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.”
Yep
No one is equating defending Abraham and Jacob with these nut jobs in Texas.
Except you.
I think Resty would have been insulted.
Again I don’t have any idea what that post was about.
LOL, and probably with good reason.
Well, seven, since you just "popped" in after 1000 posts to call us "haters", it's obvious why you could be mistaken for each other.
“Again I don’t have any idea what that post was about.”
Heh. Like the ole sayin goes..
If ya cannot dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS.
Excuse me. You guys and everyone else who is using them as an example to defend polygamy are the ones equating them.
Whatever. Some of us have real lives and events and travel take priority.
Some of us can also tell the difference in posting styles.
Just like some of us can also tell the difference between Warren Jeffs and Abraham.
“...Mormon haters...”
Speaking for myself, hatred implies a certain measure of importance in a persons mind, and you are not significant enough to qualify. Sort of like a slug on the bottom of my shoe. I do not hate it... I just find it to be rather nasty and disgusting.
“No one is equating defending Abraham and Jacob with these nut jobs in Texas.”
That was my point, the rest of us are trying to bust some child rapers down in Texas and you want to go into the bible to find a defense for them. Don’t be dragging all this bible stuff into this child rape cult bust taking place in Texas.
Let’s just root for the lawmen...oops, I guess if that was going to happen then you and I wouldn’t be having this interchange.
You need to get on the right side of this story.
Life outside of FR is verboten... at least that's what they tried to convince me of during my free fish lip piercing service this morning.
I didn't buy it.
Now, if they arrange kelp to spell, "Eat more chicken," that would be impressive.
Tagline editing... thx to those who jump-started my synapse’s.
That is the funniest tag line I have seen here since I signed on at FR back in August 1982.
Excuse me. You guys and everyone else who is using them as an example to defend polygamy are the ones equating them
This rogue organization did not have a calling from the Lord, there is even a video where Warren Jeffs even admitt he is NOT a prophet.
Many want to deny that even in the OT that there are times that the Lord did sanciton plural marriage and that is what being brought to light. YES! the Lord did at times for his own purpose sanction Plural marriage on the earth but not this time!
No matter who like it or not!
It is a fact!
No one is defended this rogue evil in Eldorado!
doneit from the other thread is gone.
No, I’m defending what Abraham, Jacob, etc. did. That isn’t even a close comparison. I defend because so many offend.
I rest my case.
#4
“The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Horndogs.”
If I am not allowed to defend the honor of my faith against the very real horndogs in Texas, then what's the point of Freedom of speech?
Now, that said, what the lawmen in Texas are doing is admirable, but they do need to be careful. There was a similar raid here in Utah on this same FLDS group in Southern Utah. It was 1953 and lots of adult men were arrested, and women and children were hauled off. There were a ton of legal problems with it, the state got into lots of trouble, and the polygs have used it for a rallying cry ever since. If you ever hear the term “remember Shortcreek” you will know what I'm talking about.
I hope Texas did everything right and by the book, or this could come back to haunt them too, just like it did Utah.
Here's a pic from the 53 Shortcreek raid:
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