Giving Back Magazine February 2020 | Page 60

Heroes SAVED IN AMERICA A California Non-Profit Organization of Former Police Officers and Navy SEALs turned Licensed Private Investigators who assist Parents and Law Enforcement in locating Missing & Exploited Children NARRAT IVE BY F OU NDER : PASTOR JOSEPH A. TRAVER S, CPI , CCDI , CMECI Saved in America O n September 21, 2009 I was reading an article from the Orange County Register, “Retired Terror Hunters Hope to End Child Sex Slavery [in foreign countries]”. This brought to mind the news I heard recently regarding a missing 17-year-old girl who left her parent’s home in New York. Brittanee Drexel was last seen in a hotel video in South Carolina on April 25th. Where was she? In August 2016 the FBI reported that Brittanee was taken from the hotel in Myrtle Beach by a gang member pimp to a stash house in North Carolina for several days then repeatedly raped by gang members, shot dead and fed to alligators. 60 GBSAN.COM | FEBRUARY 2020 As a former Police Detective and current Licensed Private Investigator, I have seen countless cases of missing children. The statistics are grim and disheartening. I knew many children ended up being trafficked into human slavery and felt compelled to meet the “Terror Hunters”, to see if there was a way to perform these rescues here in the United States. I immediately made arrangements to meet these former special operations ‘Terror Hunters’. Through a series of meetings, I met a former Navy SEAL who helped form Saved In America (SIA). It was decided after several meetings and operational discussions that Saved In America would focus on preventing gangbanger/ pimp/predator/slave traders from securing girls to traffic here in