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FBI Director Robert Mueller, announcing the arrests and recoveries made during Operation Cross Country
The Federal Bureau of Investigation today announced that from June 18 to 23, it had law enforcement agencies from across the country involved in a so-called “national enforcement action” called Operation Cross Country, during which 389 people were arrested — and 21 children were “recovered.” Dallas was among the 16 cities involved in the operation, and though the media releases do not offer city-by-city breakdowns, an FBI spokesperson in Washington, D.C., tells Unfair Park today that one of the 21 juveniles rescued during the operation was indeed “found in Dallas.” There were also eight arrests made in Dallas during the five-day sweep.
Mark White, the local FBI spokesman, tells Unfair Park that during the operation, all eight were arrested on state charges for, among other things, prostitution, pimping and drug paraphernalia possession. “There was one juvenile returned to her parents,” White says. “She was considered high-risk, but she was not being trafficked.” But, he wants to be clear: This was a single initiative on the feds’ part — and “DPD and federal law enforcement work these issues every single day. This makes it sound like a three-day initiative, where, at the end of it, people walk away from it. But this is just a snapshot of time. Investigators work on these issues every single day.” –Robert Wilonsky
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