Milwaukee mom, activist save missing teen after disturbing video posted online

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) - A Milwaukee mother who says her 16-year-old daughter was forced into sex trafficking, is relieved to have her home tonight.

The girl was found after a video of her and her alleged captors surfaced online.

“She has been through things you cannot imagine,” said Bonnie Bruno, whose daughter Armoni Chambers was missing for almost a month.

Bruno says Chambers suffered at the hands of strangers.

“The entire time she was there, she was mistreated,” said Bruno.

It started when Chambers met a man online, who convinced her to board a bus and head to Chicago.

When she got there, her nightmare began.

“She was with the person for two weeks and was mistreated every day, she was beaten every day, sometimes twice a day,” said Bruno.

She eventually escaped, made it to a gas station and found a phone.

“Made a call to her dad who didn’t get the call, and then when he called back the guy told him the address where she made the call,” said community activist Tory Lowe.

Bruno and Lowe made their way to Chicago armed with the new lead to search for Chambers, but by that time Chambers was long gone.

She told her mom she walked for days before eventually being spotted by two men in a car.

“This person pulls up on her and says, ’What are you like 16?’ She keeps walking, and then they say get in the car,” said Bruno.

The men beat and raped Chambers.

They also posted a disturbing video of what appears to be a drugged Chambers being mocked and assaulted.

It was that video that led Bruno to her daughter.

“This video was live, it was only 23 minutes old when it got over to our activists,” said Bruno.

Lowe worked with community activists in Chicago.

“We went through some of the roughest neighborhoods, even some of the people who were with us in Chicago were afraid to go into certain areas, but Tory Lowe wasn’t,” said Bruno.

They eventually found the men who had Chambers, and convinced them to let her go.

“She was going back and forth with this person on the phone reassuring them that they weren’t in any trouble and if they gave me my daughter I would leave the city,” said Bruno.

Bruno was very critical of the Milwaukee Police Department, saying they dropped the ball by not listing Chambers critically missing until weeks after she disappeared, and weren't helpful in the search.

We reached out to the MPD who released a statement saying, in part, "Once MPD's Sensitive Crime Division received information from the mother that indicated the victim was at risk, she was then categorized as a critical missing. The Milwaukee Police Department takes missing persons reports seriously and will continue to do so."

The men in the video are not in custody right now, and for that reason Lowe says this isn’t over.

“We need justice,” said Lowe, “see it’s not over, we need justice and those guys out here that have violated her, that have raped her, abused her, beat her, your days are numbered,”

The Chicago Police Department says this is being investigated as a sex trafficking case.