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.”
There are hundreds of books on cults pal. If you are in one, or you defend them, don’t be hurt and surprised if people point out what a cult is.
You just did.
Well, you seem to have this case all wrapped up. Thanks!
Evidence notwithstanding, evidence which indicates collusion between local authorities and baptists against mormons (true or not, in fact I do not believe there IS collusion) only has to give ONE juror “reasonable doubt”.
helping with EVIDENCE!!!!!
I heard that on the radio last night, haven’t seen it confirmed in print. I think what it means as there are children there as young as 3 months old. Once LE hears of abuse with 14 yr olds, they probably assume the worst regarding any kids there.
By the way, living a moral life and obeying God are evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit - but they don't save you.
Salvation is from Christ alone. To believe that "living a good life" gains you salvation is to believe that God "owes you" something. He doesn't owe you, or me, anything.
I think the Eldorado Eagles printed on the side might show some kind of biased somewhere. S/
Which juror is that?
Let me put it this way.. maybe you will comprehend.
If I were on the jury, I would not believe any collusion exists, and if the defense was relying on that alone, I would vote guilty.
However, juries are composed primarily of 12 people who are too dumb to figure out how to get out of jury duty. My oldest brother is a former asst A.G. for this state. He has put 19 men on death row. And HE will be the first to tell you just how stupid juries can be. But if thats not good enough for you.. once again, I will remind you of O.J. Simpson.
What’s your beef with Baptists?
Not if you don't live a life in accordance with the Lord's Commandments. Those are the the Lord's teachings, which trump Paul in my book.
You posted some blather about the definition of cults then turn it into an attack on my religion in an attempt to hi-jack the thread? Follow the links on my homepage, if you're interested.
Another weak monkey wrench tossed into the discussion.
Your answers are not satisfactory when dealing with God.
They are agreed upon by most authors who have written about cults and cult practices.
They're no authorities on God. They're authors who have a purpose--an agenda to prove. They are not closer to God's answers due to "research."
Surely, you jest.
SkyPilot, you have failed in your presentation. God cannot be argued into your position. The reason that there are so many variations of Christianity is because there are so many ways to read our current translations of The Bible. You cannot argue--or insult--that away.
Also, you speak as though "the majority rules" when it comes to God's Word.
I'm not Mormon; my family is not Mormon; and I have never been Mormon. You cannot, however, claim LOGIC or ACCURACY when you decry the religion as a cult because other competitors for "perfection" vote to say that they are.
You cannot win this one, SkyPilot. God won't comply.
Absolutely the truth. You don’t live in Upstate New York, by any chance, do you? I don’t think there’s an orthodox bishop up there.
Incidentally, this has been going on for a long time. When I lived in New York, one of my kids attended a public high school that took kids from an area that had been “blessed” with a large population of Albanian Muslims. The girls routinely disappeared from school at age 14, which must have been the customary marriage age among them. At that point, they would have to start wearing Islamic garb and have to marry one of their father’s 50-year old buddies or relatives. Needless to say, the school system never bothered to look for them - cultural customs, don’t you know?
a photo of a bus with kids on it, which could have been taken anywhere. You have a chain of custody for that photograph which proves it was taken during the raid in question? Further, it does NOT diminish the fact that buses from a rival denomination WERE used.
That is the stupidest thing I've ever read. The warrant was served based upon the testimony of a so-called "Mormon" who bore the child of one of these perverts. I'm sure that people of every religious persuasion and those of no religious persuasion at all are not going to be taken in by arguments that it was the "Baptists" working with the State that brought about this raid. It was the perverts acting as perverts behind closed walls that brought about this raid. I am dismayed that it took so long. This kind of crap has been going on for 100 years. It is time that the government came in and broke the backs of these perverted cults.
If OJ Simpson’s trial had been held in West Texas, he’d be on Death Row right now. See, I can answer a hypothetical with a hypothetical. Now we are getting somewhere!
Warren Jeffs (L), seen here in September 2007, at his rape trial in Utah. Authorities removed as many as 52 girls from a compound in Texas owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints which is led by Jeffs. (AFP/File)
He looks creepy to me.
Wrong.
He'd have been executed a long time ago.
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