No Evidence Bunker Was For Trafficking Kids: Tucson Investigators

TUCSON, AZ — There is no indication an underground bunker and other suspicious items a volunteer patrol group stumbled on last month was used as a holding area for children trafficked in the sex trade, Tucson police said Wednesday.

The encampment was discovered May 31 by volunteers with the Arizona-based Veterans on Patrol group who try get homeless veterans off the street. Michael Lewis Meyer, the group’s founder, put up a Facebook Live video touring the encampment and posted it under the hashtag #OperationBackyardBrawl.

In one video, Meyer says: “We are going to take this underground prison cell, load it on a trailer, drive it down to DHS headquarters, and drop it off in their front lobby. And then we’ll stand there and occupy their lobby until they do some DNA testing and figure out how many little kids have come in and out of this prison cell.”

Later, he points the camera to what he calls a “rape tree” — a tree with restraints affixed to it that Meyer and his group found suspicious. (Get Tucson Patch’s real-time news alerts and free morning newsletters. Like us on Facebook. Also, download the free Patch iPhone app or free Patch Android app.)

“People say they don’t exist,” Meyer said on the live stream. “This is where little children are fastened to these trees in these restraints. That is what nobody wants to touch.”

Several local media outlets, including Patch, reported on the discovery of the bunker and other items near Interstate 19 and Valencia Road. Others included television stations KGUN and KOLD, and multiple other news organizations picked up the story.

Tucson police said in a statement Wednesday “there is no indication this camp is being used for any type of criminal activity, including human trafficking.”

A cadaver dog searched the site after unsubstantiated reports a body was buried at the site, police said. The search came back negative.

Police said the owners of the property told them no one had permission to be on the property, and they are working with police and city code enforcement officials to clear up the encampment and secure the property.

KGUN, one of the original news stations reporting the story, said an official with the human trafficking division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Tucson became aware of the bunker several days ago.

Investigators are “familiar with the site as a homeless camp and are continuing to monitor it,” the ICE official reportedly said. “They say they have found nothing that would validate the claims of possible human trafficking."

Photo: Renee Schiavone/Patch