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.”
“The other girls aren’t calling 911 repeatedly, though.”
True. At least the Texas girls aren’t totally brainwashed yet.
The illegals from mexico do it here all the time. Parkland Hospital is full of pregnant 14 - 15 year old girls and nary so much as a question as to the father, are they "married" nothing. Just charge off the bill to the county because they are illegal aliens. Heck, they even ran a special from one of the channels about the 14-15-16 year old girls in Dallas schools and how they "cope" with going to school with their anchor baby.
And not so much as a single word about it being illegal, the father being looked for, nothing. They are "commended" for being so "brave" for staying in school.
The current age is 16, not 14. The 79th Legislature of 2005 changed it from 14 to 16. She wouldn’t have been “grandfathered” in as she would have been, at best, 13 or so when the act went into effect on 1 Sep 2005.
You can read the changes here:
http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/79R/billtext/html/SB00006F.HTM
All CURRENT Texas state laws are online and accessible through www.texas.gov. DO NOT TRUST OTHER WEBSITES AS THEY OFTEN HAVE OUTDATED COPIES.
Normally I loathe jumbo colored text but in this case it is so unfortunately necessary.
If the feds are not involved, I stand corrected. I based that upon a report on CNN in which they said federals were involved.. of course, they are known for getting things screwed up.
In any event, I do not think local authorities have ANY authority to “commandeer” buses belonging to any church. For that matter, I am quite sure some school buses are available in that area, owned by the state, and not involving any other religious institutions. Not to mention there is no shortage, in Texas, of buses available, such as the ones they SHOULD be using to transport illegal aliens but which are instead sitting idle.
Using Baptist buses is an act of blatant stupidity. If it IS only local authorities involved, some of whom probably ARE members of the Baptist church... it only makes the appearance of inpropriety even worse.
Those who believe in evolution would be well advised to kill all of the chimps and monkeys and gorillas before they are granted legal rights. Once they have the right to counsel and welfare payments, it will be the end. If, of course, you believe in evolution.
Not to mention that AZ and UT are in the "mormon corridor" and TX definitely is NOT. I very much doubt the public will be as skeptical there, and, this is not the '50s. Jeffs has been convicted and is on trial again, and there isn't any outrage that I have seen.
Why? Do LDS dislike Baptists?
This is where you completely lose all credibility. Whose history are you studying, the BOM or the bible because they don't jive, ya know.
BTW, in addition to the points I made in the post above... the authorities have handed, on a silver platter, a means of defense by the mormon sect who I assure you will bring up in court the fact that these are baptist buses, and will imply that it is authorities in cahoots with religious rivals in a conspiracy against them. They will only have to convince ONE juror (and out of every 12 people, odds are good that SOMEONE will not be fond of baptists) that that is the case.
There’s only one problem with your premise about Waco. The department of children’s services down there testified that they could find no evidence of any children being abused, and they did interview children at the farm.
This statement was made after the main building was burned to the ground with all the children in it.
It will be interesting to see how many cases of child abuse get filed and prosecuted all the way through to a verdict successfully. My guess is that none of them will.
Unless the laws have been changed, a child can get married in Texas with parental consent at the age of 14. I may not like it. You may not like it. The state of Texas may not like it. The problem is, how do you prove that:
1. Parental Consent was not given
2. The female did not consent at the time out of a firm belief in the culture of the collective
3. That the kid at 16 didn’t have a change of heart or get angry and choose to get even with someone
It seems to me that this is going to be a tough nut to crack even after the massive disruption law enforcement imposed on the people at this farm.
We’ve got the same old misinformation going on with this case. This is not a cult. This is not a compound. This is a farm with a number of structures on it and the people there are not necessarily demons.
We’ll see how this plays out, but I AM NOT impressed by this massive show of force to accomplish an investigation that would in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities be handled with professionalism and a minimum of ghestapo tactics.
What is it about Texas and these massive operations? Do they operate under a different Constitution down there?
Vipers?
How did you achieve that rank? I’m still stuck at being a “Flying Inman”.
Different religious groups are OFTEN (in fact, almost ALWAYS) rivals of each other. Baptists believe Mormons are going to Hell, and vice versa. What planet have you been living on?
I thought for a moment I had posted on the wrong thread. I’m also reading the one about the angry chimp:’)
Has this thing been going on for 51 days already?
Sorry, you are wrong.
1. In Texas, a peace officer has the authority to commandeer any private vehicle in the performance of his duties. Any damages must be reimbursed by the agency doing the commandeering.
2. Thank you for advising us on what we should do about deporting illegal aliens. When we in Texas want to hear about your opinions on the subject, we’ll let you know. Until then, STFU.
3. Here is a map of Eldorado TX. Please notice that there is NOTHING around it and that it is too small to have a mass transit system.
Now, being that this is a Sunday, the only place that’s going to have buses operating, with drivers... isn’t going to be the school district. Surprise! Where exactly do you propose that the authorities get their buses from, again?
Sure, no problem, go and check. But they are arresting folks by the busload. Rubs me the wrong way when they do something like this based on two phone calls from a girl that CPS can't find despite her being the basis of the warrant. They don't have to release her name but heck, this did not smell right from the beginning and if the guy really is living in Arizona and does not know her as it appears according to State officials in Arizona the entire justification for the raid could fall apart and the lawsuits will be a`flying.
Of course, it is only the taxpayers money. No big deal to them.
One problem - in the local area, most of the inhabitants are Baptist or Baptist-friendly.
And I doubt they’ll get a change of venue.
Resty, your Biblical threats are tiresome, as are your personal name-calling attacks. Do you think you are "annointed" to call down the wrath of God on those who expose your false prophet? Wrong!
Try, for a change, debating with sourced facts instead of innuendo, threats and ad hominems.
Obviously not yours.
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