Posted on 06/01/2008 9:21:35 AM PDT by Saundra Duffy
SAN ANGELO, Texas — For nearly two months, Texas child-welfare officials had insisted conditions at a polygamist group's ranch were so abusive that none of its members should be allowed to keep their children. Now, some are looking for what went wrong when the state raided the Yearning For Zion Ranch and removed more than 400 children.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
True,the state was wrong-no doubt about it.I do hope that no one thinks that what the sect was doing was right however.
Why would you hope that? Do you really think anyone around here is so stupid as to not recognize what you are easily able to?
It has taken us two months to get folks to admit CPS and the local law enforcement officials could have done anything wrong, and your hope is that something that was accepted as evil on day one will be recognized as wrong.
Just dang fella.
I’d bet some of the pedophilia suspected in this community actually occured, but I’d hate to think, if I
lived in a gated community, the authorities could round up all our kids based on less than hard evidence.
Many of these folks may be scumbags, but I’m not willing to throw the constution and our civil rights under the bus.
Well dang indeed!So half were MINORS.THAT’S JUST WRONG!Get those polygamists in jail already(the men that is).Everyone else involved is a victum of these perverts.
I doubt anyone here on FR necessarily thinks what the sect was doing was ok. Most comments I’ve seen have been regarding the trampling of rights.
The state assumed the guilt of the adults of the sect.
Are there any steps the state should take to protect the children or do all allegations have to rise to the level of “guilty without reasonable doubt” before the state can intervene?
“We had no choice but to treat those calls as credible. If we had not treated them as credible and something bad happened, people would be very upset,” . . . .
Overstepping by a state agency did happen and people are upset.
Why were telephone calls treated as credible without more proof than a telephone call.
By accident? My hairy purple donkey.
The adults were deliberately kidnapped, and I hope CPS and Texas LE pays for that with long prison terms.
There should be real evidence of a crime regarding each child taken away. They cannot extrapolate from a small number of girls to dozens of families and hundreds of people.
At least it was not burned to the ground with many children and agents killed. So it wasn’t a total bungled job!
Please define "real evidence". Must it be absolute? Further, assuming we are not removing the children from their homes, is there no other intervention appropriate or is the only level of intervention a choice between complete removal or complete acceptance of the status quo?
No but it must meet certain requirements which it did not.
"We had no choice but to treat those calls as credible. If we had not treated them as credible and something bad happened, people would be very upset," said Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety, which is investigating possible sex abuse at the ranch in addition to the origin of the hotline calls.
BS. They knew the calls were from out of state. DPS looked for Rozita Swinton of Colorado Springs as a "person of interest." How did they know to look in Colorado Springs and for a specific person? DPS nor CPS were the ones getting the call. The calls were going to the volunteer org at San Angelo, Texas. DPS went on third party info. The info was not qualified to support a warrant as the reporting party was the volunteer org that was obviously not the owners of the church property. The "implied consent" for LEO's to search a property when receiving calls for help is derived by the circumstance that the call came from a owner, tenant or resident of the property and must be placed to a LEO facility.
A 16-year-old girl called a domestic violence shelter hotline and claimed that she had been beaten, was pregnant and had already had a child. It was that phone call that led a Texas judge to order the removal of all 416 children from the YFZ Ranch on allegations that they were at risk for abuse.
The girl named a "Dale Barlow" as her husband, putting scrutiny on an FLDS member in Colorado City, Ariz., who had already been convicted in connection with a child-bride marriage. Texas Rangers came to Utah to question Barlow, but left without arresting him.
Right there they should have known to be VERY careful because the story did not add up from the very begining. Two minutes after LEO's had the name "Dale Barlow" they would have run it through NCIC Database and got the match... in Arizona.
NCIC is a computerized index of criminal justice information (i.e.- criminal record history information, fugitives, stolen properties, missing persons). It is available to Federal, state, and local law enforcement and other criminal justice agencies and is operational 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
To proceed with a raid that detained over 400 people with a total of only five days investigation that could only point to the calls being bogus and knowing the named suspect was not at the church facilities but two states away is totally negligent.
“I do hope that no one thinks that what the sect was doing was right however.”
The raid was the result of a hoax call; therefore, the “victim of abuse” did not exist and the man she accused wasn’t even there. So the authorities really don’t know “what the sect was doing”. They imagine they think they know what the people are doing. This is so sick and out of control. I just feel sorry for the children, rounded up at gunpoint, dumped in a coliseum (a coliseum!!) and then dumped in foster homes all over the state of TX. The kids are being punished for the alleged sins of their parents. The children are also being punished by a state of power-hungry bureaucrats who want their 15 minutes of fame.
Governor Perry’s hopes and dreams for a bright future are OVER FOR GOOD! He let this outrageous miscarriage of justice take place right under his nose and with his blessing.
Same goes for Gov. Crist. He and his cronies stood around twiddling their thumbs while Terri Schiavo was dehydrated and starved to death, making a mockery out of common sense and justice.
People around the world have been treated to a humiliating, disgusting spectacle of a country willing to stomp on its own Constitution, the Constitution that we tried to get other countries to emulate. We are a laughing stock.
Children who claim that they were abused, or a witness saw the abuse in progress, or a witness saw signs of suspicious injury. I don’t know what possible forms of intervention there are in Texas. Here in NY, I believe they can send in social workers without removing the kids.
So why didn’t they round up all the men? Why? Because that would have been illegal and hard. Easier to round up a bunch of helpless children and women at gunpoint.
Not just like the Branch Davidians, thank god. How many children burned to death there? Like 20?
Heck, he went around going on the record about how great he thought it was. What a dumbazz!
Gov. Perry praises CPS' handling of polygamist sect cases By BILL HANNA and JOHN MORITZStar-Telegram Staff Writer AUSTIN -- Gov. Rick Perry voiced strong support for Child Protective Services officials Wednesday even as a Hill Country social services official expressed more outrage over the treatment of 464 children removed by the state from a West Texas polygamist compound.
Perry's spokeswoman Krista Piferrer said the governor has full confidence in the agency. The governor praised CPS officials for promising an internal investigation of concerns raised by Hill Country Community Mental Health-Mental Retardation Center officials when the children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were housed at San Angelo shelters.
As we “speak”, there are meetings going on to prepare an agreement acceptable to all parties. There was an agreement in place on Friday between the families and CPS but the judge crapped all over it and stormed out. Today they are trying to undo the damage done by the whacked out power-crazed judge whose ruling in the first place was unconstitutional.
How can this get much worse?
Kidnapping with weapons are enhancements to those charges specifically mentioned in the Statute which can bring a sentence of life imprisonment.
The CPS and it's 'agents' are also on the line Civilly here. Since they were acting completely outside the law they'll be stripped of their indemnity and all of their personal assets are at risk.
I hope both happen.
L
I grant that it did not meet the requirements for removal but the higher courts stated the lower court had other interventions at its disposal.
What level of evidence is needed before this court can impose obligations on the parents during the investigation phase and subsequently and what limit of obligations short of removal is there. For example, can the court require regular medical exams, regular interviews, can it limit the presence of adult males in the household?
77 folks
21 kids
2 pregnant children
some of the same wild unsubstantiated claims
Is the Judge requiring protections that are unreasonable?
I understand the original ruling did not meet the strict requirements for removal but does that automatically mean that the additional requirements and obligations would be legally acceptable under the statute and supportable by the appeals and SC ?
Oh! Sorry, uhh, what they have right now (practically none) as they can justify very short term obligations regarding travel and allowing CPS visits under the veil of investigating the issue. As for requiring medical exam and interviews, most likely. As for can it limit the presence of adult males in the household, probably not which is what the local Judge is getting puffy about. She wants more restrictions than are required by the State. The State Appeals court ordered the children to be returned to their parents, not their mothers.
The order should be available online, I think someone has already posted a link once but I don't know where.
it is not that simple.
I think it really fell apart when it was revealed the authorities had talked to the man listed in the warrent before the raid. It really does make it appear as a pretext which causes a taint on the warrent. It remains to be seen if it is a fatal taint in the yet to be commenced criminal case.
The idea of limiting the “presence of adult males” is ridiculous. Where are they supposed to go? Are they guilty because they are men? Should they be asked to cut it off?
Pedophilia is defined as a sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children. We're talking about 15-16 year olds here.
Wrong? Yup. Illegal? Yupper. But five 15-16 year olds is not the same as the implications of dozens of little kids being raped which as been on the other threads concerning this issue. Heck, I bet we have a higher teen pregnancy rate in our local high school.
(I know you didn't say all that, I just picked your post to rant a bit.) ;-)
It is my understanding that the state can take the kids as soon as they suspect a problem. They then have 14 days to prove the kids are in danger and that the state should retain custody.
The initial raid wasn't the problem. It was the decision to keep the kids after the two week period which posed the legal problems.
No, I think the followers of a fake prophet marrying off little girls to
drooling old holy-joe perverts was the main thing that went wrong.
I keep running across this sentiment and I find it curious.
Unless the men are marrying themselves, it takes two to tango. Why are the men alone being targeted here?
Surely the 'wives' and their parents all know that underage marriage and polygamy is illegal.
At the least, these assorted folks are accessories and conspirators to the crime, but only the men are being targeted.
I find that curious indeed
No problemo.
If it makes you feel better,then arrest the women too.The children and minors married to these “men” are vitims.Polygamy is a crime in this country last time I checked.
Unless the men are marrying themselves, it takes two to tango. Why are the men alone being targeted here?
Interesting........ I think the mothers are guilty to the extent that they didn’t object or try to stop it. Polygamy may not be provable as I understand it there are only one recognized marriage with the remaining bedding being done under a ‘spiritual marriage’.
Thanks for your comments Arthurus. When the authorities start refering to ‘sects’, ‘compounds’, ‘massive child abuse’, and other vile things, and then there are no arrests, no charges filed, no validation for their actions, you have to just shake your head and say, “Here we go again.”
Public officals had unlawfully abducted about 430 children. Had spread those children out all over Texas. Had refused to allow parental contact to a good many of them. Had forced many of them to have innoculations. Had even gone so far as to begin discussion of liquidating the farm.
Now this.
The idiot judge that signed on to all this, has now made some rather interesting demands as a condition of the return of the children.
All parents and children must attend psychological counseling. Authorities are given the ability to enter the farm and all buildings on a whim.
How is this possible when no charges have been filed, no convictions have been obtained, and only 15 cases out of 430 children are known to have included child abuse. Now all children and parents are demanded to meet certain standards when no violations of law have been proven.
This judge needs to step down. She’s on a power trip that see no bounds.
In the way of good news here, that one is all we've got.
What a mess regardless, though.
: \
The whores & perverts all lie.
Wait for the DNA evidence.
The numbers do not. DNA has nothing to do with the State seizing adult women as children.
Only a small minded, short sighted person could come away from this disacter with such a conslusion.
The child abuse at the Branch Davidians certainly was real. Both physical and sexual, and pervasive. Doesn’t justify what happened, of course.
What happened to the all the “innocent until proven guilty” sentiment that dominated around here after the Duke scandal?
Please explain the stand of the lead person at the CPS office near the Branch Dividian farm. Do you think folks in that position would cover for the Davidians?
Rhetorical question!
"Authorities now believe the calls may have come from a Colorado Springs, Colo., woman with a history of making false abuse reports."
I am wondering how long it is going to take "authorities" to admit this woman is a liar and mentally ill and the "authorities" fell for it hook line and sinker. I think they are stalling to let the word out because it will make them look even more incompetent, stupid and downright cruel for what they did to all those children.
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