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.”
Just to clarify, these people are not part of the modern LDS. They are a radical splinter group and a closely insulated cult lead by Warren Jeffs that believes that it’s God’s will to force 14 or 15 year old girls into incestuous “marriages” with their uncles or first cousins (or even worse).
Yes, Warren Jeffs is a wack-job pervert, as was his father before him, but he's not a Baptist. Do you think that there might be something in the teachings or in the tradition (or in both) of Mormonism that lends some support to such an abusive way of life?
Just to clarify, these nutjobs are living polygamy as Joseph Smith and Brigham Young instructed.
Lets not whitewash this.
One would hope so.
The life of Joe Smith their prophet.
CNN reported that you cannot get married at 15 in Texas, even with parental consent.
This girl is 16 with an 8 month old baby.
That puts her at 14 or 15 when that pervert molested her.
The Mohhamedans would approve!
Some additional info:
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2008/apr/05/official-on-children-at-flds-ranch-it-is-not-for/
The girl called 911 more than once, apparently asking for help. She was also 15 when impregnated, and girls under 16 cannot be legally married in Texas, even with parental consent.
Seems to me that there is plenty of reason for authorities to take a look and that it would be unthinkable to ignore that child’s cry for help.
“Establish justice . . . promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty,” and all that.
Doing the math, the child has an “approximately’ eight month old son. Calculating normal human gestation of nine months this infers that she was roughly 14.5 years when she became pregnant. Pretty damn hard to ignore, especially after she notified authorities of her situation.
What? No flammable tear gas? No machine gunning people attempting to flee the flames?
“But I bet no Muslim compound is ever going to be raided, although I’m sure this goes on at those places, too.”
Nope, won’t happen. Where I live there have been thousands of Mohammedans brought in since 2000 by Catholic Charities at the invitation of the local heretic RC bishop who has convinced his people that they will get a “bigger mansion in heaven” if they embrace the Mohammedans. Most of the men have 4 wives, each of whom a pregnant. The Mohammedan population is supported by welfare and agitation by nuns, priests and various RC limp wrists and pols ever watchful for the Mohammedans’ “rights”. The rest of us, of course, get to pay for all this.
You know, L, we don’t say that the floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops for nothing!
You reckon?
It’s not a temple.
According to Federal guidelines, it must now be referred to as a “compound”.
thanks for the informative clarification. Let’s be fair to all LDS people and respect their religion. This bizzarre cult is a big reason that Rommney is not electable. It makes Americans queasy,not saying that is fair..but it is reality.
Is it just me or does this remind you of the raid against David Koresh and the Branch Davidians back during Janet Reno’s days?
Hmmm, a 16 year old girl claims to be forcefully married to a 50-year old man and bore him a child. And this results in the massive police and child protection raid, where hundreds are arrested and seized?
And this is worse than six and nine year old girls being forcefully married to 45 year old men (like Aisha was to Mohammed) that is still going on to thousands of Muslim girls today?
This is worse than drug dealers addicting, raping, and forcing into prostitution tens of thousands of teenagers and preteenagers every year in the US alone?
Why the selective outrage? Why doesn’t the government act the same against the polygamist Muslims and the drug dealers?
Frankly, Warren Jeff and his fundamentalist Mormon group sicken me - I’ve no respect for people like that. Still, this selectivism, where only white Christian loonies are the bad guys, should be bothersome to all.
The tacit encouragement of the MSM for warrentless searches and abuse of power by agencies that they champion, such as CPS, is part of how respect for the Constitution is eroded.
So they are aware that the FLDS is not a break away nor excommunicated and is not in any way related to or by any means to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, this FLDS, is a rogue organization, is a Fake LDS!
I pray reasonable minds will remember just like our struggle in our Conservative Efforts that the media many times ignores our side or maligns us, and they apply the same brush the the LDS!
Sad but true there are freepers who know better but take delight in posting this confusion.
Regardless of the legal age of marriage in TX, the child is most likely NOT the “first” wife who would be the only legal wife, and therefore any “marriage” is bigamy. Any sexual congress therefore would be statutory rape.
Found another version that is the same but has the permitted age at 16.
§ 2.102. PARENTAL CONSENT FOR UNDERAGE APPLICANT. (a) If an applicant is 16 years of age or older but under 18 years of age, the county clerk shall issue the license if parental consent is given as provided by this section.
Of cours, this only applies to American citizens, not illegal aliens...
Do you honestly believe a 16 year old girl really wanted to be married to a 50 year old man?
I’m sure that many of the people of this religious group are very fine people. I was taken aback to see the Baptist Church buses going onto the compound. The authorities should have used government buses like school buses or at least covered up the Baptist signs.
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