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 already answered this. And the Bible is clear, the location of Tablets and Ark were know for centuries after Moses died.
The fabled gold plates and decoder vanished very soon after Smith claimed to have translated them. Why won't you speculate on what happened to them?
It never seems to occur to the mainstream why did Moses have to receive another record of all the doing between the children and God on earth before Moses time from the Lord.
Where are the orginals?
Moses smashed them, it is clearly discussed in Scripture.
There are so many questions that the Bible gives man, but it seem like the mainstream reads the scriptures with blinders intack!
I thought you were interested in "critical thinking," why are you so resistant to the practice of it?
It seems to be something other than coincidental that when everyone still had a dog in the fight, i.e. a presidential candidate worth fighting for, that religious tit-for-tat threads were scarce as hen's teeth.
Now that we are all stuck with McCain and generally depressed and bitter about conservative political prospects, the religious tit-for-tat threads are sprouting like dandelions.
If you don't want to spend your time failing to convince Mormons of the errors of their ways on this thread, then you can go to other threads where you can fail miserably to convert Catholics to Protestantism, or Conservative Jews to Orthodox.
There's even a Messianic Jew out there that has some interesting theories you can debate with.
I realize this is an open forum. I suppose I could start a bunch of threads trying to convince Freepers that socialized medicine would be a good and conservative thing to put into place. But if I did, I would hope to be considered a disrupter and a waster of bandwidth.
IMHO all religious discussion that does not impact on public policy is disruption and a waste of bandwidth on this particular site.
People have built friendships on this site and simple prayer requests, etc. are always welcome, but all out brouhahas of Mormon vs. Protestant or Protestant vs. Catholic or Jew For Jesus for Messianic Jew are off topic.
In my mind all these threads are more a symptom than a disease. We got stuck with a crappy candidate and so we're gonna start arguin' 'bout sumpin' else.
Oh, let me see, we've already exhausted illegal immigration, homosexual indoctrination, and free trade vs. fair trade. How 'bout we start poking at each other about our religious differences? Now that sounds real productive!
And BTW, you can quote from the founder of the LDS all you want, and they can quote back to you the same types of statements by the founders of all of the religious and religious sects. Every religion was founded by fire-breathers who expected all others to convert or die.
“If I were you, I would be taking a hard, long look at the life you raised in and that you live now.”
Well, let’s see, I was raised by hypocritical Southern Baptist alcoholics. What’s your excuse?
That is so twisted. We can’t do anything to help someone avoid going to hell if they don’t want to.
I’m still trying to figure out the whole polygamy thing.
First, it’s OK, ordained by God.
Now it’s not as officially stated by the leadership of the LDS.
But according to posters here, it really is OK and they’re using the Bible to show that God approves of polygamy although the leadership of the LDS says it’s wrong.
Well, if God says it’s good, or at least OK, then how can the LDS leadership tell it’s constituents that it’s wrong?
And if the LDS leadership says it’s wrong, how can so many LDS members say that it’s right and use Scripture to condone it?
My head feels like its going to explode.
Thomas Chamberlain and his six wives and kids in Orderville circa 1910
Moses smashed them, it is clearly discussed in Scripture.
That was the first set which was the higher law, he return with the lesser law.
As long as it is ok for homosexuals and other sexual deviants to adopt kids, that is really all that matters. Maybe the little boys rounded up by the state can be sent to San Francisco to find a loving and decent home life, or maybe Rosie needs another little girl. SARC
I still agree so what are you doing to do about that viper?
--Restornu
Maybe he's IGNORING you!!!
You DO know what that's like!!
I've heard there are things like that:
Honestly,
this thread is beyond creepy. (Go take a walk...I am)
Oh well, perhaps you'd like to explain then why the LDS excommunicated another LDS for TELLING THE TRUTH???? Michael J. Barrett Excommunicated For Publicly Confirming LDS Teaching
.
Who Cares HOW YOU LOOK!!
"gREEN tOMATOES"
Where is the brain that GOD gave you?
FAlse assumption!
I am not trying to change ANY Mormon; but any WEAK Christians that may be swayed by their lies.
Remember that old saying, "where were you when God handed out brains"!
That's because the PURITY of the Restored Gospel is being withheld from you!
If you would ONLY look to what GOD has for you now.
When would be a good time for a couple of our fresh-faced missionairies to stop by your home to explain the riches of the Celetial Kingdom that awaits you?
--MormonDude(They are VERY dedicated!)
YOu know nothing!
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