News Coverage

In 2010, San Diego lost a beautiful, intelligent, caring, loving and vibrant teenager named Chelsea King. Her bright future was cut short when a sexual predator stole her life away as she jogged in a popular community park. Chelsea's murder captivated our community's attention and all of us felt the loss of this wonderful child. My son had run that same path as Chelsea took that day many times before, and none of us wanted to believe such evil existed in that beautiful area of our...

Emily Heimann had a simple reason for attending Saturday's "Inspire and Protect" event at Midland University.
"I don't want that to happen to me," the 14-year-old Elkhorn girl said.
"Inspire and Protect," which was presented by Northeast Nebraska Family Health Services in Fremont, was designed to teach young women and their parents about keeping safe from sexual predators and date rape and how to build healthy relationships.
Heimann, who attended the event with her...

At age 19, Dallas Jessup has written a book, made a self-defense movie and traveled the world sharing her message of empowerment.
Yet, some of her heroes are people younger than herself, children who have noticed injustices in the world and acted to do something about them.
Jessup addressed the Young Women LEAD conference at the Muhammad Ali Museum Saturday, where more than 100 girls and women gathered to hear from former Miss America Heather French Henry, District...

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope 2011 is already treating you well - or at least given you some inspiration.
I had a beautiful dose of inspiration when my friend MB (thanks, mama!) sent me an incredible New York Times article from this weekend’s “Education Life” section.
The piece, “Five Do-Gooders,” featured 5 young people (college age or younger) who have found innovative solutions to problems in their communities and beyond.
Take, for example,...

WHEN Dallas Jessup heard the statistics – that one in four girls would be sexually assaulted and that thousands of others are abducted each year – she wanted to fight back, something that comes easier to her than most others. A black belt in tae kwon do at 13 and an expert in Filipino street fighting, Ms. Jessup wanted to share her self-defense skills with girls.
“I have the skills to protect myself,” Ms. Jessup, now 19, recalls thinking. “Most girls...

My town in Florida is straight out of the movies – smiling people taking strolls and little kids riding bikes. So sweet! Every morning, I'd walk the mile on the sidewalk along a main road from my house to my high school. The walk scared me at first because I had to leave while it was still dark, before the sun was fully up, and I passed an empty parking lot. But after a few weeks, I relaxed and that creeped-out feeling went away.
GRABBED! Then one day last spring, I was walking by...

In the fall of 2005, Dallas Jessup of Vancouver had no idea how many lives she would go on to touch in the next five years. She was a freshman in high school when her mother shared with her the television surveillance footage of Florida teenager Carlie Brucia’s abduction. “As I watched [the footage],” says Jessup, “I realized that that could have been anybody, that could have been me, my best friend or a thousand other teenage girls.”
At home in Vancouver,...

Dallas Jessup: Local Vancouver Teen Just Yells Fire

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – Dallas Jessup, founder of the nonprofit organization, 'Just Yell Fire,' taught girls at Girls Incorporated Tuesday how to defend themselves.
Jessup, a Vanderbilt University student originally from Vancouver, Wash., created the nonprofit to help girls defend themselves against assault and abduction.

Girls Incorporated of Oak Ridge will sponsor the program "Just Yell Fire," presented by founder Dallas Jessup.
Jessup is a student at Vanderbilt University, and she developed this program while in high school after learning that 1 in 4 girls will be sexually assaulted and that there are 114,000 attempted abductions each year in the U.S. She set out to create a home movie to teach her schoolmates some street fighting techniques to defend themselves. In 60 days she had a professional crew...