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.”
Amen - and thanks. See #440.
Sky Pilot is good at that.
Sola Scriptura argues for a Triune God. How wonderful.
He is Risen!
I wonder...if the Court orders CPS to place them all in foster care tomorrow, WILL CPS take religious affiliation into consideration in the placement caretakers?
More likely, CPS would place them with other Fundamentalist Mormons until they can be either adopted or returned to their parents.
Turn to Fox News or CNN, they show videos of Baptist Church buses being used. Whether some school buses were used along with them is besides the point. Church buses should NEVER have been used.. not even ONE. The fact that they ALSO used buses besides church buses does not eliminate the fact that, by using the church buses, they make it appear that the authorities are in cahoots with a rival church.
Gee, thanks. Especially the chicken one...wonder if they use beaks and feet in the “processed chicken”?
The government has to give them due process.
I don't.
I don't have to wait for a jury verdict in order to condemn these people. I don't have to sift through a mountain of excluded evidence to know that these people are as guilty as hell.
In my mind they are all a bunch of sexual deviant child molesters. I'm not one to give perverts the benefit of the doubt, especially in a place where sexual deviancy is preached from the pulpit.
You will feel differently, not about baptists, but about the wisdom of using those buses, if they get acquitted because of an attorney using that defense.
No. It would be "unAmerican" (you'd have to deny the Mormons, the JWs, Scientologists, Moonies from owning property...If you did that, we wouldn't exactly be the "land of liberty," now would we?)
Then what makes you any different than a member of a lynch mob?
I don’t understand the Baptist bashing here. What did we do?
****
It is not about Baptist so much as it is about a Separation of church and state thing...
Someone asked about why the FBI did not use government Buses instead of church Buses!
That is what these compounded religious cults do. They abuse their own children mentally and emotionally and spiritually until they are old enough to be abused sexually.
Nobody was bashing Baptists. What I question is the wisdom of LAW ENFORCEMENT for using their buses, because it will give the defense ammunition for claiming that authorities are in cahoots with a rival denomination.
Are you being WILLFULLY obtuse or do you just not get it?
Maybe it will be like the Warden said in ‘Cool Hand Luke’, They’re our’n now.
Tell me, do you think OJ is guilty?
He was given due process and acquitted.
Am I wrong to call him a cold blooded murderer simply because he had his day in court and had "due process" and was acquited?
These perverts deserve whatever they get and as an American I am free to convict them in my own mind without having them have their day in court. In my mind, they've had their day in my court and I have found them guilty.
You got a problem with that?
Man, give it a rest already!
Not sure if this has been posted to this thread or not...... From the San Angelo News paper..
+++++
http://gosanangelo.com/news/2008/apr/06/lawmen-enter-temple/
Lawmen enter temple
Authorities prepped for worst
By Paul A. Anthony (Contact)
Sunday, April 6, 2008
ELDORADO - 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 was blocking efforts to search the structure. The Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and Schleicher County sheriff’s deputy confirmed officials entered the temple but said they had no word on whether any resistance occurred in the effort.
The temple entry caps the three-day saga of the state’s Child Protective Services agency removing at least 183 women and children from the YFZ Ranch. 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 at age 15.
Saturday evening, ambulances were brought in, said Allison Palmer, who as first assistant 51st District attorney, would prosecute any felony crimes uncovered in the investigation.
“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 late Saturday at the ranch, about 10:15 p.m. Saturday, a Schleicher County school bus unloaded a 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, provided varying degrees of cooperation to the sheriff’s deputies and Texas Rangers searching the compound, all cooperation stopped earlier Saturday once authorities tried to search the gleaming white temple that towers over the West Texas scrub, Palmer said.
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 that was in the temple. The earlier refusal to give access was even more disconcerting since CPS investigators have yet to identify the 16-year-old girl or her roughly 8-month-old baby among the dozens taken from the compound.
“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 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.”
Inside
A teen’s phone calls from inside the compound led to this massive investigation. Page A8
About the FLDS
What: The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a Mormon-based sect that broke away from the mainstream church more than 100 years ago and is not affiliated with the Mormon Church.
Who: Led for decades by Rulon Jeffs and, after his death in 2002, by his son, Warren Jeffs, who was convicted in 2007 on a charge of rape by accomplice for arranging marriages between adult men in his sect and unwilling underage girls. He was sentenced to five years to life in prison by a Utah judge. The sect is believed to have 10,000 followers.
Where: The FLDS is based in the twin border cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. In 2004, the group built a compound including a large temple on the YFZ Ranch, three miles northeast of Eldorado. Other compounds are believed to exist in Colorado and Canada.
Controversy: The sect, which broke from the mainstream LDS after the latter’s renunciation of polygamy, has been a target of Arizona and Utah authorities because of numerous allegations of child abuse, forced marriage and polygamy.
Prayers sent. Thanks for the ping.
Why did I not say that to being with?
Well, considering that I was not defending the LDS sect, and that my complaint was with regards to how I worried that law enforcement was undermining the prosecution by using those buses.. it seemed to me that any logical person would realize that my concern was not that someone was being wrongfully prosecuted, but rather that I was worried that it may aid in guilty people not being convicted. When you hear me complaining that law enforcement did it in a way that might undermine the prosecution, how do you interpret that to mean I want the perpetrators to walk free? I think most people would reasonably think I was concerned about exactly the opposite. My putting forth a statement about how the defense could use this does not mean I agree with such a defense, but merely a statement about how they could use it and undermine justice. If I wanted the perpetrators to walk, I certainly would not be complaining about errors made by law enforcement which could help the perps get off. Far from complaining about it, I would be celebrating it.
If I had read such a concern stated by someone in the manner in which I stated it, I would have realized what the intent was... so I apologize for actually expecting other people to be logical in their reasoning.
“Man, give it a rest already!”
But it is about the busses, the baptists, the busses, the jury, baptists, busses, jury, acquittal, busses, baptists,jury........
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