Today and tomorrow I have the honor of attending the MN Coalition for the Homeless conference being held here in Minneapolis.

I chose to ride the bus downtown today.

On my walk home, down Bloomington Ave, South of Lake Street, I passed a group of 5 guys. They looked to be in their early 20's with a slight chance of them being late teens.
At the back of the group, one guy had a young girl (she was shorter than I and I am about 5'3"), leading her by the shoulders. I could have swore I heard her wimpering as I passed the group. I turned around after they had passed and watched. I continued to walk and watch. I walked forward for a second then turned again - I saw the girl run ahead then the guy that had been leading her by her shoulders run after her. It ALMOST looked playful but I had a bad feeling in my gut. I turned and walked another step or two then looked back a final time - by this time they were near the end of the block as was I on the opposite side. When I looked, the group had stopped and were looking at me.

I continued to walk home, angry, worried and scared for the girl. I called 911 and reported the situation.

This is the 2nd time I've witnessed something like this in a 5 block radius. Something is going on and I think we can figure out what. Both girls/women were either Latina or Native. Both men or groups of men were very much not or mixed. Both situations displayed a man with both hands on the girl's back, kind of gripping her shoulders in a threatening way but not too obvious for people choosing not to see or people who don't observe what is going on around them.

I will not continue to stand by and let this happen. I contacted a local outreach organization for girls and women involved in trafficking and prostitution earlier this summer to get some ideas of what I should do when I see this stuff. I will contact them again about these 2 incidents as they differed from the first (a woman on the corner, men in a van watching her every move).

I don't care if it's not "cool" to call the cops. If it can save a girl from being raped and trafficked, I will do it. And I plan to work with this agency and get some numbers to add to my phone and call when they might be able to do outreach.

Fuck!