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.”
Elevate your thoughts!1
:O)
Elevate your thoughts!
:O)
Rahab's occupation can also be translated as "Innkeeper," so this is by no means certain.
Don't worry dmw and greyfoxx. I am sure restornu was not engaging in a personal attack.
Perhaps she was only calling you a hockey team?
Works well for tithing too.
Yeah, how dare you post a news link that says this was a Texas State raid (not a Federal raid) and use that to back up what you said! < / sarcasm >
*****Rahab’s occupation can also be translated as “Innkeeper,” so this is by no means certain.*****
Jos 2:1 -
An harlot’s house - In the face of the parallel passages (e. g. Lev_21:7 : Jer_5:7) the rendering advocated for obvious reasons, namely, “the house of a woman, an innkeeper,” cannot be maintained. Rahab must remain an example under the Law similar to that Luk_7:37 under the Gospel, of “a woman that was a sinner,” yet, because of her faith, not only pardoned, but exalted to the highest honor. Rahab was admitted among the people of God; she intermarried into a chief family of a chief tribe, and found a place among the best remembered ancestors of King David and of Christ; thus receiving the temporal blessings of the covenant in largest measure. The spies would of course betake themselves to such a house in Jericho as they could visit without exciting suspicion; and the situation of Rahab’s, upon the wall Jos_2:15, rendered it especially suitable. It appears from Jos_2:4 that Rahab hid them before the King’s messengers reached her house, and probably as soon as the spies had come to her house. It is therefore most likely that they met with Rahab outside of Jericho (compare Gen_38:14), and ascertained where in the city she dwelt, and that they might entrust themselves to her care. Rahab (i. e. “spacious,” “wide.” Compare the name “Japheth” and Gen_9:27, note) is regarded by the fathers as a type of the Christian Church, which was gathered out of converts from the whole vast circle of pagan nations.
Alfred Barnes’ Commentary
they . . . came into an harlot’s house—Many expositors, desirous of removing the stigma of this name from an ancestress of the Saviour (Mat_1:5), have called her a hostess or tavern keeper. But Scriptural usage (Lev_21:7-14; Deu_23:18; Jdg_11:1; 1Ki_3:16), the authority of the Septuagint, followed by the apostles (Heb_11:31; Jam_2:25), and the immemorial style of Eastern khans, which are never kept by women, establish the propriety of the term employed in our version. Her house was probably recommended to the spies by the convenience of its situation, without any knowledge of the character of the inmates. But a divine influence directed them in the choice of that lodging-place.
Jamison Faucett & Brown Commentary
I doubt there’s an FBI agent there, even in a consulting role.
We have Texas Rangers, and they remember the last time the FBI came to Texas and got involved in what was really a local problem. The FBI and the rest of the Feds blew it and dumped the disaster on the Rangers once it was over.
The FBI remembers the damning report the Rangers produced when they dumped the Waco remains on them. They expected the locals to “clean up their mess”. Instead, the Rangers treated it as a crime scene, did a thorough and professional forensic investigation, and produced a report that slammed the Feds for (among other things) lack of professionalism and triggerhappiness. Surprise! There *are* better law enforcement organizations than the FBI, and the FBI just tried screwing with one of them.
The FBI is going to want to be far, far, far away from this.
That said, what probably happened was that either that team is a Ranger team, or there’s a Ranger on point with the warrant.
Good points. Narrow and selective investigation and prosecution in a world with far greater crime and mayhem! Too bad these so called LEO’s can’t muster the same level of outrage at the high murder rate, drug and human trafficking all along our southern border. Maybe there isn’t enough money it this for them as there is in the drug and human smuggling business.
No.. it’s called “they’re busy” and they’re not going to talk to the idiot press until it’s all over. So far, it is going peacefully.
Would YOU talk to the press while an operation was in progress, specifically one that so far has been peaceful on both sides?
These FLDS sects are famously havens for pedophilia. I support this raid for the purpose of freeing these young girls.
This, from the comments section at the Salt Lake Tribune, I found to be very interesting and would have been true in the early mormon days: "Consensual? Since when is consent, given under community pressure, and under threat of hellfire, freely and truly consensual? What we need to know about the women and girls of this community is, what would happen if they said 'no?' Could they just leave? Would they be treated well if they stayed? Are their own wishes respected? It would seem that those conditions are too often absent in this cult.
The article is HERE
Side note: The article states the sect is also in South Dakota and Colorado, along with the Texas and Canadian compounds. In regards to the Colorado site, I found this.
MANCOS, CO -- The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) has surreptitiously established a polygamous colony in the state of Colorado. Acting on behalf of the FLDS leadership, a 33-year-old Mormon Fundamentalist named David Steed Allred paid $1,394,000 for two 60-acre parcels of land six miles north of Mancos, a small community in Colorado's southwest corner. Allred, moreover, is presently maneuvering to purchase a third 60-acre parcel lying between the other properties, which would give the FLDS Church a private inholding of 180 contiguous acres entirely surrounded by publicly owned National Forest.
-SNIP-
It is not yet clear what Jeffs and his followers plan to do with the Mancos property. Although they have been putting up buildings at a rapid rate, it seems doubtful that Jeffs intends to establish a large community of polygamists there. More likely, he bought the acreage as a private hideaway for himself, his body guards, and his favorite wives--a bucolic refuge that would remain safely under the radar of nosy journalists or law officers bearing warrants for his arrest. The new compound is situated 7,900 feet above sea level, in the densely wooded foothills of the San Juan Mountains, perhaps the loveliest and most rugged peaks in Colorado. Wild game is abundant. Jeffs may have been made aware of the place by Sam Roundy, the police chief of Hildale, Utah, whose father and grandfather were raised in Durango, Colorado, 20 miles east Mancos. Childbrides.com
Amen. I believe any decent person would also agree that these girls needed to be rescued.
The fact that some here on FR are defending the molesters and trying to conjure some twisted, fictitious image as "Waco 2!" is disgusting. They are attempting to muddy the waters to obscure the cold hard reality of the evil that occurred here.
One news station has reported that they *do* know who made the calls, but attempts by that reporter to get the name were “forcibly” repulsed.
Which is amusing since in Texas I believe it is illegal to report the name of a minor involved in a criminal investigation without parental permission.
Again, for everyone reading this: Texas LOCAL and STATE authorities are serving a legitimate search warrant on the FLDS properties. (Yes, Texas rural search warrants often include “the entire property” and then define it.) So far it has been peaceful with no shots fired on either side and no injuries. The Texas Rangers (not the baseball team) are involved, and this probably will end like the Republic Of Texas incident - peacefully. Don’t go looking for any Waco-style massacres here - that was a Fed show, not a Texas one.
Watched the footages of the raid on national T.V. I have to wonder, sometimes, exactly what the fed employees use for brains.
Clearly visible in the footages where the buses are carrying the children away is that the buses are marked as being Baptist Church buses. Really friggin brilliant when raiding a mormon sect. Whether true or not, it makes it APPEAR that the govt and baptists are in cahoots against mormons. Are they trying to ignite a religious war?
Only good thing is they did not go burn the children to death in order to protect them, like Reno would have done.
Just another good example of why the most frightening words you will ever hear is “We are from the govt and we are here to help”.
Thank you
Good analysis.
The reason people are trying to draw parallel to the Waco raid is an attempt to garner sympathy and to distract from what really went on at the FLDS "retreat" in Texas.
Thank God for the Texas Rangers. I am sure they are doing a professional job under difficult circumstances.
It's possible she may not exist at all, which would explain why C.P.S. can't find her, (so far).
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_8827761
State of Arizona probation officer Bill Loader said Barlow came to his office Friday morning to say he was under investigation. Barlow had received a call from Schleicher County, Texas, informing him of the inquiry, Loader said.
"He said the authorities had called him [in Colorado City, Ariz.,], and some girl had accused him of assaulting her, and he didn't even know who she was," Loader said.
So, is he in Texas or is he in Arizona? more twists...
Barlow was named in a search and arrest warrant served Thursday night
Ok, the warrant was served Thursday night and by Friday morning the authorities are calling him in Arizona because they figured out or was told he is not living in Texas. He walks into his P.O.'s office on Friday morning stating he does not know who she is, the same girl that C.P.S. can't find despite the fact that she is supposedly in custody. His probation officer (Loader) states the following..
Loader said Barlow has complied with his probation, which includes regular checks with Loader and informing Loader of his movements. "He's done everything by the book," Loader said.
Ok, so he lives in Arizona but the yet to be found girl says he is married to her in Texas. IF that were true it seems to me that the "Church elders" would not allow him to just drop in occasionally, he is supposed to be the husband of the girl.
Something is not adding up here. Either he has a heck of an alibi (he lives in Arizona) or the rules are pretty slack back at the compound about actually living there. Pretty long commute...
1. The Feds are NOT running this show.
2. The locals commandeered the first buses available. Unfortunately, they belonged to a Baptist church. Oh well. Better to DO THE DAMN JOB FIRST and WORRY ABOUT APPEARANCES LATER. Or would you prefer that all LEO activity go through a Political Correctness Committee first?
3. The Mormons are disowning this sect and say it’s a radical splinter group. I suspect many are watching this and LTAO.
4. Again, Waco was run by the Feds. This is being run by Texas law enforcement. Feds are clowns. The Texas Rangers are professionals.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.