JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the recovery of 163 children during Operation Statewide Shield, the first statewide child recovery initiative and the largest operation of its kind in state history.<\/p>\n
The children ranged in age from 2 months to 17 years old. Many had experienced abuse, neglect, exploitation or exposure to other criminal activity, including human trafficking, according to the Attorney General\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
The five-day operation ran across seven Florida cities \u2014 Pensacola, Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, Fort Myers and Miami \u2014 using real-time intelligence and field operations to locate and recover vulnerable youth.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n Jacksonville was a central hub of the effort. The city accounted for 32 of the 163 recoveries, the third-highest total among the participating regions behind Tampa Bay (46) and Miami (41). <\/p>\n Jacksonville also supplied one of the operation\u2019s 13 assisting sheriff\u2019s offices, alongside neighboring Clay, Nassau, Putnam, St. Johns and Flagler county agencies in the region.<\/p>\n In all, recoveries were made across the Tampa Bay region (46), Miami (41), Jacksonville (32), Orlando (21), Fort Myers (12), Pensacola (8) and Tallahassee (3).<\/p>\n Operations also extended beyond Florida, with recoveries in Alabama, California, Ohio, New York, North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Tennessee, as well as internationally in Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Dominica, Finland, Ghana, Guatemala, Italy, Jamaica, Mexico, Spain and Taiwan.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n The operation led to multiple arrests, including a defendant wanted on three counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a minor who also had a warrant for interference with child custody; a second defendant charged with lewd and lascivious battery on a victim between 12 and 16 years old; and a third charged with interference in a child custody case and resisting officers without violence. Officials said more arrests are expected in the coming days.<\/p>\n Recovered children were transported by local law enforcement to designated recovery hubs, where they received support from social services, child welfare professionals, medical providers and victim advocates. All recovery information was documented through the Missing and Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of these kids have been victimized by those who prey on the most vulnerable,\u201d Uthmeier said. \u201cThanks to the outstanding work of FDLE, the Office of Statewide Prosecution, and our state and local partners, these children are now safe and receiving the care they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass said the operation brought together state, local and federal partners \u201cto achieve a singular mission: find our kids and bring them home.\u201d<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n The Florida Department of Law Enforcement led the operation, drawing on lessons from the U.S. Marshals-led Operations Dragon Eye and Home for the Holidays, with Rita Peters, special counsel to the Attorney General for human trafficking, serving as legal advisor. <\/p>\n The effort was planned and executed by FDLE Tampa, the Office of Statewide Prosecution, the Department of Children and Families, the Department of Juvenile Justice, Baycare, More to Life and the Florida Human Trafficking Victims Fund, along with 13 sheriff\u2019s offices and numerous municipal and federal law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n Multiple investigations tied to the operation remain ongoing.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the recovery of 163 children during Operation Statewide Shield,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117,152839],"class_list":["post-385817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-operation-statewide-shield"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}