Posted on 04/18/2008 8:59:00 AM PDT by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
A 33-year-old Colorado Springs woman has been questioned about a telephone call that sparked a raid at the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound in western Texas two weeks ago.
Rozita Swinton was arrested at her home Wednesday night by Colorado Springs police for an incident that occurred in February. Members of the Texas Rangers were also in Colorado Springs as part of their investigation.
"The Texas Rangers were in Colorado Springs (Wednesday) as part of their investigation involving the compound in Texas. They left and have not filed any charges on Rozita Swinton as of this time," said Colorado Springs police spokesman Lt. Skip Arms.
Colorado Springs police said the arrest warrant has been sealed and refused to release any other details, reported Deseret News.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
My neighbor’s ex claimed he hit her during an arguement, despite the fact that his daughter was there and said nobody hit anyone. The cops hauled him off to jail WITHOUT TAKING any photos. I saw her 24 hours later and there was no black eye. 36 hours after the incident on Sunday, she had a nice black eye for the cops to photograph. First time I ever saw a black eye take over a day to show up.
Not only was he locked up for the whole weekend, but as the house that he owned in his name only was her residence (Don’t let your girlfriend get her mail delivered to your house unless you are real sure about her) He was not allowed in his own house for 2 weeks. She blew the motor in his truck up, returned property to Home Depot for cash and did about a thousand dollars in theft and damages.
Then 2 months later he gets charges from CPS that he is doing drugs in front of his daughter, originating from this woman who has a restraining order and hasn’t seen him in two months. No thought process involved as to how someone who has not been there has witnessed this, they just show up at the house. What effect do you think it has on a child when a State official sequesters them and asks if Dad does drugs?
While I understand that there are certainly situations where children should be removed from a home, in this case and many others, CPS does more damage than the alleged situation does. When are we going to get a handle on a nanny state that protects us against ourselves? Women want equality under the law, so how about some commonsense laws that treat men and women the same?
“The police didn’t know at the time they were acting on a bogus tip”
The police didn’t know the call was not from Texas ?
I’m religious and feel for the children, but the methods used in this raid bothered me. Very little evidence, arbitrary assignment of guilt by association, assignment of guilt to a group, etc. These people have been judged guilty by the court of public opinion and had hundreds of their children seized with very little due process. Anyone who had children were deemed guilty and had their children seized.
Not everyone in a religion holds the same beliefs nor is comfortable with the same actions and behaviors. The catholic clergy scandal points that out. Not all catholics are pedophiles and it is absurd to say that they are. It is absurd to say that all members of this group are too.
So all it takes is no evidence except one anonymous call to allow raiding an entire community, searching hundreds of private homes, for hundreds of families to lose their children??? That is just wrong. These people need more respect for the constitution.
I wonder, if this turns out to be a hoax will all the evidence they found be inadmissible?
NO! This is far too important to be concerned about the Constitution.
You don’t need NO constitution. The state will protect you.
I’m wondering how Fox will spin it. They’ve been all over it, especially the sex parts.
The police didn’t recieve the initial call, a domestic abuse hotline did. They relayed the notes they took to the police. The police felt they had to act, and by any ‘reasonable’ standard under current law they were right.
So the intial warrant meets the standard. The second one may not. And I stress MAY, because I haven’t seen what the investigators saw. But what the press was told by the ‘authorities’ and what is being introduced in court seem to be worlds apart.
Doesn't matter. Law enforcement could still trace the call.
You mean if people mean well, everything is OK? How does that work with all the people that freepers don’t agree with?
Looks like they did, judging by the news out of Colorado. But they had no reason to suspect at that time it was a hoax. I can’t fault them for it.
I have viewed this case with askance since I first heard it. I was snookered by the ‘authorities’ claims in 1993 about a ‘cult’ on Mt Carmel. It won’t happen again. The State has to prove its case; the ‘cult’ doesn’t have to prove it’s innocence. And so far the State is coming up short.
If this was so serious, and someone was calling alleging they were being held against their will, or being abused or raped, why would they not trace the call regardless of where the call was made to? They would have quickly discovered the caller was not even in the same state where they were alleging they were being held or abused. This reeks.
Do you realize, in emergency situations, law enforcement can have a call traced within minutes?
I’m still waiting for the sect’s (board of directors, or trust committee, or whatever the business entity they use) to show up in court showing rental contracts on all of the residences that were not listed in the original warrant, thereby making most of the entries into the homes by the LEO’s inadmissable.
I still don’t see how most of the men who were not senior leaders and don’t have an obvious child bride, are going to be prosecuted. And the children of men not in leadership positions, and legal age mothers, are now being held on flimsy circumstances. Guilt by religious association? How are the prosecutors going to be able to get that in front of a judge after this mess with the original warrants, let alone get convictions.
Age of consent in Colorado is 15 if less than a 10 year age differential. Only Federal prosecution will be available, and even then it’s going to be difficult to prosecute under several laws, such as Mann act, because every child born before 2000 will fall under Colorado age of consent laws, and many children born after 2000 will have mothers claiming they lived in Colorado at time of conception.
And with such an inbred family tree, DNA evidence is going to be near impossible to convict on.
I don't think you understand. If an emergency call was not made to law enforcement, 911 etc... why? Red flags everywhere.
In addition, if the call was not made to 911, or law enforcement, and it was allegedly involving rape, kidnap etc, why would the call not immediately not be traced, since the caller didn't bother to contact law enforcement directly? This must be done to rule out a false crime report, due to the fact the calls were not made in a normal manner.
If you were being raped, and were able to get into the bathroom, lock the door, hide what ever, and you were able to call for help, would you call some hotline? Or call 911?
Sure they can. DNA tells us right quick.
I'm unclear whether they could get a warrant to DNA test that many children and moms.
Since they didn’t recieve the call themselves, a warrant would have to be issued and the phone company would have to rreview and comply. Granting this takes very little time, I don’t see the Texas ‘authorities’ being in any rush to disprove their own case. Footdragging time must have run out for them.
It really doesn’t matter now. They have had two weeks to put out what they wanted about the FLDS. We see the results of that on all the threads about the case. Minds are made up, and they will not be changes, regardless of what happens. Most people believe that these people are toddler-raping monsters, and that is where they will stay. Maybe they are right. Maybe they are wrong.
But there is no way this group could get a fair trial now.
“The police didn’t recieve the initial call, a domestic abuse hotline did. They relayed the notes they took to the police. The police felt they had to act, and by any ‘reasonable’ standard under current law they were right.”
So, if I say called some hotline from a payphone and said that something illegal was happening at your house, that would be justification for sending hundreds of armed agents on a raid? They could then seize your property and children with no further evidence?
Again as I have said before, the authority of government is DERIVED FROM the people. It is not the governmenment doling out rights to the individuals.
If we were true to our form of constitutional government, one branch overstepping its bounds would be blocked by the other two.
Since we have morphed into an administrative form of government, when a bureacrat overteps his bounds the individual citizen has the burden to block the illegitimate use of power, often spending thousands of dollars from his own pocket to right the system and perhaps suffering irrepairable harm, such as Waco and Ruby Ridge.
Selodm is there an admission of guilt and generally hearings only serve to whitewash the atrocities.
It would be interesting for those who clamored for the government to take the children away from this group, how they would feel if Social Services yanked their kids because of some false accusation.
Because of current lack of checks and balances as the government is supposed to do, government officials should be PERSONALLY criminally and fincally liable.
George Washington said:
“It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes.”
Wrong, if someone calls a number, reporting a murder, rape, or major crime in progress, that call can and will be traced immediately.
Think about it. If someone called a number, and stated there was a bomb in an aircraft, and they were allegedly on board the aircraft, you think law enforcement would wait around for the phone company to review and comply with a request to trace the call?
Tell ya what, call out of state right now, and alleged there are juveniles being held against their will and being raped at a specific location. You can bet you’ll have law enforcement pulling up at your home within 1 hour. Don’t believe me? Try it.
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