US police arrest men holding starving children
August 6, 2018
Police in Taos, New Mexico, said that 11 children ages one to 15 were rescued after officers raided a makeshift compound occupied by armed "extremists."
Two men were arrested after police found them and the children in what one officer called "the saddest living conditions and poverty I have seen."
Three women living at the compound were initially taken into custody but released. However, on Monday, authorities said the women, who are believed to be the mothers of the 11 children, were arrested.
The arrests were part of an operation connected to a months-long search for an abducted three-year-old, according to the Taos County sheriff's office.
The investigation started late last year in Jonesboro, Georgia, where 39-year-old Siraj Wahhaj was accused of kidnapping his own toddler — who was ultimately not found.
The boy's mother told police that her child, who she said suffered from seizures along with developmental and cognitive issues, went to the park with his father Wahhaj last December and never returned.
The search of the compound came amid a two-month investigation in collaboration with Georgia authorities and the FBI, according to Taos, New Mexico Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe.
He said FBI agents had surveilled the area a few weeks ago but did not find probable cause to search the property.
Authorities move in
The site, described in a warrant as "a makeshift compound surrounded by tires and an earthen berm" was surveilled for a time, with the belief that Wahhaj was in hiding there. However, the site was not searched immediately given a lack of "probable cause."
That changed when officers received a message to a third party that was forwarded by colleagues from Georgia and which was thought to have been sent from the camp area. The message said simply: "We are starving and need food and water."
"I absolutely knew that we couldn't wait on another agency to step up and we had to go check this out as soon as possible," said a statement from the sheriff.
The sheriff described planning "a tactical approach for our own safety because we had learned the occupants were most likely heavily armed and considered extremist of the Muslim belief."
On the morning of August 3, a dozen officers began the "all day" operation, and discovered the two men with an AR-15 rifle, five loaded 30-round magazines and four loaded pistols, including one in Wahhaj's pocket.
At first, the men refused to follow verbal direction, police said, who added the raid went without major incident or injuries.
Morten was charged with harboring a fugitive and Wahhaj was booked without bond on his Georgia warrant for child abduction.
Hogrefe, describing the scene, said the adults and children had no shoes, wore dirty rags for clothing and "looked like Third World country refugees."
The group appeared to have been living at the compound for a few months. It was unclear how or why they ended up in New Mexico, Hogrefe said.
The children were removed from the compound and turned over to state child-welfare workers.
av/rc (AP, Reuters)