Debra Rush, a self-described victim of human trafficking and the owner of an organization dedicated to helping victims of the murder, has heard the same tale several times before: A troubled young man flees home and is eventually forced into intercourse work and targeted with assault on the streets of Los Angeles.
Just Rush is then coping with a unique drama, one in which her own daughter is the target.
Kendra Rush, 20, was shot to death nearly two weeks before in a span of South L. A. known as a gateway of the state’s sex business.
On March 21, shortly after 4 a.m., one shot Kendra in the mind in the area of Figueroa and West 70th Street, according to authorities. A lady looked horrified as paramedics performed CPR on the 20-year-old while watching from the side of virtual witness footage, which caused her to appear so concerned. At the landscape, Kendra was declared dead.
Her killing occurred against a backdrop of broader argument over how to protect employees from murder, which has revealed , cracks in the criminal justice reform movement. Some detractors of liberalization claim that efforts to stop trafficking are putting people who engage in the function of their own volition more in harm’s way. In addition, proponents of stronger action worry that law enforcement’s ability to pursue those responsible for putting existence of employees has been hampered by the restart of anti-lotering laws.
Officials have said they believe there was a second shooting linked to sex work that happened on Thursday when Los Angeles police announced the arrest of a 29-year-old man suspected of killing a trans woman in the Vermont-Slauson area. The suspect, Bryan Blackmon, is being held on$ 3 million bail, according to online jail records.
Rush, 44, said she had dedicated her life to stopping violence against sexual staff yet before her mother’s death. The Fresno resident founded a nonprofit called Breaking the Chains in Central California’s San Joaquin Valley to assist trafficking victims in escaping what Rush refers to as” the life.”
Rush got the news about Kendra as she boarded a flight home after traveling to Washington, D. C. She wept into the telephone. The detectives investigating her daughter’s death would n’t tell her much. However, she claims they did inform her that Kendra was most likely be forced to sell sex by group members who controlled a section of” the Blade” of their “rent” to the local employees.
Dexter Navarro, an investigator with the LAPD’s South Bureau Homicide Division, said he could n’t comment on whether Kendra was being trafficked because the case is ongoing. For fear of compromising the analysis, Rush said she is anxious to show to many information. But, she feels certain about what happened to her child:
” The same persons she believed would guard her, I know, were the ones who murdered her,” she said.
Growing up, Rush said, Kendra’s life revolved around artwork, cheering and the English dramas and movies she used to spree in her free time. Her family recalls that she once went through a phase in her youth where she “only spoke with a British accent.” She left high school at age 16 and began working as an ecological solutions secretary at a nearby hospital.
Rush then sees painful memories of her sister’s childhood everyday. She cried when she made deviled egg for her other kids on Easter Sunday, everything Kendra allegedly insisted on doing herself.
” She would be waiting to pack the egg … to make sure they were perfect”, Rush said.
Kendra’s image frequently showed her flashing a large teeth. In one post on Instagram, she wore clean clothes as she made a harmony mark. However, Rush claimed that a deep well of suffering and mental health issues was concealed by the cheerful outside.
Both mothers and daughters experienced repeated abuse and violence in their life. Some of her sister’s problems may have been the result of sexual abuse by a caregiver, according to Rush. She also brought up an event where she claimed Kendra was the victim of a violent household war at the top of the pandemic in 2020. Two defendants broke in and assaulted her at gunpoint while she was alone at home.
” She was alone with them for 45 minutes, and I do n’t want to go into details”, Rush said.
Eventually, the suspects were charged, and Kendra testified at their trial, which her mother claimed led to a downward spiral. Her child had also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which Rush claimed made things worse for her.
” That’s where we kind of lost Kendra”, her mother said.
Kendra began having harsh outbursts and grew withdrawn, Rush said. Kendra left their home earlier this year and moved to L.A., perhaps to get closer to her biological father, according to Rush.
” She did n’t feel safe in her own mind, she did n’t feel safe at home”, she said. ” Whenever these kids have nowhere to go, no job, no nothing, it did n’t matter how much I talked to them”.
According to Rush, Kendra’s father did n’t spend much time with her when she was younger, and she occasionally went off on her own as a result of her experiences being “violently trafficked for several months” as a young adult.
Rush, according to her claims, had been living in Fresno when she was kidnapped and forced to perform sex acts to pay back a pharmaceutical owed to her mother in the middle of the 2000s. On Figueroa Street, one of the places where her prisoners abducted her was. She later ran away and returned to Fresno.
She then began to research the way that traffickers prey on the risks of their sufferers. She discovered that some people who had lately experienced similar circumstances to hers desired to return to their abusers. She discovered that while some traffickers used force, or the threat of it, others used more subtle tactics, such as offering to young women who were n’t used to getting attention treated with kindness. Over day, she said, their subjects began feeling obliged.
Such mental manipulation occasionally manifests over a period of time, she said.
In recent years, Rush began to make a title for herself in anti- smuggling lines. She made ordinary visitor looks on local TV news stations and made first-name connections with Sacramento and Washington, where she was campaigning for new anti-trafficking rules, about the program’s purpose. A Cry of the Heart, a biography of her existence, even authored by her.
She frequently brought up her own experience with Kendra, and the two had a” protection program” together in case Kendra found herself in one of these circumstances. Additionally, they were aware that Kendra would send her regular texts to prove that she was n’t in danger. In the weeks prior to her passing, the texts were stopped.
Kendra’s firing was the , following in the course of 48 hours , in Los Angeles involving patients who were thought to be engaged in sexual function.
In the first instance, a trans person was shot on March 21 in the early morning hours of the morning and her body was dumped onto Hoover Avenue between Slauson Avenue and West 59th Street. Friends of the 24- year- ancient sufferer, who went by the name Meraxes, started a GoFundMe page to help boost money to cover the mother’s funeral costs. A message sent to the fundraiser’s planner was not soon returned.
Meraxes claimed to have lived in various locations in Southern California and was employed as a beauty performer on her Instagram page. Many people left apologies under her most recent article, with one composing,” I love you so many always and always you’ll always be forgotten”. Another person called her” Chun Li” and said she was “always for a beautiful spirit to be around.”
Her death was at least the seventh crime in the U. S. so far this year in which the sufferer was” transgender, intersex, and female nonconforming”, according to the , site Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents, which documents violence against gay areas.
Surveillance cameras images from a table across the street where she was discovered revealed the dark outline of a person dragging the system into the street before leaving the scene before driving away.
Initial theories led to the conclusion that she had been shot in the back. The suspected assailant, Blackmon, is being held on$ 3 million bail, according to online jail records. He was reportedly taken into custody on March 29. His initial court date has n’t been determined, and it was unclear whether he had a lawyer at the time.
There may have been witnesses in the area where Kendra passed away, because it is typically busy with foot and car visitors. Rush, whose firm often works with law enforcement, said she hopes testimony will come forth.
And yet, she said, fear of being caught cooperating with authorities scares some into quietness.
In comparison to the city’s first three weeks of the year, murders increased by approximately 20 %, according to the LAPD’s data, in the city’s case last year, with 327 killings totaling.
Authorities have increased their guards in the area, including soldiers on horseback, in the days since the murders of Kendra and Meraxes. Hydee Feldstein Soto, the city counsel for Los Angeles, has indicated that her business will continue to aggressively prosecute traffickers and take action against guesthouse owners whose properties are a magnet for illegal behavior.
Some criticize politicians and law enforcement for overstating the human trafficking difficulty in Figueroa to support the passage of harsher laws and increase police crackdowns. Figueroa, these advocates argue, is like any given business sexual hall: a mix of people being forced or coerced into the higher- risk function and those who are there by choice.
Advocates contend that recent efforts to combat trafficking have only increased the danger to a vulnerable population. In the face of a growing shortage of affordable housing, some of the work expanded into a lifeline during the pandemic. Others, cut off from traditional support systems, have found community among their fellow sex workers.
She flew down to L.A. to pick up her body and bring it home to Fresno between answering phone calls from well-wishers and picking out several paintings of Kendra to display at the memorial service.
She has been battling whether she gave enough to assist Kendra. She contemplated the grim irony in a lengthy Facebook post that she thought other people were aware of: How did her daughter succumb to sex trafficking despite years of being warned against it?
If nothing else, she wrote, Kendra’s case proved that “anybody’s child” is vulnerable.
Some trafficking victims develop attachments to their abusers over time, similar to Stockholm Syndrome, and begin to define their self-worth as” coming from people who purchase them” for sex, according to Rush.
The same thing happened to her, Rush said, and she began to see signs of this so- called” trauma bonding” in her daughter.
Anyone with information about either case is asked to call South Bureau Homicide Division at 323- 786- 5100 or the after- hours number at 1- 877- 527- 3247. Those who wish to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at 800- 222- 8477.
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