Posted on 04/06/2008 5:27:22 AM PDT by SkyPilot
Local and state officials entered the temple of a secretive polygamist sect late Saturday, said lawmen blockading the road to the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado.
The action comes hours after local prosecutors said officials were preparing for the worst because a group of FLDS members were resisting efforts to search the structure.
The Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and Schleicher County sheriff’s deputy confirmed that officials have entered the temple but said they had no word on whether anything occurred in the effort.
The incursion into the temple caps the three-day saga of the state’s Child Protective Services agency removing at least 183 women and children from the YFZ Ranch since Friday afternoon. Eighteen girls have been placed in state custody since a 16-year-old told authorities she was married to a 50-year-old man and had given birth to his child.
Saturday evening, ambulances were brought in, said Allison Palmer, who as first assistant 51st District attorney, would prosecute any felony crimes uncovered as part of the investigation inside the compound.
“In preparing for entry to the temple, law enforcement is preparing for the worst,” Palmer said Saturday evening. They want to have “medical personnel on hand in case this were to go in a way that no one wants.”
Apparently as a result of action Saturday night at the ranch, about 10:15 p.m. Saturday, a Schleicher County school bus unloaded another group of at least a dozen more women and children from the compound.
Although members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, have provided varying degrees of cooperation to the sheriff’s deputies and Texas Rangers searching the compound, all cooperation stopped once authorities tried to search the gleaming white temple that towers over the West Texas scrub, Palmer said.
“There may be those who would oppose (entry) by placing themselves between law enforcement and the place of worship,” Palmer said Saturday afternoon. “If an agreement cannot be reached … law enforcement will have to — as gently and peaceably as possible — make entry into that place.”
Sect members consider the temple, dedicated by then-leader of the sect Warren Jeffs in January 2005 and finished many months later, off-limits to those who are not FLDS members, said Palmer, who prosecutes felony cases in Schleicher County.
Palmer said she didn’t know the size or makeup of the group inside the temple.
The earlier refusal to provide access was even more disconcerting because CPS investigators have yet to identify the 16-year-old girl or her roughly 8-month-old baby among the dozens removed from the compound, Palmer said.
“Anytime someone says, ‘Don’t look here,’” she said, “it makes you concerned that’s exactly where you need to look.”
The girl told authorities in two separate phone calls a day apart that she was married to a 50-year-old man, Dale Barlow, who had fathered her child, Palmer said.
The joint raid included the Texas Rangers, CPS, Schleicher County and Tom Green County sheriff’s deputies and game wardens from the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.
Although CPS and Department of Public Safety officials have described the compound’s residents as cooperative, Palmer disagreed.
“Things have been a little tense, a little volatile,” she said.
Authorities removed 52 children Friday afternoon and 131 women and children overnight Friday. About 40 of the children are boys, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.
No further children have been taken into state custody since Friday, when 18 girls were judged to have been abused or be at imminent risk for abuse. CPS has found foster homes for the girls, Meisner said, and will place them after concluding its investigation.
Meisner declined to comment on the fate of the 119 other children and said authorities were still searching the ranch for others Saturday evening.
“They’re in the process of looking,” she said. “They’re literally about halfway through.”
:)
Do you think God kills little children because they die, or does it just happen.
Just because God told Nathan his prophet about a specific instance resulting from serious sin, doesn’t make it an across the board killing of little children by God.
Read what Jesus told Joseph Smith?
LOL, that is an amazing case of circular logic. Joseph Smith is telling the truth because Joseph Smiths writings say so.
Then why didn't you? And if I hated to quote from the bible, why do I do it so often? Hmmmmm.....
We’re not adding that, are we.
Absolutely I do, just as I love the scriptures given to all His prophets by God.
UPDATE:
400 CHILDREN TAKEN FROM FLDS COMPOUND
(thought this merited ALL CAPS!)
Read what Jesus told Joseph Smith?
LOL, that is an amazing case of circular logic. Joseph Smith is telling the truth because Joseph Smiths writings say so.
****
What about other prophets such as Moses, when they receive revelations from the Lord?
Don’t they too say the samething?
When I had the encounter with the Holy Ghost it was before I knew about anything else even the Church etc and it was totally unexpected for it never happen before in my life.
I only had this Book I was going to toss in the wastepaper backet but all had change after I received that sweet beautiful feeling.
And than I recognized that I felt that before when reading the Bible or singing a paticular hymn.
So I had to know more and I investigate more....
If you belief he is a prophet of the living God, then yes.
Did you read Isaiah 29?
Wrong. Mormon belief is very clear, that Jesus Christ is the only begotten son of God in the flesh. The ONLY one. He is our Savior, redeemer, our God, the very Creator of all things, both in heaven and earth.
That is our teachings, don’t try to confuse the point.
just so you know how obnoxious I will be when you post falshoods about our beliefs:
I love the scriptures given to all His prophets by God.
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Then get obnoxious at the mormon leaders because those posts were their words...
The same ones you love...
No. As I said, that was a hypothetical example. But you DO add other things which are NOT included in the Bible. Such as the concept of Christ in the America’s.
When I had the encounter with the Holy Ghost
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How did you do that when the mormons told us hundreds of times in many threads that there is no Trinity...
No triune God...
Just a father and a son
Christians believe in Gother the Father, God the Son (Jesus) and God the Holy Ghost/Spirit
How would you have had an “encounter” with a being that the mormons claim is not part of God...
Either God is Three-in-One or He is not...
Where did you get a third part of God ???
Your twisting of their meaning is a far cry from what they said. Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of God in the flesh. That is LDS doctrine, plain and simple.
“Gother” should have been “God”
Christians believe in God the Father, God the Son (Jesus) and God the Holy Ghost/Spirit
Your twisting of their meaning is a far cry from what they said. Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of God in the flesh. That is LDS doctrine, plain and simple.
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I quoted them word for word...
Me: “Joseph Smith is telling the truth because Joseph Smiths writings say so.”
Your response: “If you belief he is a prophet of the living God, then yes.”
You are still relying on circular logic. The same could be said, and be as valid of an argument, if one substituted the name Jim Jones, for Joseph Smith.
Belief that a man is a prophet does not make him one, in fact the Bible specifically says there will be many false prophets who many will believe in.
“Gother” should have been “God”
Which cult teaches that, and who is Gother?
joking
Your twisting of their meaning is a far cry from what they said. Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of God in the flesh. That is LDS doctrine, plain and simple.
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Yes in the flesh...
mormons claim that god came down and did the flesh thing with Mary...
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