Posted on 04/18/2008 11:39:55 AM PDT by Jenny Hatch
UPDATE: Friday April 18
The "Sixteen year old girl." A hoax???
I am SPITTING mad. Texas authorities better have those children back in their mothers arms by tonight.
"A 33-year-old Colorado Springs woman has been questioned about a telephone call that sparked a raid at the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound in western Texas two weeks ago.
Rozita Swinton was arrested at her home Wednesday night by Colorado Springs police for an incident that occurred in February. Members of the Texas Rangers were also in Colorado Springs as part of their investigation.
"The Texas Rangers were in Colorado Springs (Wednesday) as part of their investigation involving the compound in Texas. They left and have not filed any charges on Rozita Swinton as of this time," said Colorado Springs police spokesman Lt. Skip Arms.
Colorado Springs police said the arrest warrant has been sealed and refused to release any other details, reported Deseret News."
(Excerpt) Read more at naturalfamilyblog.com ...
OK Texas, Give those children back to the parents!
That whole "they were having sex with underage girls in the temple thing" has been used against poligamists for over a hundred years.
Religious persecution, pure and simple.
If society wants to take an underage pregnant girl from her family, why not start with Jamie Lynn Spears. Prosecute her boyfriend for statutory rape and absolve her mother of all parental rights.
Not these families.
PS - If anyone in the Fundamentalist LDS church is breaking the law then, sure throw the book at them, but if the only crime these people have committed is "being different" and raising their children out of the mainstream of society....LEAVE THEM ALONE!!!
Whose next? The Amish? The Mennonites? The Muslims? Anyone who wants to homeschool? This is America for crying out loud. We were created on the principle of Religious Freedom. You Nanny State Bullies get out of the homes, bedrooms, and religious sanctuaries of "We the People".
The most visible family I see "grooming" children in obscene sexual behavior, immodesty, and living a lifestyle that is DAMAGING to babies and children is in fact the lifestyle of Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. Go harass them if you want to do some good for the country.
If teenage pregnancies are such a scandal these days, why do the Democrats shield Planned Parenthood from reporting suspected child abuse when a minor comes in for an abortion?
Clearly a number of the pregnancies (and funding for the abortions) come from adult males.
Again: the YFZ Ranch warrant was not based solely on phone calls, but also on the visual testimony of sworn witnesses.
This could be hugh!
Tomorrow 19 Apr ‘93 is the 15 years anniversary of the inferno at Waco and the last time I turned on my TV. We’re not doing a good job of speaking up for anyone these days.
BS, the kids in custody have nothing to do with you post.
“if the only crime these people have committed is “being different””
Thank you for going on record as considering child rape as just “being different”.
I have not read the info on smoking gun yet, but if authorities had specific info, why did they not go after specific perps. There is probably a lot we don’t know, but this sure looks like a fishing expedition to me.
That is the damn truth, some fool screaming about how law should be governed by a silly ass news blog.
****************
No kidding.
If by executing a warrant based on her information additional threats to the safety of the children were found, prosecute to the fullest extent.
Mennonites, Amish, or any other Protestant denomination do not practice polygamy, sanctioned incest, or pedophilia as part of thier religious practices.
The FLDS, like Mormons, have no root in either Catholicism, or Protestantism
I suspect what will happen is that the FLDS will tie this into a legal boondoggle by the sheer numbers
There are different legal threshholds required for a search warrant and for an arrest warrant.
The State of Texas wisely decided to build its case one step at a time.
All the big inner cities practice a worse form of polygamy, they just sleep around indiscriminately and move on down the line. Plenty of pregnant 12 and 13 year olds!It’s all government subsidized too!
The religious link seems to be what upsets the gubmint, it sure ain’t the thought of older men sleeping with young girls.
Religious persecution, pure and simple”
No, it's called breaking the law. They should be locked just for the polygamy alone.
And it seems very likely that there were perverts impregnating underage girls.
Not much of a threshhold in CO apparently.
Polygamy isn’t a crime.
Bigamy is. Going through two civil sanctioned marriages.
Serial adultery isn’t criminal anymore.
Springs woman arrested for false reporting in raid
A Colorado Springs woman was arrested on charges of false reporting to authorities and is being investigated for her alleged involvement in the call that tipped authorities off to possible abuse at the Texas polygamist compound.
Police say they arrested 33-year-old Rozita Swinton at her home on Wednesday. The Texas Rangers were in Colorado Springs apparently as part of their investigation involving the compound in Texas.
They left and have not filed any charges on Swinton and the Colorado Springs Police spokesman said he could not discuss any aspects of the Texas case.
Our sister station KMGH in Denver found out that this is not the first time Swinton has been arrested on charges of making false reports to authorities. According to records the charge against Swinton was made in connection to calls received by police in February indicating she was 13 years old and trapped in a basement-- all a lie.
It appears the cult defenders are counting chickens before they hatch.
Jenny Hatch's Mormon Mommy Blog: Natural Family Blog. "I am a stay at home mother of five who is a non-apologetic NEO-CON! I love my country, my family, and my faith."
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
Yes, indeed. Pastor Martin Niemöller’s poem should be causing some to think right about now.
Did you know that this Rozita girl is LDS? It is proported she is a member of the Colorado Springs, East Stake.
I am sorry Jenny but 13, 14, 15 and 16 year olds pregnant is abuse.
Mothers who allowed such behavior are just as guilty.
Laws on Polygamy in US
In 1862 the Thirty Seventh Congress passed a law which effectively outlawed polygamy in every province and territory of the United States, including and especially in Utah. Be it enacted ... that every person having a husband or wife living who shall marry any other person, whether married or single, ... shall ...be adjudged guilty of bigamy and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, and by imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years... And be it further enacted that ... all other acts or parts of acts heretofore passed by the legislative assembly of the Territory of Utah which establish, support, maintain, shield, or countenance polygamy, be, and the same hereby are, disapproved and annulled... And be it further enacted, that it shall not be lawful for any corporation or association for religious or charitable purposes to acquire or hold real estate...of a greater value than fifty thousand dollars.
United States Revised Code, Section 5210
I hope they have more than you say on these dirty old men. No excuse for old men bedding children.Lol!
Why didn’t Texas do something sooner. You can look at the women and tell something very wrong with them. Hit in the head too many times or something.
I only posted that because of what tomorrow happens to be.
Waco Tx and the Branch Davidians should be well remembered by everyone.
While I’m not going to sit here and condone 50 year old men having sex with 16 yr old girls, I will say that these folks have their beliefs. They may skirt the law in some manner - and this “spiritual marriage” stuff is obviously “wrong thinking” in my mind as well as others’ minds... but nevertheless America is a country with FREEDOM OF RELIGION (not freedom from).
With the noted exception of radical Islam, I’d say that when the government starts interfering with religions, they are going against the Constitution.
By the way, today is “Patriot Day”... the day the “Shot heard around the world” happened in 1775. Tonight would be the 233rd anniversary of Paul Revere and William Dawes rides warning that the war was beginning.
Tomorrow is a day that many things happened in history...(Of course many things happened in history on any given day of the year, and 19 April is no different in that respect than any other... but certain things stand out...)
Bay of Pigs
Pope Benedict XVI is elected
OK City bombing
USS Iowa Gun Turret explodes killing 47
The Branch Davidian Compound is burned to the ground ending the 51 day seige
The USSR detonates a nuclear weapon in Kazakhstan
Executive Order 9066 recinded (Send ethic groups to iternment camps)
Sierra Leone becomes a Republic
General Douglas MacArthur retires
Warsaw Ghetto uprising
US abandons the gold standard
Shots are fired in the American Civil War. US troops attacked by pro-Secession mob in Baltimore
Flora Jessop, an outspoken ex-member of the FLDS group, told KUSA-TV she believes Swinton may have been the person she spoke with by phone, who claimed to be Sarah's twin sister.
The incident of making a false report that she was arrested for had nothing to do with the compound in Texas, and it appears that the calls to Jessop came after the raid, and were made as someone claiming to be Sarah's twin.
They don't appear to be accusing her of being Sarah, at least at this point.
PS - If anyone in the Fundamentalist LDS church is breaking the law then, sure throw the book at them, but if the only crime these people have committed is "being different" and raising their children out of the mainstream of society....LEAVE THEM ALONE!!!
Well the Bishop's own records show evidence of polygamy, and since some of these kids were obviously pregnant before the age of consent, polygamy isn't the only crime that has been committed there.
If society wants to take an underage pregnant girl from her family, why not start with Jamie Lynn Spears. Prosecute her boyfriend for statutory rape and absolve her mother of all parental rights.
While Spears and her boyfriend are obviously not good role models, He was 18 at the time and she was 16. Since he was less than three years older than her at the time, so in California it would have been a misdemeanor, and if they had sex in a different state, it may not even have been illegal. So basically they don't have a case to prosecute.
If you also don't recognize that there is a difference between two teens having sex, and a man in his 50s or 60s having sex with a teenage girl, and in some of these cases, apparently years younger than Spears, then you have serious issues of your own.
Whose next? The Amish? The Mennonites? The Muslims?
If they are polygamous and have older men having sex with much younger women, they should be locked up regardless of their religion. You can't abuse children like this and then hide under the guise of religious freedom.
The most visible family I see "grooming" children in obscene sexual behavior, immodesty, and living a lifestyle that is DAMAGING to babies and children is in fact the lifestyle of Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. Go harass them if you want to do some good for the country.
So because the Spears family is an example of moral bankruptcy, but not not necessarily breaking the law, the government should ignore the crimes of the people in this "church"?
I guess you feel that any action is ok if completely unrelated acts that you disapprove of aren't being declared illegal and prosecuted by the government in a completely different state?
Jenny, everyone was concerned about the rape and abuse that these children were suffering in that Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints of Jesus Christ cult, but they are safe now and being treated well.
Let us just pray that the adults are brought to justice.
SAN ANTONIO, TX— In the complex interaction between the State of Texas and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a San Antonio-based non-profit has a simple task. And, it turns out, a big job.
Fortunately, it’s used to the work load.
Baptist Child & Family Services was tasked by the Texas Governor’s Division of Emergency Management to take the lead in providing shelters for the women and children from the FLDS Yearn For Zion ranch.
In the past few years BCFS has gained a national reputation for its expertise in such operations. Last month the Federal Emergency Management Agency asked it to be a “subject matter consultant” to develop a “functional template” for special needs shelters.
BCFS also is in charge of training Texas cities in setting up such facilities and will begin doing the same for the State of Nevada later this month.
“We are in San Angelo purely and simply to take care of women and children,” said Kevin C. Dinnin, president of BCFS and the “incident commander” for the sheltering operation. “We were not part of the circumstances that brought them here and have no input in what will happen in the future. We’re here to make sure they have safe, clean places to sleep, access to medical care, healthy food and people who care about them.”
Did you know that this Rozita girl is LDS? It is proported she is a member of the Colorado Springs, East Stake.
Did you know that this Rozita girl is the Obama state delegate representing El Paso County Precinct 269?
Imagine that! A black Mormon for Obama!
Actually they are in the custody of CPS. Considering how many foster children have been assaulted, molested, abused and killed with in foster care it does not necessarily follow that they are safe and being treated well.
And when the children cried out we are being bred so that the men can rape us, Texas replied, ‘children we will help’
“While I’m not going to sit here and condone 50 year old men having sex with 16 yr old girls, “
But when they get busted for it, here you are.
Make that 12, 13, 14,15, not just 16, and there may be worse to come.
Except that the "children" that "cried out" turns out not to be a child or someone from the FLDS group.
Now if the informant that the sheriff had on the inside of the FLDS group for four years had asked for help, that might be something.
But none of that matters. They're weird. Let's grab their children.
That is one, crazy, messed-up young woman! But I guess we'd better not jump to any conclusions. All of this is alledged, and she is due her process.
Yes, here he is.
Demanding that the state have something more than a hoax phonecall before seizing people's children.
How dare he get in the way of a mindless mob.
COLORADO CITY, Arizona (Reuters) - In a dusty neighborhood under sheer sandstone cliffs studded with juniper on the Arizona-Utah border, a rare genetic disorder is spreading through polygamous families on a wave of inbreeding.
The twin border communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, have the world's highest known prevalence of fumarase deficiency, an enzyme irregularity that causes severe mental retardation brought on by cousin marriage, doctors say.Arizona has about half the world's population of known fumarase deficiency patients," said Dr. Theodore Tarby, a pediatric neurologist who has treated many of the children at Arizona clinics under contracts with the state.
Tarby met with about 150 FLDS members in November, explaining that the disorder was not caused by tainted drinking water as rumored but by cousin marriage.
The Colorado City/Hildale area has the world's highest incidence of fumarase deficiency,[53] an extremely rare genetic condition which causes severe mental retardation. Geneticists attribute this to the prevalence of cousin marriage between descendants of two of the town's founders, Joseph Smith Jessup and John Yeates Barlow; one local historian reports that 75–80 percent of the double-communities' roughly 10,000 inhabitants are descended from one or both of these men.
“Actually they are in the custody of CPS. Considering how many foster children have been assaulted, molested, abused and killed with in foster care it does not necessarily follow that they are safe and being treated well.”
Knitebane, the children were rescued from one of the worst child abuse cults in our history and they are being protected from that cult, that is a good thing.
The state of Texas and the Texas Rangers are not a mob, they are law enforcement and they rescued kids from rapists.
But you are angry about it, that is a mob trait.
Well, that is yet to be proven. In fact, other than the statements of the self-serving government representatives, not one shred of evidence that any abuse has taken place has been put forward. Well, except for the "evidence" referred to at the top of this thread.
Unless you have some inside information that the rest of us haven't seen.
From what I have seen what we have is the state abusing a religious minority. The representatives of the state have screamed that abuses are going on. They have yet to produce a single witness.
And the "evidence" that they used as pretext to seizing 471 children is that someone from the inside called a hotline and reported it. That person named a man who doesn't live anywhere near the compound. And it turns out that that person isn't even a member of FLDS.
Now considering that the sheriff had an informant on the inside for four year one wonders why they waited until they got the hoax phonecall before snatching all of those children up and placing them in the warm, caring arms of the government.
“Except that the “children” that “cried out” turns out not to be a child or someone from the FLDS group.”
LOL We raid child rapists and you are peeved to the hilt.
You know we got their leader on these rape charges last year.
His is the picture that you see hanging over the children’s beds on the videos of the compounds interior bedrooms.
The world she lived in in that auster place and not taken to a place she had been brain washed all her life to fear.
This call was a hoax but there sure is some thing that was going on there.
Before you go further please check out a few warning signs tha that have been springing like a leak over the past several years!
Dr Phil Inside the Cult
Dr. Phil delves further inside a controversial polygamous community where girls as young as 14 are reportedly forced to marry older men who have multiple wives, and young boys are forced to leave town.
Inside the World of Polygamy Last year 'Hannity's America' gave you a rare and shocking look inside Warren Jeffs' secretive Eldorado, Texas compound, where April 7 hundreds were taken and an arrest made
[BTW Sean is very fond of the LDS, not to be confused with FLDS]
I am SPITTING mad.
With time and a little luck maybe you’ll get over it.
A mommy of five and home schooling. I wish your children success.
“In fact, other than the statements of the self-serving government representatives, not one shred of evidence that any abuse has taken place has been put forward.”
This cult was raided in 1935, 1944, 1953, Utah claims to have planned a raid in 2006 or 7, they had 80 warrants, but well, you know Utah. Canada investigated the branch in British Columbia, where some of the Texas kids were shipped from, and put the fear of God in that leader, although they have not acted yet, he now publicly claims that his branch has ended the use of under aged children.
“””Alarmed that the sect’s members were building a compound, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff urged Texas lawmakers in 2005 to strengthen its laws. He described the sect in stark terms.
“Imagine a community run as a theocracy, where women are considered nothing but property,” Shurtleff told the Legislature, “where women have two purposes — to please their man sexually and have children.”
Texas lawmakers heeded the advice and made sweeping changes to Texas law against polygamy and underage marriage”””
“””In 2001, Utah authorities began a crackdown on underage marriages and arranged marriages of teenagers, targeting members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon splinter group that had lived in two towns on the Utah-Arizona border.”””
“””After seeing high-profile FLDS Church critic Flora Jessop on the ABC television program Primetime Live on March 4, 2004, concerned Eldorado residents contacted Jessop. She investigated and on March 25, 2004, Jessop held a press conference in Eldorado confirming that the new neighbors were FLDS Church adherents. On May 18, 2004, Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran and his Chief Deputy visited Colorado City, and the FLDS Church officially acknowledged that the Schleicher County property would be a new base for the church. It has been reported in the media that the church is building a temple at the YFZ Ranch, which has been supported by evidence including aerial photographs of a large stone structure (approximately 88 feet wide) being built. Recent pictures now show the temple in a state of relative completion. A local newspaper, the Eldorado Success, reported that the temple foundation was dedicated January 1, 2005 by Warren Jeffs.[20]
On January 10, 2004, the church suffered major upheaval when Dan Barlow, the mayor of Colorado City, and about 20 men were excommunicated from the church and stripped of their wives and children (who would be reassigned to other men), and the right to live in the town. As a result, a few teenage women reportedly fled the towns with the aid of activists who advocate the escape of plural wives from polygamy. Two of the young women, Fawn Broadbent and Fawn Holm, soon found themselves in a broadly publicized dispute over their freedom and custody. They fled state custody together on February 15, and have been on the run in multiple states since.
In October 2004, disaffected members of the church reported that David Allred purchased a 60-acre (240,000 m²) parcel of land near Mancos, Colorado (midway between Cortez and Durango) about the same time he bought the Schleicher County property. Allred told authorities the parcel is to be used as a hunting retreat.
In July 2005 eight men of the church were indicted for sexual contact with minors. At least some of them surrendered to police in Kingman, Arizona.
On July 29, 2005, Brent Jeffs filed suit accusing three of his uncles, including Warren Jeffs, of sexually assaulting him when he was a child. The suit also named the FLDS Church as a defendant. On August 10, former FLDS Church member Shem Fischer, Dan Fischer’s brother, added the church and Warren Jeffs as defendants to a 2002 lawsuit claiming he was illegally fired because he no longer adhered to the faith. Fischer, who was a salesman for a wooden cabinetry business in Hildale, claims church officials interfered with his relationship with his employer and blacklisted him.
In July 2005, a half-dozen lost boys who say they were cast out of their homes on the Utah–Arizona border to reduce competition for wives filed suit against the FLDS Church. “The [boys] have been excommunicated pursuant to that policy and practice and have been cut off from family, friends, benefits, business and employment relationships, and purportedly condemned to eternal damnation,” their suit says. “They have become ‘lost boys’ in the world outside the FLDS community.”
On May 7, 2006, the FBI named Warren Jeffs to their Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on charges of sexual misconduct with minors.
The mayor of Colorado City, Terrill C. Johnson, was arrested on May 26, 2006 for eight fraudulent vehicle registration charges (providing false registration and title papers eight separate times)—a felony. He was booked in to Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane, Utah and was released after paying the $5,000 bail in cash.[21]
On August 28, 2006, Warren Jeffs was captured on Interstate 15 just north of Las Vegas, Nevada, after a routine traffic stop. He was captured with his brother, Isaac Steve Jeffs, and one of his wives, Naomi Jeffs, both 32. Isaac and Naomi were both released. Jeffs was tried in St. George, Utah and was found guilty by a jury of two counts of being an accomplice to rape.
November 2007
A judge sentenced polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs to five years to life Tuesday for his role in the arranged marriage between a 14-year-old follower and her 19-year-old cousin.
A jury in Utah convicted Jeffs, the so-called “prophet” of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, of two counts of accomplice to rape for “enticing” Elissa Wall to marry and have sex with her cousin, Allen Steed, despite her objections
Harry Reid's dream...
Really? Do you have a link, because as far as I can see, there was a woman who is being questioned in regards to prank calls to a different group than the one that triggered the initial warrant. It looks like you believe in due process for the child-rapists, but not for the prank-caller, who is not even accused of this particular prank.
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