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.”
Haven't you been listening to us True Believers??
Do NOT trust them Exers!!
They have variuos problems - lying being one of them!!!
ONLY 'current' members of the LDS, Organization, Inc. can be trusted to tell you the truth!!
Just ask Resty!!
--MormonDude(Sheesh!)
This goes WITH the post above!!
I know you hate when I quote from the Book of Mormon, but when you are so blatant in your false accusations, I will do it time and time again. Here ya go.
I know you hate when I quote from the BIBLE, I will do it time and time again. Here ya go.
GOS!!??
Now I’m channeling Resty!
Here: have some truth about them!
Your Temple Rites® have NO basis in ANY of your Scriptures.
wait...let me find my hat.
Chapter and verse please? Just the opposite had been shown clearly from both Old and New Testaments.
bonfire Now I think you are just trying to get my dander up!
Elise is my shadow no matter what I post or do he is there to mock me and you want me to take him seriously.
he has made a mess of my comment page I have a hard time finding normal ping through all his spamming and a few other are like that they don’t have much to say, just trying to dog me!
This has been going on now for over a year anyone new come on the block they are sure to fill them in...
Some times you act like you are in lock step with them and other times you act like you are sincere.
FR would like a donation from me but I just wonder with all this excess hurdles I have to hop over or get edit why bother this time, maybe next cycle they will be cordial and I will feel generous.
I do appreciate the webmaster though he is excellent!
Why don't you read what Jesus told Joseph... It's in the account, way before your highlighted snip. I'll give you a hint. He also told it to Isaiah. Look up Isaiah 29. Verses 13 and 14 especially, but the whole chapter was quoted to Joseph during the First Vision.
??
A child is not guilty of the sins of the pqrents ... a child is not ‘descended from’ polygamy since the child cannot have more than one Dad and Mum.
What are you complaining about then?
Did David have more than one wife at a time?
Is Jesus descended from David?
You dont like the words of the mormon prophats, presidents and apostles ???
prophets
Thanks for you opinion and insight!
I just posted the words of the mormon leaders
It’s certainly an interesting idea, but not supported by the scriptures.
I didn’t realize there were so many orthodox Christians who had such diverse beliefs about the reality of Mary being the literal mother of God, after the manner of the flesh. Even the evangelical types on here don’t all agree.
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