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Billboard Campaign Combatting Human Trafficking Unveiled
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 | | Left to Right: Casey Bates, head of ALCODA's H.E.A.T. Unit, Nola Brantley, Genice Jacobs, DA O'Malley, Bruce Qualls, & Maia Sciupac, ALCODA's H.E.A.T. Program Coodinator |
 The Alameda County District Attorney's Office started the new year launching the Bay Area's first Human Exploitation and Trafficking (H.E.A.T.) Billboard Campaign. This public awareness campaign directly confronts the epidemic of human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children. In early January, DA O'Malley unveiled billboards and bus shelters that currently blanket the city of Oakland in an effort to raise awareness of the staggering number of commercially sexually exploited children in the city and to offer help to those same children. The FBI has designated the San Francisco Bay Area as a "high intensity child prostitution area," and Oakland is one of the centers of such criminal activity. Multiple news broadcasting stations, including KTVU2, KPIX5, and ABC7, were in attendance at the press conference and reported this news story on a local, statewide, and national level by television, radio, and online mediums. Representatives from Congressman Eric Swalwell's office and Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan's Office were also present at the press conference. The exposure and attention that our PSA campaign received is also attributed to Nola Brantley, Executive Director of MISSSEY, and Bruce Qualls, VP of Real Estate and Government Affairs for Clear Channel Outdoor; both spoke at the press conference. The creative team of Suzanne Boutilier, Genice Jacobs, Tom Page and Jed Davis assisted, pro bono, in the design of the images and the writing of copy for the posters. Articles from KTVU2, KQED, the LA Times, Oakland North, & the SF Chronicle can be found here, as well as, an Op-Ed written by DA O'Malley featured by Bay Area News Group
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HEAT Billboards Presented at the U.S. Capitol & Displayed at the State Capitol
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 On Jan. 15, Representative Eric Swalwell presented one of our H.E.A.T. bus shelter posters on the House Floor in Washington D.C., gaining nationwide attention to the epidemic of modern-day slavery and the alarming increase of human trafficking in the Bay Area. His one-minute speech outlined the purpose of our H.E.A.T. PSA campaign and celebrated our Office's efforts to combat human trafficking within Alameda County. The presentation was broadcasted on C-SPAN at www.c-span.org. Watch Rep. Swalwell's speech here. On Jan. 27, several members of the Communications Unit headed to the State Capitol in Sacramento to hang up billboard posters outside of Governor Jerry Brown's office. The posters remained outside of his office throughout the last week of January to recognize National Slavery & Human Trafficking Month, and to raise public awareness of our Office's human trafficking prevention efforts to lawmakers and public dignitaries at the Capitol.
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*Informational poster of H.E.A.T. PSA campaign hangs alongside of poster samples of billboards of bus shelters in front of Gov. Brown's office*
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Supervisor Wilma Chan proclaims January as National Slavery & Human Trafficking Prevention Month
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 On Tuesday, January 28, 2014, Supervisor Wilma Chan and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors proclaimed January as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. Chief Assistant Kevin Dunleavy and members of the H.E.A.T. Watch unit were also present to receive the proclamation. The Alameda County District Attorney's Office is committed to ending human trafficking in of all forms in our local community. Our H.E.A.T. Watch team provides tools, education, and community engagement to support victims and hold their offenders accountable. Learn more about H.E.A.T. Watch's upcoming initiatives for the new year at Initiatives - H.E.A.T. Watch.
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Recent Verdicts & Other Headline News
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* On January 23, 2014, a jury convicted Andre Moncrease of second degree murder, as well as being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. Furthermore, the jury found the allegation that the defendant personally and intentionally discharged a firearm causing death to be true. On July 12, 2012, Moncrease, a pimp, murdered a nineteen year old woman who he had been exploiting as a prostitute for several months. When the victim expressed a desire and will to leave the defendant and the world of prostitution, and return home to her family, the defendant shot her in the face and fled the scene. He will be sentenced on March 14, 2014. The prosecutor was DDA Laura Passaglia.
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DA O'Malley, Asm. Skinner & Asm. Bonta held AB1517 Press Conf. re. DNA Backlog
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Rebecca Tse, ACDA Assistant to DA O'Malley, presented proclamation to A.R.E.A.E.B.
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DA O'Malley attended State of the Union Address with Congressman Swalwell
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