Is Human Trafficking A Problem in Western New York?

There have been so many stories and 'close call' stories on social media about human trafficking in Western New York lately.

Women have told stories about being followed, being watched and feeling very uncomfortable in certain public locations. It is always good to be on alert, but it important to spread awareness that this is in fact a real thing.

We spoke to local police officers in different agencies and all confirmed that there are regular phone calls from the community worrying that they may be in a situation. It is a problem that you will hear on social media, but rarely from local officials.

There was one woman who went viral in March after a very scary situation happened after she left downtown Buffalo and apparently, a man followed her home.

A woman named Kelly drove home at about 1:30 AM and when she got to her home in Cheektowaga, a man took her--he forced her into the backseat of his car. Kelly fought and tried scratching the man in order to get some DNA of his skin under her nails. She ended up getting ahold of his steering wheel where she was able to force the car to crash and get out of the car and run.

Kelly recounted the story with WIVB:

I told him, ‘you’re going to have to kill me because I was not going with him alive. I just remember struggling and in that moment, he threw me into the back seat of his car. Shut the doors. There must have been child lock on because immediately my first reaction was open the doors, open the doors, but they weren’t opening. I had to fight because once I get to wherever he’s taking me, I may never be found. I looked over my shoulder to see if he was chasing me and he wasn’t. I saw his car speeding down George Urban.”

She made a run for it after grabbing the steering wheel forcing him to crash. After she ran she called the Cheektowaga police.

This is just one story of a potential human trafficking nightmare and it certainly is not the last here in Western New York.