Page 8 - Debbie Hoffman News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Lifeline trying to reach the unreachable. >> human trafficking is happening right here in our own backyards. it's happening from county to county and from state to state. this is my cell phone number, okay. i want you to call me when you get out, okay? even if you don't want to get into a program. just let me know you're okay, okay? >> hoffman tries to make an emotional connection with the young girls in an attempt to wrest them from the iron grip of their pimps. >> they'll probably make around maybe $1,000 a night off of one girl. and if he has six girls, so that's about $6,000 in one night. ...

She was i'd say, i know she was well under five feet tall. she wasn't developed. and she was with a mentor who was probably 13 years old. 13 or 14 if i remember. and we were shocked. >> oakland pd knows that moments like these where they can isolate the girls from their captors are the only window of opportunity to try to offer young women help and services. >> i mean, some of the stories i've heard are just horrendous. >> for hoffman, every story is a heart breaker whether it's the 10-year-old sent out to work the streets for her mother or the 14-year-old run away who ran into the arms of a m...

>> we don't want to do this. we are made to do this. we are forced to do this. and when someone's life is threatened and constantly every day saying, if you don't get on the track, i'm going to kill you, i'm going to stab you, i have my boys watching you, you can't do anything. you're scared. >> the odds of pulling a girl off the street are small, but hoffman and the men of oakland's task force are undaunted. saleda says it's a race against the clock. the earlier they can pull a girl off the street, the more likely it is that she won't fall prey again to the anxious men who only see children i...

And sell themselves. it's a street where men force young girls to sell their bodies for cash. >> a lot of men early in the morning, they're going to work, so they'll stop and buy a prostitute. and then when they're done, they just go to work. so, a lot of them tells the guys at work, hey, guess what i did on the way to work kind of thing. so it spreads, you know, word of mouth. >> five nights a week as the light of day fades debbie hoffman of oakland pd's see care unit heads to the track. >> let's just go talk to them. >> she's on a mission to seek and find the forgotten girls who sacrifice th...

About to make her last proposition of the night. >> how much for two of us? just quick head. >> oh, that's going to be a hundred. >> i don't know -- all right. where should i meet you? all right. walk over there. i'll meet you. >> moments later officer saleda tells officers to grab the young woman for soliciting prostitution. >> in the old days it was a sweep. you just swept these girls off the street and didn't give a damn. you threw them in jail and you weren't attacking a problem. you weren't solving the problem. the girls would keep coming back out and keep doing it. by attacking the pimps...