Editor’s note: This story was updated at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 30, to note that the Islander who has been charged in the case is being held at the federal detention center in Tacoma. Stay tuned for more updates.
A major police operation that took place on Maury Island in the early morning hours of Thursday, March 30 is related to a federal grand jury indictment charging an Islander with human trafficking-related crimes.
The indictment, filed in federal court on March 27, was obtained after an investigation by Emily Langglie, a spokeswoman for the US attorney’s office.
The document charges Jesús Ruiz-Hernández, aka Christo Jesús Escobar Solares, with 10 separate federal charges, including three adult victims, that allegedly took place between 2017 and 2021.
The charges included forced labor, involving serious harm or threats of harm to the victims; transporting and harboring undocumented people for economic gain; and bringing undocumented people into the United States for economic gain.
The grand jury also alleged that in one victim’s case, the crime of forced labor included aggravated sexual assault.
The indictments do not detail where the alleged crimes occurred.
According to Langglie, Ruiz-Hernandez is now being held at the Sea-Tac Federal Detention Center.
The islanders woke up to attack
The police operation took place in the early hours of the morning, involving personnel from Seattle Police, the King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO), the United States Department of Homeland Security, the Washington State and Bellevue Police.
King County Medic One and Vashon Island Fire & Rescue also assisted in the operation.
According to KCSO spokesman M. Corbett Ford, the county’s TAC-30 (SWAT) team assisted in the homeland security operation. Ford said he could not provide any other information about the operation.
The police raid has been widely discussed on social media in Vashon, with reports from witnesses and neighbors reporting seeing helicopter traffic and hearing commotion sounds, and noting a heavy police presence in the 6100 blocks of SW Point Robinson Road and SW 240th Street, as well as another location near 244th Street.
Neighborhood resident Siobhan McComb said the raid began around 7 a.m. and that as of late Thursday morning, about six police vehicles were still parked at the scene of the raid on 240th Street.
Another neighbor, who could not be reached for comment, said on social media that another nearby home, on 244th Street, was also targeted.
According to McComb’s description of the police action, one of the sites targeted was at 6113 SW 240th Street, a 9-acre property purchased by Jesús Geraldo Ruiz Hernández in 2021, according to property records. The name that appears in the property records is almost identical to the name of the person charged with federal crimes.
McComb described the property as gated and gated and containing several outbuildings and dwellings. He said he believed numerous people, including children, lived there.
He said he had asked an officer at the scene if the children were OK after the raid, and the officer told him they were. He motioned to an unmarked vehicle, indicating that the children had been taken out of the house and were inside the vehicle. .
Commuters at the North End ferry dock also saw a heavy police presence, which included several heavily armored vehicles, leaving the island around 8am.
This is a developing story.
