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.”
One poster did correct me. It is 16 now. Thanks for the mention.
What’s especially amusing is that this guy doesn’t know what religion I belong to. I live in Texas and deal with Baptists, Catholics, Mormons, Lutherans, Methodists, and people from many other sects on a daily basis. We all get along fine.
I bet he (and you) can’t guess my religion, though. In Texas, it really doesn’t matter.
We have enough people with common sense who know the difference between “favoring a religion” and “borrowing buses”. We’ll be just fine, thanks.
“Do you think all these 14 year old girls living with 50 year old men who are not their fathers are not being “molested”? And do you not realize that all these girls have been brainwashed since birth to accept the fact that they exist for no other purpose than to provide sexual pleasure to their polygamist husbands and to provide them with children to trade with their neighbors for plural wives for their husbands and brothers?”
Correct, I agree completely. All the more reason why when they bust them they should not give them ANY extra ammunition to defend themselves in court with.
Okay, let's see. I don't believe paying lip service to Jesus Christ buys any kind of salvation. You have to shun evils as sins (those enumerated in the Ten Commandments) and live a good life. Those are the essentials of faith. Faith leading to salvation is believing in the Lord.
I'm being very specific of what the definition of 'faith' is. I hope you appreciate the distinction and it runs counter to your so called definition of a cult.
And you think it’s totally appropriate that the “idiot public” be kept in the dark and fed manure until after all the smoke clears and the lead stops flying? Stalin and Hitler loved that kind of mentality in case you’re not old enougn to remember those two men.
“EXACTLY. You have posted PROOF that many protestant denominations do not have any fondness for Mormons”
I don’t think that a child molesting trial will involve Vatican representatives testifying that Mormonism is not Christian.
While Catholics and Greek Orthodox do not accept Mormonism as Christian, that will hardly come up at trial.
Um, when it involves minors, yes. Especially since they CAN’T release the information by LAW here.
Don’t like it? Either change the law, if you live here, or don’t live here.
And it only takes ONE juror to disagree.
Ever heard of OJ Simpson?
Especially when the Baptists present the state the bill for cleaning out the buses afterwards. :D
So, proclaiming faith in Christ is "lip service?"
Says who? You?
Paul disagrees with you.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Romans 10:9
By the way, what exactly is a "Second Advent Christian?" I found a link to that on your homepage.
Oh, and the fuel bill. I’m *very* sure the Baptist church is going to be passing *that* on to the state. :D
I'm sorry. You're going to have to spell it out for me. I not following.
Are you saying it's my problem the BOM contradicts the bible?
I never implied such a thing WOULD happen. What WILL happen is that the defense counsel will present to the jury, none of whom will be baptists, photos of Baptist Church buses, and probably the fact that SOME members of law enforcement are baptists, as evidence that local authorities are in cahoots with baptists against religious rivals such as mormons.
Well, I have waded through about 10 different articles produced by Google News and I can't find that. Gotta link?
No problem buddy. You are always such a gentleman on FR. Sorry if my own response was a bit short.
Thanks again.
has the single issue posse arrived yet?
What ammnunition are we giving them? The warrant was valid since it was based upon the testimony of a reliable eyewitness. What more would the authorities need? All they need is probable cause that a crime has been committed and that evidence of that crime can be found in the location. Where would you think that would be lacking in this case?
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