Posted on 05/01/2008 10:47:42 AM PDT by Politicalmom
State authorities are investigating whether younger boys taken from a polygamist ranch in West Texas were sexually abused by older boys, not adults, a state official said today.
Documents taken from the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado indicate that younger boys were molested by older boys at the ranch, the official, who asked not to be identified, told the Houston Chronicle.
No other details about the abuse were available.
On Wednesday, Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Commissioner Carey Cockerell revealed to a Senate panel that at least 41 of the 464 children in state custody had previously broken or fractured bones.
``Several of these fractures have been found in very young children and several had multiple fractures,'' he said.
Most of the information about the fractures was reported to DFPS' Texas Child Protective Services by the children or their mothers. Few X-rays have been done on the children, agency officials said.
But Cockerell also told the Senate Health and Human Services Committee that the agency is looking into the possible sexual abuse of some boys, based on interviews and journal entries.
In addition, he informed the panel of several hurdles CPS workers faced in trying to identify the children and determine their health status.
He said both women and children removed plastic identity bracelets issued to them or rubbed the wording off of them. CPS had tried to use the bracelets to help workers keep track of children.
Also, FLDS women initially refused to let the children undergo basic health screenings and many of the teen girls refused to take pregnancy tests. The women and older children often monitored younger children, telling them not to speak to CPS workers or coaching them on what to say, Cockerell said.
For the past month, child welfare investigators had focused nearly all of their attention on the alleged sexual abuse of young girls who once resided with their parents at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' ranch.
Until now, officials have alluded only occasionally to suspected physical abuse. The breakaway Mormon sect practices polygamy and its spiritual leader, Warren Jeffs, is serving a prison sentence after being convicted of being an accomplice to rape of an underage girl.
No other details were available about the possible abuse of the boys or how many of the fractures, which affect less than 10 percent of the total child population from the sect, can be attributed to their life on a big ranch with a large amount of construction and farm equipment.
FLDS spokesman Rod Parker called Cockerell's testimony "a deliberate effort to mislead the public."
Parker said any broken bones would have been treated in medical facilities away from the ranch and that doctors are required to report suspected abuse.
It was not clear how many of the children might have been injured while playing or working on the 1,700-acre ranch they once called home.
Lloyd Barlow, the ranch's onsite physician, said he was caring for a number of FLDS children with broken or fractured bones at the time they were removed from the ranch.
"Probably over 90 percent of the injuries are forearm fractures from ground-level or low level falls," Barlow told the Associated Press. "I can also tell you that we don't live in a community where there is a pattern of abuse."
Dr. Emalee Flaherty, a pediatrician in Chicago who specializes in child abuse, cautioned against jumping to conclusions that the children's broken bones were caused by abuse.
There might be many variables, she said, such as a high incidence of bone disease or a special diet that causes a vitamin deficiency that predisposes the group's children to brittle bones.
"This is a pretty closed community," Flaherty said, adding that life on a ranch might also expose children to injuries.
Dr. Bruce Perry, a Houston child psychiatrist and child abuse expert, said the type of fracture also is important.
"There are certain characteristics of fractures that go with abuse," Perry said. "It would be really important to know what bone was fractured and the type of fracture."
The state's April 3 raid on the YFZ Ranch has been criticized by some who believe CPS overstepped its authority when it took all of the children and placed them in foster care after finding underage girls were "spiritually married" to much older men.
CPS officials counter that they found at least one underage girl who was pregnant or had children in each of the sect's 19 homes on the ranch when they first arrived on April 3.
The agency clarified that number on Monday, saying at least 31 of the 53 girls ages 14 to 17 are pregnant, have children or both. Another child was born to a teen mother on Tuesday.
All of the children have been placed in group homes and shelters around the state until the investigation is completed.
For CPS, determining ages has been one of the biggest challenges. The agency reached the 53 total after reclassifying 26 girls, who had said they were older than 18, as younger than 18.
Stephanie Goodman, spokeswoman for the state's Health and Human Services Department, said those girls had told officials they were younger than 18.
"For most of these children, we've been given different ages and different names," Goodman said. "We have teenagers who can't tell us their birthdates. Some have answered (that) they don't know. Others have said, 'I'm not supposed to tell you.' "
Under Texas law, children under age 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult. A girl can get married with parental permission at 16, but none of the sect's girls is believed to have had a legal marriage under state law. Also Wednesday, legal aid attorneys for some of the mothers filed an amended petition with the Third Court of Appeals in Austin, seeking the return of the children sent to residential foster care homes across the state.
"The wholesale removal of (the children) from their mothers was not justified," the petition read in part.
The department may have introduced evidence that some girls were being physically abused, but such evidence did not "pertain to the overwhelming majority of the children ... nor did it establish that each child was at risk of physical danger."
“Were you the youngest child in the family?”
No, but I did refuse to grow up.
So, I might be now.
I read the Bible daily, and know it relatively well. I can’t think of anything Jesus said that has “gone out of style,” or has become considered to be abhorrent, like Joseph Smith’s advice about polygamy has.
When I was growing up it was a fairly common sight to see 7-10 year old boys driving tractors. I haven't seen it in a long time though and that's a good thing.
I was working in the fields myself from about 9 or 10 years old.
I got the absolutely dirtiest job riding the planter and keeping the hoppers filled, by the time I was 13 or 14 I was putting up hay and that has to be among the most demanding jobs on earth.
LOL Well, I won't, because I suspect such a refutation isn't going to happen.
I know what I did when I was that age.
LOL!
Why should I refute such obvious garbage?
Can you cite for me just one instance of anybody at F.R. who has said or implied that they hate Mormons?
But...but...what would we do for fun on FR if there were no leaks?
Did you ever fall off and break your bones?
Oh, thanks. Now there’s a bullet hole in my Flatscreen monitor.
Good thing I have multiple monitors.
One that is preparing his formal letter of resignation from the church.
The worst and most outrageous "quotes" attributed to Joe Smith and Brigham Young turned out TO BE FACT, WORD FOR WORD IN MOST INSTANCES !
Polygamy, True
POLYAMORY (marrying other men's wives), TRUE
Church ordered INCEST (BROTHER / SISTER), TRUE
Plan of Salvation from Swedenborg 1775, not Joe Smith, true
Blood atonement, true
Kinderhook Plates, true
Rosetta stone proves book of Abraham FRAUD, true
JOSEPH SMITH KILLED 2 MEN MOMENTS BEFORE DEATH, TRUE
Joseph smith jailed for ordering destruction of printing press used to expose Smith marrying (screwing) printers wife, TRUE
And this, maybe was the straw that broke the camel's back:
"Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet...When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go."Joseph Smith (History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 408, 409)
This boastful and deceitful man who claimed to be greater than Christ is not the Joseph Smith I had been taught and told about, I HAD BEEN LIED TO ALL MY LIFE, AND SO HAVE YOU.
Amen!
Wow! Well done. I’m curious to see what response you’ll get.
Ho hum, seen it before, and I really doubt you were ever in a bishopric.
I am a descendant of Emer Harris, brother of Martin Harris, one of the three witnesses.
I have much to atone for.
This has information on two issues. First, it gives a count of the number of independent living quarters at the ranch -- 19. I believed there were more than one because some parents had said they lived in their own houses, but now we know that there were quite a few different houses.
Second, it states that each of the 19 homes included at least one girl who had been pregnant while "underage", although it doesn't identify what "underage" means.
This story also suggests that they KNEW this when they arrived at the ranch. If true, that means on the DAY of the raid, CPS "knew" there were 19 girls who had been pregnant before turning 18 (I assume that's what they mean by underage).
However, early stories suggested they didn't know this and that they only learned it later.
Either CPS is not being accurate here, or it is another example where the fog of early reports is lifting.
Actually, many of us have already paid the price by staying in the sect so long. Atonement will come when we can help others through kind and honest efforts to get LDS folks and family to understand the truth without the defensive battle OMM poses in every thread. There really is nothing to fight over once one faces the truth with a degree of honesty.
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