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.”
I just read the book. Riveting. I bought it at Target, you can get it a amazon.com (see my post)
That’s what I thought.
You know, the media and others are all over this about breaking up the families. Well, if those kids are with their mothers, it’s a moot point. The father is nothing more than a low life scum (apologies to scum) who’s of the caliber of dictators like Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. The only difference is that they don’t have a country of their own, so they just make up their own little world to control and torture.
Sadistic,....’s I can’t say..... I don’t want to get banned.
I’ll check out the local library first. We DON’T NEED another book in our house.
I sorta thought so but wanted to make sure!
I agree with you about the “breaking up the family” is such drivel....I would like to know what kind of “family” life these kids live with a 5 moms, 1 dad and 40-50 siblings....gee, you think “dad” even remenbers their names???
Betcha most of them respond to *Hey You!*.
Or that could explain why so many of them have the same names. Not so many for the idiot father to remember.
Check out this thread starting at this post, 1438.
I’m more autistic than artistic at times.
If I saw him on the street I would automatically think “gay”....just looks gay. My gaydar is rarely wrong.
I think one poster on exmormon.org framed this well: FLDS is really LDS, inc.'s crazy old aunt locked in the attic who refuses to die.
What's really sad is that this "crazy old aunt" resembles most of Mormons' older (19th century) ancestors.
I would say that four of the key distinctives of the fLDS in comparison to the "Mother Ship" (or "Mother POD" if you will) is...
(a) polygamy for "time" (otherwise both groups agree on polygamy for "eternity"):
(b) blacks as eligible members of the priesthood (fLDS is still pre-1978 Mormonism);
(c) they follow distinct leaders;
and (d) the fLDS is isolationist whereas the "Mother Ship" openly proselytizes. (Most of the rest of the distinctions are minor)
Bottom-line? The fLDS are simply a time-machine reminder of what generations-ago-Mormonism was. And that's why, as I said on post 1,101 & a more recent post, that it's a "Love-Hate" relationship that the LDS have re: the fLDS!
I so appreciate your posts. Thanks for educating us!
I don’t think the ‘reason’ or ‘history’ has anything to do with the fact that POLYGAMY IS STILL ILLEGAL IN THIS COUNTRY.
Breaking the law in the name of the Lord is still breaking the law. Fact.
I agree. [Which is what makes LDS who like to point out how "law-abiding" they are all the more guilty of obfuscation...'cause note, most cannot bring themselves to either condemn their literal (and spiritual) ancestors who broke the law to engage in polygamy...nor by extension, do they usually take the initiative to condemn fLDS polygamy]
I agree, although I prefer to call what they do an outright lie, or deliberate deception. The fact they would even attempt to defend polygamy proves they secretly support the practice IMHO.
The problem is they want so much to proslytize for more tithing $$$$$ and be accepted as another denomination of Christianity that they are willing to go against the clear teaching of their own 'living prophet'. They do this of course knowing full well most of the country will never abide this practice and will call it what it is: A CULT. Then when the FLDS (who are actually more faithful to the original teachings of J. Smith and B. Young than the regular LDS are) get crucified by the news media -- they want to label them apostate but at the same time defend them. Pathetic.
Thank goodness I never expect the spiritual brain dead get it right!
It’s been brought up.
They look decent. No boobs, butts or bellys showing which is more than you can say for regular society.
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