Posted on 04/13/2008 8:57:18 PM PDT by claudiustg
SAN ANGELO — A Texas judge on Sunday ordered law enforcement officials to immediately confiscate all cell phones in the possession of FLDS women and children now housed in temporary quarters here. "I just called to say, hi. They are about to collect the phones, I think," one soft-spoken FLDS woman said during a telephone call to another member of the Fundamentalist LDS Church who was outside of the shelter. "I don't like what they're doing."
Several of the women inside the shelters spoke by cell phone to the Deseret News on Saturday to describe the living conditions there. Children could be heard crying in the background of each conversation. The News published an article on Sunday, quoting the women who complained there was no privacy and that their children were getting sick.
FLDS faithful outside the shelter are convinced Sunday's court order is a direct result of the women speaking to the newspaper.
"This is nothing more than retaliation of Child Protective Services to punish those who were disclosing what is really happening behind the walls of this concentration camp," said Don, an FLDS member who asked that his last name not be used. "These are my family members."
(Excerpt) Read more at deseretnews.com ...
That was the same cult. That raid shows how hard it is to stop this group, especially where there is a large Mormon voting block. New strategies have been devised to help in this daunting legal challenge of stopping a child rape cult that is large, rich, and powerful.
"After the Short Creek raid, the Mormon polygamist colony at Short Creek eventually rejuvenated. Short Creek was renamed Colorado City in 1960. In 1991, the Mormon fundamentalists at Colorado City formally established the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS Church). The members of the sect did not face any prosecutions for its polygamous behavior until the late 1990s, when isolated individuals began to be prosecuted.[15] In 2006, FLDS Church leader Warren Jeffs was placed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted List; he was arrested and convicted in 2007 of being an accomplice to rape for performing a wedding between a 19-year-old man and his 14-year-old cousin."
These women and children were taken into PROTECTIVE CUSTODY.
That means the LEO provide PROTECTION against some crime they were victims of.
Say your boyfriend tried to kill you.
And the police took you into protective custody, because he was still on the lamb.
And he kept calling you on your cell phone, telling you he will ‘kill you’ if you testify against him.
The police would be doing you a favor by taking away your cell phone, at least until they caught him.
They are doing this for the same reason.
These women are complaining about privacy (they have none at the FLDS), and their children being sick (when they get sick at the FLDS, they just bury them and order up some new ones)
These are the women who did get cell phone calls from their ‘husbands’ and ‘religious’ leaders telling them what to say.
Sure they want to go back home. It may be a sick depraved environment, but it’s all they have ever known.
If it’s as bad as it seems, we can’t let them go back.
These women saw the government try to shut down the FLDS many times in the past (starting in 1952), but failing.
Wonder why they have no ‘faith’ in the government right now?
This whole situation (and this thread) is in very slippery territory right now... and it just means somehow we have allowed castles to be built on shifting sand.
We need to ensure houses are built on solid ground.
If the women handed over little girls, were silent about repeated rapes, kept supervision over the girls so they would not escape before their “marriage. . .”
then they are indeed criminals.
None of this has been proven yet, I know.
Were I on a jury I would entertain the notion of brainwashing, also.
BUT, we can’t say the adult women here have no possibility of child endangerment, child abuse, or child neglect.
As for “Monica,” although I prefer her dress to a lot of the ugly tight garbage women often wear nowadays, I wonder do her children even know they are hers? I understand the kids are kept in the dark about who their mom is, and are “mothered” by the whole gang. Perhaps I am wrong - if so, I am deeply sorry for her, and think that her kids should be in her custody if she is not under investigation herself.
Heck, even if she is under investigation herself, I’d think they could see each other supervised, if only for the childrens’ sake.
Then why have there not been any charges on those crimes? Surely by now they've gotten plenty of evidence, if there is any to be had, of such crimes, at least enough for an arrest warrant and/or grand jury indictment.
“then why aren’t they arrested and charged.. .”
I imagine with over 400 of them they need some time to do some discovery before they start charging. Some are victims, some may be perps, and I’m guessing a lot of the adult women are both.
Also they probably have many witnesses to query, for instance, the lost boys who have been kicked out.
DNA test results need to come back.
It is a huge number of people and I think you need to be realistic about the amount of time the investigation will take. Also, how could they do an investigation while letting all those women and kids live there? The abuse would continue, the alibis would be reinforced, and the uncooperative could get hurt or disappear.
I read posts that had some negative things listed about Warren Jeffs, the FLDS, his father, his ?brothers? his children, his rules, their loyalty payment plan, his claim of being the Prophet.
I decided to find out for myself. I spent several hours last night reading about Mr. JEFFS and his merry band of inbred child molesters.
I found out it was much, much worse than I thought.
If the mothers are allowing old men to have sex with their underage girls, they are aiding and abetting perversion. They are accessories to a crime and should not be given as much sympathy as some on this thread are dishing out.
“Many of you are assuming that every negative thing you’ve heard about these people is true. . .”
Well, we see the pregnant teens and the teens with kids.
We read the official teachings.
We hear the testimony of those who’ve lived among them.
So yeah, I think it’s true, and I’m willing for them to have their day in court. Some may be innocent of some things.
Sounds exactly like what the gun banners say about the Second Amendment. The First Amendment protects Freedom of Religion or it doesn't.
That said religion is no excuse for committing crimes. Religion is about belief, not actions, although actions may be influenced by belief. Actions can, and if the evidence is there, will be, punished.
But the legal niceties must be observed. These are American Citizens and they must be treated as such. They are not enemy aliens, or illegal combatants, nor even illegal aliens. They have the full protection of all of the Bill of Rights. That includes the right to an indictment and trial *before* punishment.
Now that, said, the Judge could issue a "protective order", but it should be subject to challenge by any of those not charged with any crime, if they are legal adults that is.
“I’m rooting for the authorities to have an attitude that if a crime has been committed, go after the criminals.”
I think there’s reason to believe that many of adult women have been physically abusing and also aiding and abetting the sexual abuse of their children.
Dropped a digit, there are 416 children who have been taken from their mothers.
“Again, this is a bizarre situation, but this is purely a rape and pedophile ring under the guise of a religion. That’s all it is....”
While nobody has been charged YET, it could be possible to charge many of the adult women as accessories to the statutory rape of underage girls.
Failure to fully cooperate could lead to charges of tampering with evidence, tampering with witnesses, etc.
Of course most everybody focuses on the men, but without the assistence of the adult women, it would be much harder for the men to keep this law-breaking conspiracy going.
How about RICO for the lot of them (men and women)? I’ll wager many of the men go back and forth across state lines.
The women and children are in protective custody.
That is not a situation where one cries about loss of privacy or children getting sick.
If the children are getting sick, I am sure they are getting health services rendered.
There is evidence of former crimes, and a pending investigation over the 911 call to police, and the LEO’s are trying to protect these women and children until the investigation is finished.
A person who is being ‘protected’ from an abusive situation has to give up some rights in order to stay protected.
Privacy is usually the very first one.
It’s just that the media is playing it for all they can get.
Done. Are my eyes opened. Salem Witch trials, Palmer Red Scare, Hays Code, Reefer Madness, Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, Pazder's Michelle Remembers and the whole recovered ritual abuse memories.
You do seem to be a deeply insecure people
I lived for quite a while in a place where people were regularly pulled off buses by soldiers for “looking decadent” and beaten. It was a place where the police could see you in the market and think you looked suspicious, and follow you home and search without a warrant.
It was a place where people looked over their shoulder before they said anything political. It was a place where you didn’t want to look or act differently from everyone else. You could be jailed and beaten and not heard from for weeks. There was a constitution and all, just no one to enforce it. There was midnight curfew and a permanent state of marshal law.
That place was South Korea in the seventies. I was a soldier in the US Army there for 5 years.
Given my experiences there and the history of the last century and the foundations of our own country, I am inclined to look upon the government, any government, with the upmost suspicion.
Did I say that? I don't think so. But there are processes to be followed. First their must be probable cause to believe a crime has been or is being committed. They got that with an apparently anonymous phone call, from someone they have not yet located, and who probably wasn't even in the "compound" to observe the goings on there.
Then they must have sufficient evidence, more than just probable cause or accusations unsupported by evidence, to believe a crime or crimes have been committed, and that specific individuals committed them. Then comes the trial with a higher standard of proof, beyond a reasonable doubt (probably, maybe beyond a shadow of doubt).
Then the jury can order 'em put in Huntsville and throw away the key. Or in a tent on Matagorda Island or St.Joseph Island for all I'd care then.
“A raid BTW, that was conducted with the use of an Armored Personnel Carrier.”
Of course the SWAT team brought their armored personnel carrier, Duh!
They were raiding the temple of a 10,000 member cult, that had 500 handpicked members especially chosen by the just imprisoned Warren Jeffs operating in what is the cults international headquarters.
One of the stats thats truely stunning is that Warren Jeffs was married to over 150 women. Many of them became his wives as children in their young teens.
But according to some posters, their religious organization and those that ran it should be given full protections to do as they please because anything else would be a violation of their 4th amendment rights.
416 are "children", that might include some of the mothers of younger children.
They'd better start charging pretty soon. You've heard of Habeas Corpus, I'm sure, it's in the Constitution. Without evidence, and formal charges, they can not be held for long.
We're still waiting for the first arrest to come out of this.
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