Law enforcement from four states gathered at Michigan State Police headquarters on Monday to start a week-long initiative to further their awareness of human trafficking.
The group of people most involved in this week-long, multi-state human trafficking initiative include motor carrier officers from Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, plus, those with the organization Truckers Against Trafficking.
The focus is to bring these officials together to ultimately help them educate people most likely to see these crimes, like commercial motor vehicle drivers, rest area attendants, and truck stop employees.
The mission, according to Captain Michael Krumm with MSP, is to have people in these positions know and understand the signs to look for, and to give them a resource to call if they see something suspicious.
“The truckers are the eyes and ears of our freeways across the nation and we know human trafficking isn’t just a Michigan problem it is nationwide, so educating as many of those folks as we can that may encounter this and giving them an outlet to call is really the aim of our program.”
Captain Krumm also says, Michigan was the second state to get involved with this initiative and since this partnership with TAT, he says there has been an amazing increase in not only awareness, but phone calls from those in the truck driving industry to stop these crimes from happening
