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.”
Thanks for clarifying this. In marriage, the idea of polygamy itself, is antithetical to the concept of holy matrimony.
Um, what? Who the heck mentioned evolution????
I think you’re either posting on the wrong thread or you need to check your medication.
Wanna give the people in this sect a good defense? Ya just did, idiot.
Btw, as for dealing with the illegals, I think since they are swarming into our neck of the woods, coming ACROSS your state, that we have good reason to think that authorities are laying down on the job.. so STFU yourself, pinhead.
Thank you for pointing that out. I believe it was wise of Texas to change the law.
Seniority in the Inmans has its perks. ;) Stick around.
Imagine the bruhaha if this were a Muzzie Moske...(deliberate SP)
Unless the husband can prove that he was "legally" married to the minor, then conjugal relations would be considered statutory rape. I dare say that NONE of these marriages were legal under Texas law.
If it can be proven that an adult had sexual relations with a minor, then the charge would be statutory rape, not polygamy. Further if the parents of the minor consented to the statutory rape, then they can be charged with conspiracy, and aiding and abetting and a whole host of other crimes including selling their children into slavery.
If they fail to prosecute these bastards, then they might as well remove all statutory rape laws from their books.
Obviously not. I live on planet Earth, where (unfortunately) nearly every different denomination believes all the others are WRONG, and believes other denominations are leading people to Hell.
Crack open a history book and educate yourself.
So, to give a simple answer to your original question, “do LDS dislike baptists?” The answer is YES, they DO dislike them, and vice-versa.
Quite possible that is the case. It constantly amazes me how folks supposedly can not simply state "such and such happened first, then this happened and then that person said blah blah blah."
Is it really all that hard?
Just try to find someone who is not Baptist friendly in west Texas!
Calling down biblical plagues on fellow freepers again, eh Moses?
That said, people should be free to live how they want (within the law) and shouldn't have to worry about raids because they live differently. JMO.
I think they just found an entire commune full of them.
A good and hopeful sign. The rape and abuse of young women / children is a disgrace. Certain acts in the name of religion are obviously beyond the pale. Demands for the imposition of sharia law to supersede civil and criminal law, the denial of competent medical care to children due to religious beliefs, the disruption of a funeral service, and this child abuse are examples of what I mean.
Right up to the point they start abusing kids. This compound has been there for years. The locals never “liked” it being there but never did anything about it until these allegations surfaced.
You have got to be kidding.
Forcing one's own children into slavery is not "living differently".
This is not about "polygamy", this is about child abuse, child molestation, rape, and sexual slavery.
None of the commune dwellers will be in the jury pool.
Not to mention a few million CATHOLIC mexicans. As far as I am aware, Catholics are not really fond of Baptists, and Baptists (since I attended the Baptist Church for 25 years I know this for FACT) are not very fond of Catholics either.
Yawn.... We need an update here. The children are getting restless and starting to fuss.
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