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 don't accept everything that "people" claim. Further, since I don't know you, neither am I surprised by you.
Unfortunately, even in Texas, it takes nearly 20 years to execute a murderer.
Here is a link to a very thorough article on the FLDS and their move into Eldorado, and some predictions of what may happen there, for example:
"He said the temple rising in Texas could be linked to Jeffs’ apocalyptic preaching as well as his sense of himself as the final Mormon prophet.
“Warren has predicted the end of the world twice already this year. He’s also said that ‘the destructions’ will come sometime between the laying of the cornerstone and the completion of the temple,” he said.
“I believe those who say the temple is patterned after the Nauvoo temple, which brackets the death of Joseph Smith and the exodus (of the Mormons) to Utah from Nauvoo. So you can read all this disturbing stuff into it, these apocalyptic underpinnings,” he said.
“He compares himself to Joseph Smith at Nauvoo. Smith was martyred (there), and Warren sees himself as a victim and a martyr, and it’s all coinciding with God’s plan for destruction,” he said.
One excommunicated follower who asked not to be named said, “I think personally, an analogy to Jim Jones would be closer than one to David Koresh. He won’t go out guns firing. It will be suicide.”
“And if he gets backed into too bad a corner, he’ll take them all with them, those that will go,” he said of the faithful. Full article
True.
We’re down to 7-10 years and as little as 5 now.
Man, do even read what I write? I am trying to figure out of you have some sort of comprehension problem, or are simply only reading the portions you WANT to see.
I already stated I have NOTHING against any denomination, including baptists. Actually that is not COMPLETELY true... I am NOT real fond of Mormons whom I believe to be following a false doctrine. If I have a bias, it is against the Mormons, and in favor of law enforcement.
What I am trying to point out is the fact that it will take only ONE juror who DOES have a problem with baptists to set these guys free.
What I have a problem is law enforcement conducting raids in a manner which provides evidence for the defense.
I WANT to see these guys busted if they are, in fact, guilty. I do NOT wanna see them walk because of an APPEARANCE of collusion between authorities and the baptist church. I currently attend a methodist church, and would feel the same way if it were METHODIST buses.
Conducting a bust is not the solution, nor the end of the story. SUCCESSFUL CONVICTION is.... THAT is what I want.
Good point!
In your own words... Prove it.
;)
Careful. I'll tell Chuck Smith on you.
You made that point. Several times. Now what? Look, I’m sorry they didn’t call you first. Hopefully they will rectify this egregious wrong somehow. We can only pray.
Children being abused is another matter. Show me where I said differently.
Good luck with the sanctimony of SkyPilot! (He'll never hear you.)
I never said that collusion was actually going on, in fact I clearly stated I do not believe that to be the case.
BUT, it only takes ONE juror who believes it for the guy to walk. Guilty men walk every day, for a lot less.
Thanks for the update.
It is if they are under 18.
Children being abused is another matter. Show me where I said differently.
Define children.
I think you suggested that if the parents are ok with it, then 14 years is just fine with you.
Have a good day :)
Still your problem read the OT!
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?
***
Have you forgotten your question?
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