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.”
Any news?
I commend you on your honest posts, it is certainly refreshing to see a Mormon acknowledge that ANY time sinful men are involved, there will be some sinful events. Your humility in the face of powerful reasons to remain secretive is a testament to your devotion to your Church and your LDS brothers and sisters.
At least he's capable of acknowledging that the LDS is engaged in a massive deception campaign unlike SOME PEOPLE I could name...........
My prayers are with him in this trial and that he will be able to find what he is looking for.
I know this is The Church of Jesus Christ of The Latter Day Saints on earth today.
Nothing new.
Huh. Weren’t their lawyers supposed to go to court today?
Perhaps, if you are willing, you might take a look at some of the questions I posted here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1997522/posts?page=1718#1718
I asked them in all sincerity, but for whatever the reason, others are either unwilling or unable to answer them.
Wow. You just keep amazing me with your honesty, your candor, and your truthfulness.
Applause to you again.
I know he probably does - and I appreciate Jim for allowing us to debate here and for allowing this thread.
Jim is high on my list of men I most admire.
I remember back in 2002 or so, there was a thread that got into religion. There was a Freeper who was a particular "One Note Johnny. His Freeper name was something like "Lost_Tribe" or something. His entire spiel was that there was a Jewish lost tribe that moved to Ireland, and the Celts were all Jews.
OK. Whatever.
But he pasted his little theory into EVERY thread. Jim put up with him for a long time.
When one thread went on forever, Jim pulled it and banned "Lost_Tribe."
I read Jim's curt reason why the thread was pulled, and he wrote:
Enough of this BS.
I laughed until I cried.
Don't try to crawl into Degaston's courage, honesty, and clarity restornu.
That belongs to him. He earned it on this thread.
You didn't.
Well said and amen!
That belongs to him. He earned it on this thread. You didn't.
Well said and amen!
I'll second that!
Whoa........The Truth is penetrating.
Thanks to God.........
Well, it takes space some times to respond to those shot-gun type arguements, as well as to pick them apart properly. I appreciate his work too for FR.
How about following GOD, instead of a man...for a change...........
The voice of reason. A beacon at night.
Your candid and honest approach is much appreciated.
How about trying to convert open border advocates to support the rule of law and support the building of a border fence?
How about trying to convince anyone swayed by the lies of Tom Delay from giving any more money to him or his lying organizations?
How about trying to convince supposed supporters of free markets, that markets aren't free if the rules are drafted by lobbyists and those they bribe in congress and the White House?
And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. (Genesis 16:3-4 KJV)
The Hebrew word for "WIFE" in that verse is the same word used in the following verses:
And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:23-25 KJV)
Therefore it is clear that Abram took Hagar to be his WIFE, in the same manner that Adam took Eve to be his wife. That would make Abram a polygamist.
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