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.”
ping
The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Horndogs.
Paging Janet Reno.... Janet Reno.... Please pick up a white courtesy phone...
Something the LDS has in common with the Muzzies. But I bet no Muslim compound is ever going to be raided, although I’m sure this goes on at those places, too.
Do you think Islamberg is the next cult compound raided?
Right on all counts.
I’m taking a look at that area on Google Earth, looks like the photo they have is in some sort of earlier phase of construction.
Makes ya wonder though, what kind of welfare fraud got them to build all that?
The stated reason for removing all of those people from their home is very slim.
They need to be a bit more specific.
Lucky for them Janet Reno isn’t AG, they would be dead by now
So this gives LE justification to search untold numbers of buildings and take nearly 200 people into custody? That is one hell of a warrant, that is if they actually have one that describes all buildings, places and things to look for and name all the people involved, all based on two phone calls from a teenaged girl.
Of course, all they have to do is say " we suspect drugs" and they can simply burn the place to the ground.
A little unfair to refer to these guys as “LDS”, although people refer to that group of military funeral-picketing losers as “evangelical Christians”, so ...
Well, they do have to investigate the complaint of a 16-year-old girl who has been forced to marry a 50-year-old lecher and bear his child. And since the girl appears to have indicated that other girls have been harmed or may be at risk of being harmed, the authorities would be derelict if they didn’t investigate further.
Can't let a little thing like that stop the party.
The majority of Mormons may not grasp the con of their religion, but know better than this.
I remember Waco.
The age of consent in TX is 17, so they can go with statutory rape charges.
Yes, it is very possable.
From Texas Family Code:
2.003. APPLICATION FOR LICENSE BY MINOR. In addition to the other requirements provided by this chapter, a person under 18 years of age applying for a license must provide to the county clerk: (1) documents establishing, as provided by Section 2.102, parental consent for the person to the marriage; (2) documents establishing that a prior marriage of the person has been dissolved; or (3) a court order granted under Section 2.103 authorizing the marriage of the person.
Added by Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 7, � 1, eff. April 17, 1997.
2.102. PARENTAL CONSENT FOR UNDERAGE APPLICANT. (a) If an applicant is 14 years of age or older but under 18 years of age, the county clerk shall issue the license if parental consent is given as provided by this section. (b) Parental consent must be evidenced by a written declaration on a form supplied by the county clerk in which the person consents to the marriage and swears that the person is a parent (if there is no judicially designated managing conservator or guardian of the applicant's person) or a judicially designated managing conservator or guardian (whether an individual, authorized agency, or court) of the applicant's person. (c) Except as otherwise provided by this section, consent must be acknowledged before a county clerk. (d) If the person giving parental consent resides in another state, the consent may be acknowledged before an officer authorized to issue marriage licenses in that state. (e) If the person giving parental consent is unable because of illness or incapacity to comply with the provisions of Subsection (c) or (d), the consent may be acknowledged before any officer authorized to take acknowledgments. A consent under this subsection must be accompanied by a physician's affidavit stating that the person giving parental consent is unable to comply because of illness or incapacity. (f) Parental consent must be given at the time the application for the marriage license is made or not earlier than the 30th day preceding the date the application is made.
So, if their paperwork is in order the LEO's have a little explaining to do.
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