A missing girl from Arizona was found in Olympia's Jungle encampment, U.S. marshals say

[mahatmakanejeeves]

A missing girl from Arizona was found in Olympia's Jungle encampment, U.S. marshals say

by KOMO News Staff
Sat, June 27, 2026 at 6:37 PM
Updated Sat, June 27, 2026 at 8:29 PM


FILE- A photo of an Olympia homeless camp, where a man was arrested by police after allegedly throwing "softball-sized rocks" at firefighters who were responding to an active fire. (KOMO News)

OLYMPIA, Wash. — A missing and endangered child from Arizona was found at the homeless encampment known as "The Jungle" in Olympia, after investigators received information that the child may have been a victim of sex trafficking. U.S. marshals said.

The girl had been reported missing to the Mesa, Arizona, Police Department in May, the U.S. Marshals Service said.

On June 18, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children notified the agency that the child was potentially being sex trafficked in Washington state.

{snip}

On Thursday, U.S. marshals, assisted by the Washington State Department of Corrections, canvassed the encampment and found the missing child. The female juvenile was transferred to the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families and the Olympia Police Department for treatment and victim assistance.

"Protecting our nation's children is of the highest importance," Acting U.S. Marshal Donrien Stephens said in a statement. He credited local, state, and community partners for helping safely recover a youth at elevated risk of human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation.


A photo of an Olympia homeless camp, where a man was arrested by police after allegedly throwing "softball-sized rocks" at firefighters who were responding to an active fire. (KOMO News)

{snip}

The child's exact age was not made public by U.S. marshals, just that she had been found safe.

[Buddyzbuddy]

1. How many more encampments are there like that across America.

It's not just the financially strapped or the mentally unstable. It is also the criminal element, the ex cons that are not rehabilitated but have reached the end of their sentence that are released back into society without skills or ability to become gainfully employed. That have a propensity to commit further crimes because it's what they know.

Local law enforcement is only concerned with their local jurisdiction so as long as they can get that criminal element to move on, that is LEO's job well done. The Nation's police, U.S. Marshall's and FBI should be addressing some of these matters more intentionally but they're too busy chasing down phantom fake voters and providing protection and transportation to the Director's girlfriend and making sure the Felon's name doesn't come up in the released Epstein files via multitudes of law enforcement employees reading and redacting the Felon's and his friends names from said files. Unless of course they don't pay tribute of some sort at which time that information might be released.

Anyway, these encampments must be monitored. At the very least, the criminal element. I know in California, laws have been passed against sex offenders, preventing them from living within a certain distance of school zones, which is a good thing. But, with limited funds and lack of employment, many live in these encampments by default which makes it difficult to keep track of them. By not providing a system of rehabilitation following incarceration, we are defaulting to this underground system.

Just my two cents.