2 Newport police officers pedal to fight human trafficking
Two Newport Beach police officers are taking part in a 15-day bicycle ride that spans about 1,500 miles through Oregon and California to help raise greater awareness about human trafficking.
Deputy Chief David McGill and Detective Jason Prince entered the Freedom Ride, a nonprofit bicycle ride that kicked off Sept. 9 in Bend, Ore., and will conclude Sunday at the Newport Dunes Resort with a ceremony and talks from human trafficking survivors.
The Freedom Ride crew is comprised of eight riders and four support staff. Prince is a rider and McGill is part of the support staff following behind in a motorhome.
For Laguna Beach native and Freedom Ride Project founder Elisabeth Gegner, fighting human trafficking is a lifelong pursuit.
Gegner was exposed to the horrors of human trafficking in the late 1990s, when she volunteered at an orphanage in Thailand, according to a biography on the organization’s website.
She discovered that many of the children she worked with had been victims of human trafficking.
The images of those children became seared into Gegner’s psyche, and when she had a near-fatal bike crash in 2014, she realized that she needed to devote herself to the cause.
Gegner went on a 1,700-mile bike ride from Laguna Beach to Bend, Ore., riding about 100 miles a day to raise awareness for human trafficking, and that experience led to the creation of the Freedom Ride, which is in its first year.
McGill met Gegner about six months prior to the 2016 event, McGill said in a phone interview Tuesday while taking a rest and recovery day in San Francisco. They were both passionate about bringing deeper awareness to human trafficking, so taking part in the event seemed like a no-brainer.
“The word that best describes Beth [Gegner] is passionate,” McGill said. “This is her calling. She quit her job and sunk everything into this mission. That’s an incredible level of dedication.”
Orange County law enforcement has recently reexamined how best to combat human trafficking, and McGill said he is playing a role in the NBPD’s strategy.
“Orange County and the Newport Beach Police Department are really taking the lead on human trafficking,” McGill said. “For the longest time we were just arresting prostitutes and not thinking about what they go through. Now we are changing to a victim-centered approach, where we target the pimps.”
McGill said authorities tended to focus on arrests in the past, but are now taking a more-preventive role.
McGill said he is going to play an integral role in having a Newport Beach detective assigned to the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force, which has existed since 2004.
As they ride through small towns, McGill said he and Prince have been stopping to educate local law enforcement about human trafficking.
“I am using my position to help bring awareness and to touch local law enforcement so they can understand human trafficking,” McGill said.
Riding on back roads that wind through Oregonian forests like a vast arterial system poses more than a few risks.
On the third day of the trip, the riders got separated from their support staff in the serpentine back roads of Westfir, Ore.
They eventually found their way to their destination, but ended up riding an exhausting 150 miles that day.
“It was a crazy situation, but they found their way,” McGill said. “These are elite riders.”
McGill said one of the more precarious parts of the journey so far was when Prince wiped out on his bike early in the trip, but was luckily uninjured.
McGill’s job — driving an R.V.— can be taxing in its own way.
“Driving a large motorhome through these winding roads, there has been some close calls,” he said.
But for the most part, McGill said the trip has been nothing short of breathtaking.
“There was a point when we were going down central Oregon, right above Fort Bragg, and we saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time, it was beautiful,” McGill said. “It’s been an unbelievable and taxing trip.”
The Freedom Ride wraps up with a ceremony from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at Newport Dunes, 1131 Back Bay Drive. .
The event, which is administrated by the OCHTTF and the NBPD, will feature paddleboarding and other water sports, BMX bike shows, live music, bike decoration stations, hydro-rock wall climbing and food trucks. Several sex-trafficking survivors will also tell their stories.
Twitter: @benbrazilpilot
