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Sat 5 Apr, 2008 08:54 pm
ELDORADO, Texas - Sect leaders at a polygamist compound in West Texas refused Saturday to let authorities search a temple for a teenage girl whose report of abuse led to the raid, and authorities said they were preparing "for the worst."
If no agreement is reached with sect leaders, authorities will forcibly remove the sect's followers "as peaceably as possible," Allison Palmer, a prosecutor in Tom Green County, told the San Angelo Standard-Times.
Medical workers are being sent "in case this were to a go in a way that no one wants," Palmer said. Law enforcers are "preparing for the worst," she said.
"Within the religion that we have encountered, their place of worship is very special to them," Palmer said. "It appears to be of great concern to them if a person from outside their congregation even attempts to step inside their place of worship."
A search warrant authorized troopers to enter the retreat, run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They are looking for evidence of a marriage between the girl and a 50-year-old man.
Court documents the girl had a baby eight months ago, when she was 15.
State welfare officials on Friday removed 52 girls from the compound. Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for Child Protective Services, said another 131 residents were removed overnight. By Saturday afternoon, 137 children and 46 women were being housed and interviewed at local community centers.
"They seem to be doing fine," Meisner told The Associated Press. Investigators remained inside the compound looking for additional children, she said.
The whereabouts of the 16-year-old mother who sparked the investigation are unknown, Meisner said. State troopers who raided the religious retreat were looking for the girl, her baby girl and 50-year-old Dale Barlow.
Under Texas law, girls younger than 16 cannot marry, even with parental approval.
Officials in Texas declined to comment Saturday on whether they had found Barlow, citing a gag order, but the man's probation officer told The Salt Lake Tribune that he was in Arizona.
"He said the authorities had called him (in Colorado City, Ariz.) and some girl had accused him of assaulting her and he didn't even know who she was," said Bill Loader, a probation officer in Arizona.
Barlow was sentenced to jail time last year after pleading no contest to conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender for three years while he is on probation.
His lawyer in that case, Bruce Griffen, said he had not spoken to Barlow in a year.
The search warrant instructed officers to look for marriage records or other evidence linking her to the man and the baby. The warrant authorized the seizure of computer drives, CDs, DVDs or photos.
Those inside the retreat did not respond to requests for comment.
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints broke away from the Mormon church after the latter disavowed polygamy more than a century ago.
The compound sits down a narrow paved road and behind a hill that shields it almost entirely from view in town. Only the 80-foot-high, gleaming white temple can be seen on the horizon. Authorities blocked access to the gate, keeping onlookers miles away.
The 1,700-acre property had been an exotic game ranch. It is surrounded by dusty, wind-swept land where sheep are raised and mohair produced.
Eldorado (pronounced el-dor-AY'-do) is a two-stoplight town of fewer than 2,000 people and located nearly 200 miles northwest of San Antonio. It consists of a cluster of government buildings, a couple churches and a few blocks of houses.
State officials said they did not know how many people lived at the retreat, although local officials estimated about 150 two years ago.
The FLDS has been led by Warren Jeffs since his father died in 2002. In November, Jeffs was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of five years to life in prison in Utah for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who wed her cousin in an arranged marriage in 2001.
In Arizona, Jeffs is charged as an accomplice with four counts each of incest and sexual conduct with a minor stemming from two arranged marriages between teenage girls and their older male relatives. He is jailed in Kingman, Ariz., awaiting trial.
I'm slightly following this, but your post is new info.
He is rather well known in the midwest...
Thanks, Ed.
RH
The title of the thread is as a bit off. It's not so much about polygamy as sex-abuse and child-abuse.
littlek wrote:The title of the thread is as a bit off. It's not so much about polygamy as sex-abuse and child-abuse.
You are correct, but the media calls it a polygamist compound. I figured to use their language to begin the thread, then let a2kers post their own views.
Could be much worse, Boom, depending on how it's handled.
The details are more sordid.
RH
what does that mean, re what you know or not, RH? you have private info?
No, Osso, nothing you can't go find. He is not new, nor alone.
The polygamist old guard is not just Big Love material.
RH
Dear, it is sad sick sh*t. I will not go become more sad to show you details...
Law enforcement authorities were able to enter a west Texas polygamist compound to search a temple for a 16-year-old girl, after an initial tense standoff Saturday. Though nearly 200 women and children were taken by bus from the compound this weekend, the teenage girl, whose report of abuse led to the raid, still is unaccounted for in Eldorado, Texas. She is allegedly married to a 50-year-old man with whom she has had a child.
Texas authorities search a polygamist compound to find a teen.Initially, leaders refused to let police enter the compound and authorities feared the worst case scenario and brought in ambulances.
April 7, 2008, 4:35PM
400 children in custody in polygamist compound raid
By JANET ELLIOTT and JOHN MacCORMACK
SAN ANGELO ?- The state has taken legal, temporary custody of 401 children from a polygamist compound in nearby Schleicher County, a child welfare official said today, citing allegations of abuse and that the children were at risk of harm.
"In my opinion, this is the largest endeavor we've ever been involved with in the state of Texas," Marleigh Meisner, spokeswoman for Child Protective Services, said as the number of children in temporary custody grew from an initial 18 youngsters.
Temporary custody was awarded by a state district judge, Meisner said. Each child will be appointed a guardian ad litem and an attorney ad litem to represent their interests, she said.
In addition, 133 women have voluntarily joined the children, who are being held at an historic site, Fort Concho, that includes facilities for lodging.
State officials are probably close to finished with their search of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints ranch, Meisner said, "but we're not there yet."
The announcement of the additional children taken into temporary custody came as the Texas Department of Public Safety revealed that a man was arrested during the search of the compound.
DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange said the man was charged with interfering with the duties of a public servant, a Class B misdemeanor. That is punishable by two to 10 years in prison and a maximum $10,000 fine.
'Cyanide poisoning document' found in Texas sect search
By BETSY BLANEY and MICHELLE ROBERTS
Associated Press
Sect youths conditioned to deceive outsiders
A look inside the polygamists' compound SAN ANGELO ?- Authorities searching the compound of a polygamist sect in West Texas found a "cyanide poisoning document" among the dozens of items it seized during a weeklong search.
Nothing in the 80-page list of items seized indicated that members of the sect planned to use cyanide. But the list had no explanation of the document and Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said she did not have any details about it.
Also seized were school and medical records, including some that listed the name of a 16-year-old girl whose call to a family violence shelter triggered the raid at the compound. But her name was identical to that of several girls in the sect.
The caller had said her 50-year-old husband had beaten and raped her.
Other items taken from the compound included computer equipment, family photo albums, a photo of a birthing room, food and hand prints taken at birth and several copies of the Book of Mormon.
The raid of the compound in Eldorado, 40 miles south of San Angelo, began on April 3. Since then, the state has taken legal custody of 416 children on suspicions that they were being sexually and physically abused.
Another 139 women voluntarily left the compound of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints ?- known as the YFZ Ranch ?- and were being housed with the children.
Local authorities have said it was not until after the raid began that they learned the sect was marrying off underage girls at the compound and had a bed in its soaring limestone temple where the girls were required to immediately consummate their marriages. A number of teenage girls are pregnant, investigators said.
Warren Jeffs, the sect's prophet and spiritual leader at its longtime headquarters in the dusty, side-by-side towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., was charged in 2005 and 2006 with forcing underage girls into marriages. He was convicted in September in Utah of being an accomplice to rape and is serving up to life in prison.
BBB
I've been puzzling over the removal of the children from the polygamist compound. Wouldn't it make more sense to protect the children from abuse to remove the men from the compound rather than the women and children? It's the men who want sex with young girls. It's the men who force the teenage boys out of the compound so they don't compete for sex with the older men.
If the men were removed, Texas would not be faced with having to find homes for the over 400 children and they would not be separated from their mothers. The men-fathers could be forced to continue financial support for their wives and children.
Whenever sex issues arise, it seems the remedy always seems to be imposed on the women, not the men.
BBB
Good point BBB.
But, they've also separated the children from their mothers.
I don't think it's as simple as, the male figure is gone, and everything's fine.
These are damaged brainedwashed women, at least some of them.
Many would want to take their children and go back to their life with no changes.
Chai wrote:Good point BBB.
But, they've also separated the children from their mothers.
I don't think it's as simple as, the male figure is gone, and everything's fine.
These are damaged brainedwashed women, at least some of them.
Many would want to take their children and go back to their life with no changes.
But it would be less traumatic for the children, don't you think?
BBB
I honestly don't know.
It depends on what the mothers are filling their childrens heads with.
For instance, the fact that the children are more forthcoming when the mothers aren't around. That indicates to me more than the normal "don't talk to strangers" message all moms give their kids.
With the mothers around, it's more like "don't talk to these outsiders about what we do"
I'm not saying the mothers don't love their children. I'm not convinced the best place for the moment isn't separate, so the kids feel they can communicate of their terms.
After having read this morning's story on the CNN WWW site on some of the stuff going on with this place I'm a bit confused as to whether there is something there or if the State is just ona fishing expedition.
One of the things that the state is investigating is that out of the ~200 minors of the female variety they have collected from the coumpound, 5 are pregnant.
Overall, Texas has the 5th highest pregnancy rate for minors in the country at 62 per 1000.
Extrapolating that out, the compound is running at a rate of 25 per 1000 - less than half of the state rate.
Now, I'm not saying that someone shouldn't be asking if these girls are being abused but if this is the sort of evidence the state is using to justify everything going on then there are going to be some huge issues very quickly here.
fishin wrote:One of the things that the state is investigating is that out of the ~200 minors of the female variety they have collected from the coumpound, 5 are pregnant.
Overall, Texas has the 5th highest pregnancy rate for minors in the country at 62 per 1000.
Extrapolating that out, the compound is running at a rate of 25 per 1000 - less than half of the state rate.
Now, I'm not saying that someone shouldn't be asking if these girls are being abused but if this is the sort of evidence the state is using to justify everything going on then there are going to be some huge issues very quickly here.
The issue for the compound is minor girls impregnated by ADULT males. Doesn't the pregnancy rate for minors in Texas overall involve UNDERAGE males?
BM.
There is a closed-minded rush to judgment here that is a bit shocking. Is anyone willing to think about this from anything other than a mob mentality?
The fact that kids are being ripped away from their parents without regard for their culture is troubling at the least.
The fact that Americans are jumping on negative stereotypes that demonize a religion is also troubling. As is the mob willingness to believe even the unsubstantiated rumors that are coming out of the early stories.
I don't know what I think yet-- but I am pretty sure that police ripping kids away from their parents; and lawyers representing kids automatically being pitted against parents without regard to what the kids really believe is a bad thing.
I am certainly not joining the mob in judgment before I understand a bit more than what law enforcement and mass media are feeding us.
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