6 April 2008
May Cool Heads Prevail
Posted by Joy Bischoff under: What's News .
Hopefully we have learned a lesson from Waco and tensions will be allowed to calm. The headlines and various news reports are, in my opinion, inflaming a situation that should be allowed to cool. Irresponsible reporting could spook the members of this sect into believing they could be massacred. We pray the authorities will handle this with gentle diplomacy and avert disaster.
Conflict escalates at polygamist retreat
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.
3 Comments so far...
Matt Says:
6 April 2008 at 11:12 am.
I can’t imagine our government making the same mistakes as Waco. The whole country would be in an uproar if they did. Say a prayer for them folks.
Jesse Says:
6 April 2008 at 2:13 pm.
I noticed that the press is being pretty dramatic in reporting about this. It sounds so alarming that it scares me to read about it. I agree Matt, we wouldn’t be so dumb to make the same mistakes but for the people in that compound to read the news they would think it sounded like they are on the verge of being attacked. Crazy.
Benjamin Says:
6 April 2008 at 2:53 pm.
I copied this from the Drudge Report. It makes me sick that their temple was breached but I’m glad they did not try and stop the authorities because it could have turned out very badly.
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.
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