CBS News
North Texas girl sex trafficked from a Dallas Mavericks game shares her story of survival: “I’m not afraid.”
NORTH TEXAS — Her local story made national headlines. Now, the 18-year-old North Richland Hills sex trafficking survivor is ready to discuss every terrifying detail.
CBS News Texas
“It’s my first birthday home since, like, two years,” said A smiling Natalee Cramer.
She is speaking out for the first time ever, explaining what happened to her in April 2022.
At just 15 years old, she disappeared from a Dallas Mavericks game at the American Airlines Center. She was found 10 days later with traffickers in Oklahoma.
“I can change people’s perspective and make them feel like they have a voice,” Cramer said.
Once afraid and too weak to tell her story, Cramer now wants her voice heard.
“I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of. And it’s so strong, feels so strong saying that,” Cramer said. “I feel so strong saying that. I never would have thought it a year ago. I would have never been here. I would have never thought I could do it. I’m so proud of myself.”
On April 8, 2022, the Mavericks played the Trailblazers at American Airlines Center.
Cramer and her dad sat in section 221 until the then 15-year-old left to go to the bathroom and never returned.
For the next 10 days, her story made headlines all over the country. AAC cameras captured the only clues. She was last seen with two men on surveillance video at the arena.
“I was planning on going to the game but then got anxious. … I needed something,” said Cramer.
Cramer says she was struggling with anxiety and addiction to vaping and marijuana.
Dallas Police Department
“So, I just went and I found a male. I was like, ‘Hey, do you smoke?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah.’ He asked me who I was with. And I was like, ‘I was with my dad. I don’t know where he’s at, but we can just chill.'”
Cramer says the encounter took a turn in the parking garage.
“I thought he was the only one … and he wasn’t. They had a bag of weed and rolling papers,” said Cramer. “Pretty much once they kind of showed me, I was just shoved in, not thrown in. But I didn’t — I didn’t have a choice.”
Cramer says it didn’t take long to know she was in danger. She said she “wasn’t sober enough to do anything about it. I didn’t know.”
She said the details of that night and the next 10 days are slowly coming back to her. They are very difficult to hear.
Cramer said she was raped three times in the AAC parking garage and then she was driven somewhere else.
“I would say … 20 to 25 minutes away from the American Airlines Center … and they continued to have me smoke marijuana and they raped me again,” said Cramer. “And when I knew I was getting sex trafficked was when the guy, he had a gray hoodie on. … I remember he asked me, he said, ‘Can you go take a shower and then put these clothes on so we can go down to the street?’ … I didn’t think of selling my body. None of that.”
Cramer’s parents, desperate for answers, hired a private investigator who, within 24 hours, made a terrifying find. He discovered adult ads online for their daughter. She was being sold in Oklahoma.
Cramer said she does not remember being driven to Oklahoma, but she remembers being there.
When asked why she didn’t find a phone to call for help, she said that part of the story is hard to understand.
“That’s something that a lot of people will probably be very questionable about,” Cramer said. “There were times that there was a phone, and I could call. … I didn’t, it didn’t run through my mind. I was, I was running. I was running for drugs. I was running for all these other reasons.”
CBS News Texas
Cramer says her family was not number one at that time.
“I was self-sabotaging,” said Cramer. “I was putting myself in positions that I shouldn’t have, but … I just didn’t call. I don’t know why I didn’t call.”
The private investigator alerted Oklahoma City police about the adult ads for Cramer. Ten days after Cramer disappeared from the AAC, an Oklahoma officer found Cramer wandering outside a complex where one of her traffickers would later be arrested.
“I was tired. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what to do,” Cramer said. “I was messed up to the point where I would see things that weren’t there … and so, I was just walking at those apartments, just like praying. I was just like, ‘God, please have someone, something, whether it’s a cop, an ambulance, something, a random person on the side of the road.’ I was like, ‘God, I can’t do this … please.’ And, ‘Somebody, please, please save me.’ And not five minutes [later], a cop pulled up next to me and he goes, ‘Are you Natalee Cramer?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I am.'”
Cramer became very emotional, saying her prayers were answered.
“He felt it. God told him, ‘That’s her. Go get her.’ Like, God was there. He was there.”
It’s been two and half years since that night at the AAC. Cramer attributes her escape and recovery to faith, family, therapy, and Gunnar. Gunnar is her dog, who came along not long after she came home and began therapy.
“When I got Gunnar, I was in a manic … every morning he forced me to get out, I had to take him out. I had to feed him,” said Cramer. “He brought that motivation back. … He’s a dog. He doesn’t know, but he saved my life completely.”
Cramer said she is lucky to be alive.
“I knew I was going to die. I knew,” said Cramer. “It’s scary to think that it happens every day. But I hope what people take from this is that it’s real. It’s real and it’s hard. And you may not think it will happen to you until it does.”
She has a message for other victims and survivors.
“Don’t give up on yourself. Even if this happens to you, don’t give up on yourself. It will get better. It’s not something to be ashamed of anything. You just have to embrace it and realize it’s not your fault. It’s not!”
Cramer is still recovering, but she’s ready to help others who may be in the same situation she once was.
“I’m not giving up,” said Cramer. “I am going to continue to speak about it even if that means telling my story 100 times over and over and over and over. It’s not just my story being told. It’s other people’s who aren’t able to tell their story.”
Cramer says she is a 9.5 on a scale of one to 10. She is working on her GED and wants to start veterinarian school. She says she’ll be a “10” when that happens.
Cramer and her family started a non-profit foundation. Aisling for Life helps raise funds for support and resources for sexual assault and sex trafficking victims. The Irish word “Aisling” means “dream.”
While several people were convicted in Oklahoma in connection to Cramer’s case, Dallas investigators made an arrest but later dropped the charges against the suspect.
The death toll was rising in Central European countries on Sunday after days of heavy rain caused widespread flooding and forced mass evacuations.
Several Central European nations have already been hit by severe flooding, including Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania. Slovakia and Hungary might come next as a result of a low pressure system from northern Italy dumping record rainfall in the region since Thursday.
Six people have died in the floods in Romania. In Austria, a firefighter died during a flood rescue, and, in Poland, one person died from drowning, the BBC reported. In the Czech Republic, police said four people were still missing after being swept away by floodwaters.
Officials declared the Austrian province that includes Vienna a disaster area, calling the weather “an unprecedented extreme situation,” while Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk urged residents to cooperate with rescue teams in an announcement Sunday confirming the death in that country, according to the BBC.
Most parts of the Czech Republic have been affected as authorities declared the highest flood warnings at around 100 places across the country. But the situation was worst in two northeastern regions that recorded the biggest rainfall in recent days, including the Jeseniky mountains near the Polish border.
Petr David Josek / AP
In the city of Opava, up to 10,000 people out of a population of around 56,000 have been asked to leave their homes for higher ground. Rescuers used boats to transport people to safety in a neighborhood flooded by the raging Opava River.
“There’s no reason to wait,” Mayor Tomáš Navrátil told Czech public radio. He said that the situation was worse than during the last devastating floods in 1997, known as the “flood of the century.”
“We have to focus on saving lives,” Prime Minister Petr Fiala told Czech public television on Sunday. His government was set to meet Monday to assess the damages.
The worst “is not behind us yet,” the prime minister warned as the flooding made its way through the country.
President Petr Pavel sounded more optimistic, saying “it’s obvious we’ve learned a lesson from the previous crisis.”
Thousands of others also were evacuated in the towns of Krnov, which was almost completely flooded, and Cesky Tesin. The Oder River that flows to Poland was reaching extreme levels in the city of Ostrava and in Bohumin, prompting mass evacuations.
Ostrava, the regional capital is the third-largest Czech city. Its mayor, Jan Dohnal, said the city is facing major traffic disruptions in the days to come. Almost no trains were operating in the region.
Petr David Josek / AP
Towns and villages in the Jeseniky mountains, including the local center of Jesenik, were inundated and isolated by raging waters that turned roads into rivers. The military sent a helicopter to help with evacuations.
Jesenik mayor Zdenka Blistanova told Czech public television that several houses in her and other nearby towns have been destroyed by the floods. A number of bridges and roads have been also badly damaged.
About 260,000 households were without power Sunday morning in the entire country, while traffic was halted on many roads, including the major D1 highway.
A firefighter died after “slipping on stairs” while pumping out a flooded basement in the town of Tulln, the head of the fire department of Lower Austria, Dietmar Fahrafellner, told reporters on Sunday.
Authorities declared the entire state of Lower Austria in the northeastern part of the country a disaster zone, while 10,000 relief forces have so far evacuated 1,100 houses there. Emergency personnel have started setting up emergency accommodation for residents who had to flee their homes due to the flooding.
Krzysztof Zatycki / AP
Addressing reporters after a crisis meeting at the interior ministry in Vienna on Saturday afternoon, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said the situation “continues to worsen.”
He said 2,400 soldiers were ready to support the relief effort in Austria. Of those, 1,000 soldiers will deploy to the disaster zone in Lower Austria, where dams were beginning to burst.
Nehammer was expected to visit the disaster zone in Lower Austria later Sunday.
“We are experiencing difficult and dramatic hours in Lower Austria. For many people in Lower Austria these will probably be the most difficult hours of their lives,” said Johanna Mikl-Leitner, the governor of Lower Austria.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who was on his way to the disaster zone in Lower Austria, said that 2,400 soldiers were ready to support the relief effort.
In Vienna, the Wien River overflowed its banks, flooding homes and forcing first evacuations of houses in the river’s proximity.
Heinz-Peter Bader / AP
Romanian authorities said Sunday that another two people had died in the hard-hit eastern county of Galati after four were reported dead there a day earlier, following unprecedented rain.
In Poland, one person was presumed dead in floods in the southwest, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Sunday.
Tusk said the situation was “dramatic” around the town of Klodzko, with about 25,000 residents, located in a valley in the Sudetes mountains near the border with the Czech Republic. Helicopters were used to pick up people from roofs in a few cases.
In Glucholazy, rising waters overflowed a river embankment and flooded streets and houses. Mayor Paweł Szymkowicz said, “we are drowning,” and appealed to residents to evacuate to high ground.
A threatened bridge in the town collapsed under the flood pressure and a police station building was knocked down in Stronie Śląskie, after floodwaters burst through the town’s dam. Submerged cars could be seen in many places in the Kłodzko Valley region bordering the Czech Republic, while a new flood wave was expected there.
Energy supplies and communications were cut off in some flooded areas, and regions may resort to using the satellite-based Starlink service, Tusk said.
The weather change arrived following a hot start to September in the region. Scientists have documented Earth’s hottest summer, breaking a record set just a year ago.
A hotter atmosphere, driven by human-caused climate change, can lead to more intense rainfall.
CBS News
Trump “safe” after gunshots fired in his vicinity in Florida, campaign says; Secret Service investigating
Donald Trump is safe after gunshots were fired in his vicinity on Sunday, his campaign said in statement. The U.S. Secret Service says it is investigating the incident.
“President Trump is safe following gunshots in his vicinity,” Steven Cheung, Trump campaign communications director, said in a brief statement, noting that no further details were available yet.
The Secret Service said it was investigating the incident, which occurred just before 2 p.m., with local authorities.
“The Secret Service, in conjunction with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, is investigating a protective incident involving former President Donald Trump that occurred shortly before 2 p.m. The former president is safe,” Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office is expected to give a briefing with more details shortly.
The incident comes two months after an assassination attempt against the former president during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
This is a developing story.
Former President Donald Trump took aim at Taylor Swift in a Truth Social post Sunday, declaring his distaste for the superstar after she endorsed his opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” Trump wrote in the post.
His announcement emerged online less than a week after Swift revealed publicly for the first time her plans to vote for Harris, the Democratic nominee in this year’s presidential election. Her endorsement followed the first debate on Sept. 10 between Trump and Harris, which saw the two candidates face off during a televised showdown in Philadelphia that covered issues like abortion, immigration, the economy and foreign policy.
“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Swift said in an Instagram post. “I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.”
Swift also voiced her support for Walz, the Minnesota governor tapped to be Harris’ vice presidential running mate, noting how he “has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”
The artist signed off as “Childless Cat Lady” to end her post, which accompanied a photo of Swift holding a cat, echoing 2021 comments from Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, that recently surfaced. In a 2021 interview, Vance lamented that the country was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives.” Vance later said he was being sarcastic.
Swift acknowledged the post that Trump had recently shared AI-generated images to his Truth Social account that showed women wearing “Swifties for Trump” t-shirts and falsely suggested she had endorsed him. They included a satirical post that claimed fans of Swift were “turning to Trump” after security concerns led to the cancellation of her concerts in Vienna in August.
“I accept!” Trump wrote when he posted the false images.
Swift said the incident triggered her “fears around AI, and and the dangers of spreading misinformation.”
“It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter,” she said. “The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”
While it’s unclear what or any impact Swift’s endorsement could have, her Instagram post drove 405,999 users to visit the site vote.gov over the course of the following day.
At least 8 dead, 4 missing as torrential rain and flooding hits Central Europe
Trump “safe” after gunshots fired in his vicinity in Florida, campaign says; Secret Service investigating
Trump’s campaign says candidate is safe after gunshots were reported in his vicinity in Florida
At least 8 dead, 4 missing as torrential rain and flooding hits Central Europe
Trump “safe” after gunshots fired in his vicinity in Florida, campaign says; Secret Service investigating