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.”
Anyone writing a vicious personal attack to me via freepmail may as well expect it to be reposted verbatim on thread. I’ve done it before and will do it again.
If anyone is not ashamed of remarks, they may as well post on thread and subject those remarks to the scrutiny of the mods and the other members here.
I have been attacked both on thread and off by the same people you mention. They have no respect for me or anyone but themselves and those who think in lock step with them, so they get no respect from me.
I do not post freepmails of a contentious nature ever. It’s cowardly.
Here in Missouri they use the card too, but it is still food stamps.
As for producing their own food, as I understand it they were largely self-sufficient (which is pretty cool as far as that goes) but I am pretty sure that there are certain foodstuffs they did not produce on their own. Among the various facilities they described the compound as having, I do not recall them mentioning a flour mill, and I am doubtful that they produce such things as sugar (though they may have beehives and use honey instead, I do not know.. I know there is a problem with africanized bees in texas). On my farm, we raise livestock and always have a nice garden... but there are some things which are simply impractical to try to produce yourself.
I believe they had a cheese factory. ewwww, TX cheese.
Heh.. I know there has got to be the makings of a good joke in there somewhere. Texas cheese.... hmmm....
I understand that. The old food stamp way was loaded with fraud. People would sell them or go where they could get cash back. This system is supposed to be more secure. The State of Texas is very generous with groceries but if 400 kids were on the books there is just so much flour and sugar you need to buy. I guess my question is, if these women had Lone Star cards was food bought and by whom and where?
I dunno.. but from what they said, it sounded like there were members in other states who did this and then shipped the food down there. Will have to watch Greta on Fox and see if she mentions it again... I only caught a minute or two of it.
Texas cheese is sort of like "Wisconsin Brisket."
Yes and it makes absolutely no difference at all whether Hagar was a slave, wife, concubine or whatever. That's my point. This sin was Sarai's sin and sin is sin is sin here. There is absolutely no indication that God ever commanded Sarai to give Hagar to Abram - in whatever capacity Hagar may have been in. The results of this sin (Ishmael) was and continues to be a complete disaster for the nation of Israel.
Go through all my posts and show me ONCE where I even hinted at that suggestion. It seems to me that YOU are the one splitting hairs. I am simply pointing out the obvious.
No not at all. Your posts have been fairly consistent in condemning polygamy. I make this post to suggest that we continue on that topic - condemning polygamy - and to continue to teach that God does not nor never has condoned such actions by sinful humanity. So to focus on whether Hagar was a wife, slave, or concubine just distracts from the central issue of whether or not God condoned polygamy in this instance. Focusing on the 'wifely' status of Hagar is generally what defenders of polygamy do. Instead the focus should be on the sinfulness of Sarai in ever giving Hagar to Abram to begin with, and then Abram's weak submissive response, along with the resultant devasting consequences that have now lasted over 3,000 years. That's my point.
Was that comment directed to me?
No,that commment was directed at anyone who seeks to defend polygamy based on the Old Testament practice of it.
I lived in TX for 12 years. ANY good cheese was hard to come by unless you lived near a Whole Foods.
Here ya go
I guess it would have to be Longhorn cheese? Or perhaps Jalapeno?
Does my tagline show as just a cross to you or have other gobbleygook in it?
That works for most, but these particular posters seem to be teflon-coated where the mods are concerned.
It has a funny lookin A
It has the A carat font thingy in front of the cross, the same as what has happened to one of my posts...I ended up having to have the mod delete it....I think it is a glitch in the FR software since the upgrade, never had the problem before.
Same thing with Salvation's tagline. Salvation, here we go again...
Chilli con queso.
I never repeated content of any one FM!
but what does that matter to Elsie just throw out accusations and see if they will fly!
Excuse me elsie I me this tricky Fox who tell stories!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1997522/posts?page=1977#1977
I never said any such thing to TN it is her who said it about me and I never posted what she said to me on the forum so you are all wet!
You see Greyfoxx39 was MISTAKEN!
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