Update 2:03 p.m. The manager of a Hemet motel has contacted Banning-Beaumont Patch to dispute an account of a reported runaway girl being held captive at his business on Florida Avenue.
"We did have protests yesterday," Ajay Patel, manager of the California Budget Motel, said in a phone interview Monday afternoon.
"A lady came and said her daughter had been in one of the rooms, that somebody gave her drugs and they were going to sell her for prostitution," Patel said.
"But nobody called me in the office, and the police did not contact me," Patel said. "I told her all the prostitution and drug dealing is going on elsewhere. They have some wrong information, and I think they should talk to me before they do protests or anything like that."
In addition, Hemet police Chief David Brown released a statement Monday afternoon to address the "wave of social media posts" about an 11-year-old girl reported missing last week in San Jacinto.
The statement, headlined "Social Media Reports Clarified," reads:
The Hemet Police Department is aware of a wave of social media posts regarding a missing 11-year-old female from San Jacinto. The general theme of the posts has been a concern for the well-being of the juvenile runaway. However, there has been a significant amount of misinformation spread throughout the community about the facts of the case. It is our intention to clarify the facts without compromising the privacy rights of the parties involved.
On July 8, 2013, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department reported a missing juvenile who had runaway from the San Jacinto area. On July 9, 2013, the Hemet Police Department investigated a report that the juvenile had been located by family members at a local motel in the city of Hemet. As a result of the investigation, two individuals were detained by police and the juvenile was returned to family members.
Due to the age of the juvenile, details of the criminal investigation will not be disclosed; however there is no evidence to support the human-trafficking or kidnapping claims being posted on social media. This investigation is on-going and no further information will be released at this time.
The Hemet Police Department would like to thank the community for their continued support and responsible use of Social Media outlets.
Brown told Banning-Beaumont Patch that police could not verify whether the girl in question was ever given any drugs or whether she was under the influence of drugs.
Brown said the girl was tested for drug use by her family, but not by police, and regardless of what any official drug test by law enforcement or any other agency showed, the results would be considered confidential.
Posted 12:46 p.m. A woman in Hemet says her 11-year-old daughter ran away from her guardian in San Jacinto late Monday July 8 or early Tuesday July 9, and she ended up "on drugs" in a Hemet motel room where "bad people" were going to "sell her or do something with her."
The account repeated Monday July 15 by the woman and others over the weekend on social media has generated questions and calls for accurate information from police about what happened.
Hemet police Chief David Brown told Banning-Beaumont Patch in a phone interview Monday morning there was no evidence of kidnapping, human trafficking or drug use by the little girl, to his knowledge.
"There's a lot of hearsay about this going around," Brown said July 15. "We're working on getting some facts together for the public. But we have to be careful about confidentiality, because of the girl's age."
A woman who identified herself as Tiffany Venable of Hemet told Patch she is the mother of the 11-year-old girl who ran away. Her daughter lives with a guardian in San Jacinto, she said.
"My understanding is she went to bed around 9:30 p.m. Monday, and she went missing sometime between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Tuesday," Venable said. "Her guardian reported her missing to San Jacinto police Tuesday morning."
A Hemet police officer came to Venable's home to advise her the little girl was reported as a runaway, and she might be coming to Venable's home, Venable said.
"But they weren't looking for my daughter," Venable said. "The officer was asking me about other things in the neighborhood that had nothing to do with my daughter.
"That's when I started looking," Venable said.
Venable said she made fliers and went to several locations, including Gibbel Park at Kirby Street and Rafferty Road. She said a young man in the park told her that her daughter was at a motel on Florida Avenue.
"Eventually I found her at the motel, room 102, around midnight Tuesday," Venable said. "She was hiding in the bathroom, she was drugged up in the bathroom. . . . They were giving her drugs in that room."
Venable said she took her daughter to a Hemet hospital, where doctors checked her out and told her the little girl had not been "touched" or sexually assaulted.
"While I was driving her to the hospital, she told me they gave her marijuana and meth," Venable said.
Brown, Hemet's chief of police, said the girl had been tested "that night" and there was no evidence the girl had consumed any drugs.
Venable said she protested Sunday outside the motel for 10 hours because she believes the motel manager knew what was happening to her daughter, and because she is disappointed with the police response to the initial report of her daughter being reported as a runaway.
The manager of the motel was not at the motel Monday morning, an employee at the business said. She said she wasn't working Sunday but she'd heard about a possible protest.
"There's prostitution and drug dealing going on there and management knows about it," Venable said. "I want the public to know about this.
"I would like the police to be on this, not wait when a child is missing," Venable said. "If I didn't take action they would have sold my daughter or done something with her. . . .
"Why didn't the police look for her? They could be more caring and pass out fliers or something," Venable said. "The reason the two stories don't match up is the police didn't really know what's happening. They didn't take action."
Brown told Banning-Beaumont Patch that Hemet police were working on putting together a fact-based statement for public distribution.
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