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.”
Can’t pray, that might offend some hypothetical atheist on the jury, then they’d walk. :P
I hope you are right. I hope, if they are guilty, that they are convicted to the fullest extent of the law. I hope the defendants get a stupid attorney who never thinks of using this as a defense tactic. It is a defense tactic that would not work for me, and obvously not for you either. But it is a defense tactic that could very well work with SOME people... let us hope one does not end up on the jury.
I do not know about you, but I have seen enough guilty men walk free, because the cops made a bone-headed move. I do not want to see any more.
*We* like it.
Every decade or so, some legislator tries to get support to change the Texas Constitution to make the Legislature more like the Feds with full time legislators. Said person is usually ignored AND summarily tossed out of office in the next election.
There is no accounting for the idiocy of jurors. If someone is that stupid and they get on the jury, then they are not going to need a reason to acquit. A "reason" suggests that there is something reasonable in their thought process. The OJ jury didn't need a "reason" to acquit. Their own idiocy and racial prejudices were sufficient.
Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?
Really? Then don't go around here posting in large Red font and screaming like this.
They're no authorities on God. They're authors who have a purpose--an agenda to prove. They are not closer to God's answers due to "research."
So then no book or work by any author is valid? I guess C.S. Lewis, Dr. Ravi Zacharias, Rev. Billy Graham, and any other author can be thrown in that mix of yours because they have an "agenda?"
God has authority - and the Bible is His work. Those who practice in cults violate the Bible.
Let's take just one sentence from that post about cults.
B. Second, cult teachers will proclaim a “gospel message” that is ultimately is a message of works-centered salvation, in sharpest contrast to the Good News of saving grace through faith in Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9). They’ll preach “another gospel.”
So tell me, what do you disagree with? Is Ephesians 2:8-9 wrong, or are the cultists who violate it more correct vis a vis what God says?
Surely, you jest.
Oh, for crying out loud, if the largest search engine in the history of humanity is not to your liking, so be it. But there is a plethora of information out there in the world, and yes - some of it is pretty darned useful. I guess because Shakespeare, Physics, and Calculus are also found on Google we should discount those topics as unworthy of discussion as well.
The reason that there are so many variations of Christianity is because there are so many ways to read our current translations of The Bible. You cannot argue--or insult--that away.
I accept many denominations as my brothers and sisters in Christ. Baptists, Methodists, Presbetarians, Missionary Alliance, and nondenominational bible believing churches. That is why when go to Christian church websites, they have a statement of faith. All of them do. This clarifies that they believe what the bible teaches.
It will be something like this:
_______________________________________________________________________
Statement of Faith
- There is one God, who is eternal and infinitely perfect, and who exists in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This idea of one God existing as three persons is expressed in the Bible and described by the church as the Trinity.(Deuteronomy 6:4; Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14)
- Jesus Christ is God, the Son. Like the Father and the Holy Spirit, Jesus is fully God, but He is also fully man. He existed eternally as God with the Father and the Spirit and became a man when He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He died upon the cross as a substitute for sinners. He was the just and righteous One who died on behalf of those who are unjust and unrighteous. Because of His sacrifice, everyone who believes in Him is justified and considered righteous in the sight of God. He also physically rose from the dead after three days in a tomb. Today He lives in Heaven at the right hand of God the Father where he represents believers like an advocate and intercedes on their behalf. One day, He will come again to earth to establish His government of righteousness and peace. (John 1:1-18; Philippians 2:1-11; Luke 1:36-38; 1 peter 3:18; Hebrews 2:9; Romans 5:9; Acts 2:23-24; Hebrews 8:1; Matthew 26:64; 1 John 2:1-2; Romans 8:34)
- The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. Like the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit is fully God. He is sent from the Father and the Son to live within the souls of Believers in order to guide, teach, and empower them as they follow Jesus in this world. He also acts to convince the world of its guilt regarding sin, and of the righteousness of Jesus Himself, and of the judgment of Satan, the prince of this world. John 14:15-18; John 16:13; Acts 1:9; John 16:7-11)
- Salvation has been provided through Jesus Christ for all men. Everyone who repents of their sin and trusts that Jesus died for them on the cross and that God accepts Jesus' death on their behalf receives salvation as a gift from God. Like being “born again,” they receive a new nature from the Holy Spirit, and become children of God. (John 3:16; Ephesians 2:8-9; John 3:3; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Titus 3:4-7)
____________________________________________________________________
If it isn't along those lines, run for the hills.
I'm not Mormon; my family is not Mormon; and I have never been Mormon. You cannot, however, claim LOGIC or ACCURACY when you decry the religion as a cult because other competitors for "perfection" vote to say that they are.
Wrong. I absolutely can.
Cults are real. Cults are dangerous. Cults exist.
You would do best to educate yourself about them, rather than sticking your head in the proverbial sand and attacking those who point out their characteristics.
Here you go:
I already posted this link earlier. It's current with their updates and story.
Rather a broad indictment, including reading my mind and attributing motive to me.
Thanks for your comments. I know where you are coming from.
Obviously NOT!
You're probably onto something. After all there could be something in the New Testament that lends support to Anti-semetism.
You reckon?
But first they have to prove that such a person even exists.
These "phone calls" are a common technique of CPS invaders. A member of their own staff usually gets someone to make the call, then they send the goon squad in.
Our constitution requires that the accused be confronted by their accuser. In these cases we really have neither accuser nor a specific accused. The warrants are clearly illegal.
I do believe that in most cases the parents are the best ones to decide if a child should marry under 18. I got married at 16 to a 19 y/o. When life expectancy was shorter and large families were needed to survive, kids were expected to mature and marry at a much younger age. I read somewhere that after the civil war young girls were marrying older men because so many of the young ones didn't return.
So..I don't necessarily agree with a set age but accept our laws which were probably made because kids were being abused.
All of that said...under no circumstances do I support anyone, man, woman, esp child, being abused in any way, whether cult or family.
Probably. I was really just curious about the "informant" part. And that stems from the quote from C.P.S.
The earlier refusal to provide access was even more disconcerting because CPS investigators have yet to identify the 16-year-old girl …
So far none of the updates or other articles indicates that they have located her.
Makes me wonder and I don't think they had any advance notice that the raid was coming. And with no advance warning how did the guy named in the warrant (Barlow) manage to be in Arizona receiving the phone call from Texas authorities by the very next morning? Which apparently that is where he lives, not at the location in Texas with the 16 year old girl.
If there was an informant, why did the informant think Barlow was in Texas?
If the call from Texas is backed up with phone records it seems to me that Barlow might be right, he never heard of her. Then everything unravels from there...
Old map. It’s also a former game ranch.
as the girl is a minor and an alleged victim of a sexual assault (statutory rape) her identity will never be released by the police, DA or media. It is common practice in such cases.
It matters but most times we get along because we care about each other.
There seems to be a growing number of democrats in the Texas legislature, a decidedly unsettling trend.
The apostles never believed in a three person Trinity. That was hatched out of the Council of Nicea. See Colossians 2:9: For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
Nowhere in the passages you cite is 'persons' mentioned.
I agree. In light of this prior criminal activity, is it legally possible for a state, such as Texas, to prevent cults or other undesirables from buying property within said state?
I didn’t think you were short at all. Take care.
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