding motels and rescuing victims.
These operations make the numbers look good, but these operations don’t meet Federal guidelines for reporting of Trafficking when justifying grant money.
Link: Attorney General Ford Announces Bills Protecting Children from Sexual Predators Signed Into Law.
Aaron Ford set up a committee on Domestic Violence, and a Human Exploitation and Trafficking Team was instituted.
The Human Exploitation and Trafficking (HEAT) Initiative is a coordinated enforcement program led by the Nevada Attorney General’s Office under Aaron Ford.
They say that it brings together local police, sheriffs, federal agents, and victim-service groups to investigate and prosecute human trafficking cases.
In practice, it conducts undercover operations, targeting buyers through online stings, which don’t result in the rescue of victims, just the arrest of “Johns.”
Link to AG site: Human Trafficking in Nevada
The DOJ set up a grant program to address Human Trafficking.
To help the States fight Trafficking, the DoJ Set up a grant program. Any investigations into misuse would be conducted by the FBI. The current RPD scandal is being investigated by the FBI.
The grant money is distributed to the States.
Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen announced the funds come via several awards from the U.S. Justice Department.
Grants are intended to benefit police departments, cities, and counties, public safety initiatives, tribal governments, and non-profits across the state.
“To keep Nevada families safe, we need to make sure our local law enforcement has the funding and support they need to crack down on crime, hold perpetrators accountable, and support victims,” Cortez Masto said in a statement.
Link: Nevada awarded $31 million in federal funding for public safety, victim services
The Grant Money is administered by the Nevada Department of Safety.
The grant money is given to the DoS by the DoJ to administer. If there is improper reporting, the Nevada DoS would be involved in the investigation. The DoS is involved in the current Reno police scandal.
The RPD has received numerous grants for Trafficking totaling $1.02 million since 2019.
Link: National Police Funding Database - Reno grant funding
RDP has not followed the DOJ requirements involving fighting and reporting Trafficking.
I was wondering what the reason for the police scandal was when I got an email from James Fleming, a statistician who lives in Fallon, with a report attached that he had compiled after digging into the reporting database systems. His report is 21 pages long and deep in data. James and I had a 1 1/2 hour call to go over the data. James told me that the local news was not interested in his story. He had sent his report to the RPD PIO just days before the police scandal. That is a coincidence, and we don’t know whether the investigation was prompted by James’ report or something else. What follows is a summary of what I learned from James and from reading his report.
Human Trafficking must involve the Trafficking of humans, and cyber stings are not considered to be fighting Trafficking.
The DOJ requirements call for the rescue of trafficking victims, not entrapping “Johns” with cyber stings.
The reporting requirements call for identification of the victim’s age, sex, and race.
The RPD had many cases where they didn’t report this information. This indicates that there were no victims in many cases, just “Johns” and undercover police.
RPD has been reporting crimes committed in cyberspace that do not involve real victims.
RPD listed cyberspace as the location for an unusually high number of cases, rather than motels, homes, or the street where the real Trafficking happens.
RPD has reported victim identifying characteristics as unknown: they are not victims; they are police decoys.
This indicates that there was neither a perpetrator nor a victim. It was undercover police. They didn’t catch the pimps. They didn’t rescue women. They entrapped “Johns” and reported anyway, omitting the important data.
Washoe has a disproportionate number of cyberspace cases and uncleared cases compared to Clark County.
Clark County had fewer victims than offenses and used “exceptional clearance” in cases where victims wouldn’t cooperate. In comparison, Washoe had more victims, had no “exceptional clearance” entries, and all cyberspace cases are marked “completed.” The interpretation is that Washoe’s data doesn’t behave as real trafficking data should.
There are felony criminal penalties for false reporting at the State and Federal levels.
People involved might face serious criminal penalties for using incomplete or false records to obtain federal grant funding. This is just speculation at this time, and I’m waiting to see the outcome, as I am sure other people are too.
Why is the Reno Police Leadership on Leave?
Reno Police leadership was put on leave three weeks ago, and still no answers.
Link: Reno police chief, 5 officers on leave amid misconduct allegations
The Reno City Leaders hold press conferences where nothing is revealed.
Link: City leaders give update on police misconduct allegation investigation
The California Globe has reported that the scandal is about POST document forgery.
Link: Reno Police Chief, Command Staff Ousted Over Alleged Forgery of POST Training Docs
I reported on the police scandal and offered some possible reasons for it. Later, I was told it was a POST document forgery issue, but James Fleming then informed me about the grant reporting inconsistencies, so I wrote this report to outline the possibilities.
In Conclusion or Inconclusion.
We still have not been told why the Reno Police leadership is on leave. There are rumors that they falsified POST documents, as was reported by the California Globe and told to me by two sources. The current scandal might be about POST documents, or it might be about filing incomplete records to sustain DoJ funding. It might be about both.
We know that the Nevada Department of Safety is involved in the current investigation, and so is the FBI. This makes sense if the investigation is about DoJ grant reporting issues. If it were only about POST certifications, the FBI would not be involved, and the investigation would be over quickly; however, if it were about DoJ funding, it would involve the FBI and be time-consuming and complex.
It’s all a mystery at this point. What do you think is going on? Leave a comment.
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Follow the money honey!
It this is all true, it appears that the RPD figured out how to juice the federal grant system by reporting and getting paid for what amounts to busts of "virtual" (victimless) sex trafficking. Or, said another way by the RPD "well, it COULDA been real victims... (it really wasn't)... so please keep sending those grant checks!"
The federal grants supplement the RPD budget and the "reports of all of those victims saved" makes the RPD look good. The public believes we're busting the evil sex rings. The Mayor and City Council and the vast bureaucracy - purposely ignorant? complicit? (still silent and scared shitless?) - all bask in the general glory.
Except it's false. Fake. Pretense. Fraud.
This isn't a paperwork error where some RPD clerk checked the wrong box. This is purposeful manipulation; out and out deceit and financial fraud. The FBI doesn't come to town to resolve minor oversights.
The situation in Reno is likely no worse nor any better than anywhere else. Seemingly everyone at every level is in on the grift and the fraud (witness the Minnesotan Somali Child Care debacle.)
It's pretty simple to put a name to this.
It's called lying.
Unfortunately, this does not surprise me and if a good percentage of the funds given to Nevada to help combat sex trafficking was not used as provided, that does not surprise me either. Why doesn’t this surprise me? Well everywhere you look nowadays, fraud is more prevalent than what actually should be happening. For example, would you be surprised that the federally funded homeless housing does not require people staying there to be sober or clean, or have weapons? You would think that would be a requirement, but in reality, drugs are being sold, people being trafficked, an excellent federally funded establishment for these types of activities, but don’t you dare try and keep people safe with common sense “rules”. I would not be surprised if a % of that funds we are talking about is actually being used to assist the trafficking. Would that surprise you if it was being used that way? Your answer is probably, No. That is my whole point here….