Judge: Seize cell phones from polygamous sect's women, children

[High Plains]

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

Seeks to cut off contact with outside
Judge: Seize cell phones from polygamous sect's women, children
By Brooke Adams and Christopher Smart
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 04/14/2008 06:44:48 AM MDT

ANGELO, Texas - The judge overseeing a massive investigation into alleged child abuse within a polygamous sect on Sunday ordered law officers to confiscate electronic devices from women and children in state custody at two shelters, cutting off their contact with family. The order, signed Sunday morning by 51st District Judge Barbara Walther, came after someone used a cell phone to send out images of living conditions at one shelter and to speak with a newspaper reporter.

State troopers confiscated at least one box full of cell phones, chargers and other devices, said Marissa Gonzales, a spokeswoman for Texas Child Protective Services. The search continued late into the afternoon. More than a dozen troopers were seen leaving a building being used to house boys at Fort Concho, and one used a metal detector to sweep its porch.

Dozens of boys stood outside the building during the search. Later, they gathered on the parade grounds at the historic military fort and sang songs from what appeared to be a hymnal. At one point the boys, who are being kept in separate quarters from the women and younger children, formed a line and faced a group of FLDS women and children about 50 yards across the grassy field. The boys and the women then sang. It lasted for nearly 90 minutes.

Earlier in the day, the women and children were allowed to hold church services, Gonzales said.



Read more: http://www.sltrib.com/ci_8917397

---

Wow. These people are not under arrest, but they are being held incommunicado. What does the state of Texas have to hide?

[kestrel91316]

1. The women were using the cell phones to tell the men

(who are all potentially rape suspects) what was going on, lots of details, questions being asked. Gotta coordinate the lies, you know, and get all their stories straight.

I TOTALLY support what the judge and DCPS are doing here.

RAPING minors is serious criminal activity, and there appears to be a conspiracy both to commit rape and to conceal it.

BTW, when they searched the compound, they found a document on how to commit mass suicide with cyanide a la Jonestown. These people are SERIOUS koolaid drinkers. If they want to kill themselves, that's fine with me, but they have NO RIGHT to involve their children in their suicide schemes.

[High Plains]

3. How do you know this?

From the article:

The order, signed Sunday morning by 51st District Judge Barbara Walther, came after someone used a cell phone to send out images of living conditions at one shelter and to speak with a newspaper reporter.

______

It doesn't say anything about coordinating details or getting stories straight.

You TOTALLY support keeping these women and children incommunicado? Please elaborate.

[kestrel91316]

11. Newspaper report out of TX days ago said the women were calling

the men and vice versa. Do the math. The women are brainwashed accessories after the fact.

[High Plains]

16. Shocking! Families trying to communicate!

Remember, the mothers are there voluntarily to be with their children. And now they are being held incommunicado.

You seem to have convicted everyone involved already.

[kestrel91316]

21. The women are not "being held", period. They are free to leave if they wish.

If the authorities don't want possible enablers/co-conspirators to have/use cell phones whil on the premises with the kids, that's THEIR call.

Why don't you care about the children's safety FIRST???
Why are you supporting child rapists and infant torturers?

[LisaL]

35. The women have been made to leave. They are not allowed

to stay with their children anymore, unless those children are younger than five year old.
Are those children really safer now, considering all the horror stories about the foster care system? These children are being put together in the stadium-is this really a good place for the children to be?
Why all four hundred children were removed from their mothers, based on an allegation authorities can't substantiate?

[customerserviceguy]

37. Those kids

and their religiously-lobotomized mothers are going to need some serious deprogramming. Way out in the deserts, where the fundie Mormons think nothing's changed since 1888, they are isolated to an extent that you cannot imagine. Yes, they use cell phones, but for all intents and purposes, the women and children are mentally stuck in a patriarchal mind-control cult that has no idea that there are people who live normal lives outside of their "ways". There's no freedom of choice here, it's not like when I was a teenager and decided not to go to the Catholic church anymore.

You know those tragic situations that come up every five or ten years, where they find some child, or even young adult, who has been living chained in a basement, with no idea of the outside world, only that there are "bad" people out there who want to harm you (and your tormentors) if you ever got out of that basement? That's not very far from what these women and children have been through, instead of concrete walls being their prison, hundreds of miles of desert are their prison bars.

[kestrel91316]

19. BTW, the women are not in custody. They are free to go if they don't like being

told they can't have phones where the kids are.

The children's safety from abuse comes first. All other considerations are secondary.

Why are you supporting rapists, infant torturers, and mass suicide cultists??

[atreides1]

4. And you know this for a fact???

Or is this what the authorities are putting out?

Personally I don't know what's going on, but even convicted prisoners have the rights to contact families unless it's already been proven that they are using those rights to continue there criminal activity. As of yet only one man has had a warrant issued for his arrest and he's in Arizona, not Texas.

This whole case is beginning to smell, they still don't seem to have the original complainant, the man named in the warrant wasn't even in Texas, and now the authorities are doing this.

In my opinion this group should be given the same rights as any American citizen, but because of the alleged crime involved as well as the age of the victims, some here would follow the Bush doctrine given to "enemy combatants"!

There is no option, you either believe in the rights guaranteed by the US Constitution or you don't!

[kestrel91316]

13. I support the CHILDREN'S rights to be free of coersion, brainwashing,

and the threat of rape and mass suicide. Don't you?

A person's religious rights end where any other person's body begins.

My guess is those phones are being used in a form of witness tampering/intimidation. NOT OK.

Due process is being followed carefully - this is a huge case with huge implications for a lot of people (most of whom are minors at risk of sexual and physical abuse). Unless you have PROOF that due process is not being followed here, maybe you just wanna sit down, shut up, and let the legal case proceed.

Sadly, most the women will lie to protect themselves from physical abuse and abandonment, and lie to protect their children from abuse. There is a history of torturing infants (aka waterboarding) as a form of intimidation to get mothers to obey the men without question.

[High Plains]

18. Sit down and shut up?

Why don't you stop hyperventilating?

[sudopod]

23. NO U

[Xithras]

30. The cyanide accusation is garbage, and the media has backed away from it.

Per CNN and other news outlets, the "suicide" document was a page ripped from a medical handbook on TREATING cyanide poisoning. When the first inventory was released, the media saw a document entitled "Cyanide Poisoning Documents" and made the mental leap to mass suicides. No cyanide has been found, nothing regarding the administering of cyanide has been found, and nothing regarding the manufacturing of cyanide has been found.

There's nothing to indicate that they had any plans on killing themselves.

[papau]

34. There are women trying to intimidate other women w/ threats that the FLDS men will take their kids

[High Plains]

2. "Sect's moms ask governor to intervene, return children"

Also from the Salt Lake Tribune: http://www.sltrib.com/ci_8917113

Sect's moms ask governor to intervene, return children
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 04/14/2008 09:05:48 AM MDT

Three women from the YFZ Ranch have sent a letter to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, asking him to intervene and return their children.
In the single-page letter dated Friday, the women say that the 416 children now staying at two state shelters are being traumatized. The letter was signed by Monica Jessop, Patricia Keate and Shannon Johnson. They said about 15 mothers were away from the ranch when state authorities came and took away the children.

"We were contacted and told our homes had been raided, our children taken away with no explanation and because of law enforcement blockade preventing entering or leaving the ranch, we were unable to get to our homes and had nowhere to go," the letter says.

They ask Perry to visit Fort Concho and the Wells Fargo Pavilion to see firsthand the living conditions there, describing them as appalling. Some children have become sick during the week they've been in state custody, and a few have required hospitalization, the women said.

"Our innocent children are continually being questioned on things they know nothing about," the letter states. The children have been "horrified" by physical exams they've undergone, the letter said. Officials say the exams were routine, basic and brief health checks that did not require the removal of clothing.

<snip>

[yardwork]

10. It's disturbing that the children are being separated from their parents, but

this is what always happens when the state steps into cases of suspected abuse. The same would happen to any family where DSS had reasons to suspect child abuse. Children are taken into state custody and generally not allowed to contact their parents until the charges are sorted out.

When children are abused or even killed while in their parent's custody, people often ask, "Why didn't the state step in and rescue those children?!" It's kind of a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation.

[hedgehog]

5. Sad to say, the activities of the men would not be possible without the

assistance of the women.

[Quantess]

15. Yes, because they are all brainwashed.

The women are victims but also are perpetrators.

[jody]

6. There is some similarity between the men in this incident and men elsewhere who have children by

many women.

The issue of forced marriage is certainly forced sexual relations and that's rape but aren't there other ethnic groups in the U.S. that decide who their daughters will marry, i.e. arranged marriages?

I'm not justifying rape that the FLDS group is accused of doing but the issue of polygamy IMO is not any worse than men having children by multiple women or women having children by multiple men and fathers abandoning their children.

The issue of sex and procreation are moral questions for which a multi-cultural society like the U.S. is IMO ill prepared to answer and enforce with government power.

[kestrel91316]

31. I don't actually give a damn about the sexual relations, religiously

sanctioned or not, between CONSENTING ADULTS>

The problem is with the religiously sanctioned rape of minors (all sex between those under 16 and those over 18 is rape by definition in TX, IIRC) and "grooming" for years to encourage acceptance of such rape as normal.

There also appears to be a problem with interference with an investigation that NPR just reported on, whereby the women and children are all changing their names every time they are asked, and pointing at various and sundry persons as their parents/children in a deliberate attempt to cause mass confusion.

Nothing a little mass DNA testing for true parentage won't sort out. Which will also conveniently provide proof of rape in not a few cases, I suspect.

[jody]

32. I believe you missed my point. Have a nice day.

[blackspade]

7. This some police state BS.

Unbelievable.
What is the constitutional basis for limiting access to the outside world for people not charged with a crime?
I'm no big fan of the Mormons by any stretch, but this is ridiculous.
If there are no laws broken they need to cut them loose, if there are, charge them.
Only in Texas, a place I only go if I have to.

[kestrel91316]

17. Texas is putting the children's safety from abuse FIRST.

But you go ahead and whine about the parents' "rights".

A person's religious rights end where another person's body begins. And that especially applies to children.

[LisaL]

36. By sticking the kids without their mothers into the stadium?

The kids are also likely un-vaccinated? Hundreds of possibly un-vaccinated children in the stadium?
If you ask me, that sounds like a recipe for disaster.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

8. I totally support the judge

since it appears the cell phones were being used by the men to threaten their 'wives' - spiritual or otherwise - into not cooperating with authorities in establishing familial relationships.

These men use threats of eternal damnation to keep the women in their place. Without cell phones, hopefully some of the women and girls will come forward.

[High Plains]

9. Where does it say the men were threatening their wives?

The judge issued the order after women called reporters to complain about the conditions in which they were being held.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

12. That is what they tell the press to make themselves into the victim

However, I have had the pleasure of working with women who made it out of FLDS compounds and the way the men control and brainwash them is appalling. There is a lot that goes on in that world under the guise of religion. Believe me, the men - and some women, I am sure - will threaten the women and children from revealing information over the phone. I stand by my opinion, based on my experience with this cult.

[kestrel91316]

14. The cult has a history of TORTURING INFANTS as a means of controlling mothers:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24009286

It's called "breaking the baby".

All these children are in grave danger of abuse. And you are a REALLY sick MF to defend the cult.

[High Plains]

20. Relying on the accounts of "survivors" to get at the reality of this sect

...is as one-sided as listening to Cuban exiles in Miami to get at the reality of Cuba.

I don't particularly like religious zealots, but I don't like overreaching state power either. Given these kids over to Texas CPS is like going from the frying pan to the fire.

And you can take your insults and stick them up your ass. It is nearly impossible to have a serious discussion of the complicated issues at play here when people rely on emotion instead of reason. No you think using all caps makes your points any more valid?

[kestrel91316]

27. I use all caps for emphasis because I can't seem to do italics here.

You can take your support of rapists and child torturers and shove it up YOUR ass.

[hedgehog]

33. Psst- here's the secret for italics

Use a square leading bracket with an i followed by square following bracket ahead of the word, then follow with square leading bracket slash i followed by square closing bracket

or

bracket i bracket whatever is to be italizised bracket slash i bracket



I'm not much of a computer language person, I hope this makes sense.

[sudopod]

22. WTF

I thought I stepped out into Fail Republic there for a second.

OMG TEH EVIL JBTs R TRAMPLIN AR FREEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDOM! IT'S JUST LIEK JANET RENO! REMBER RUBY RIDGE!!!!1111elevn

[Quantess]

24. The "Freedom Of Religion" concept only works if the individuals actually have freedom, I believe.

The women, and most especially the children and teenagers, have very little freedom of any kind. It's like the taliban is here in the USA.

[LisaL]

40. And who is to decide if someone actually has freedom from

their religion?
What's next? Going and removing children from the Amish?

[TheDebbieDee]

28. Monogamous men have also been known to

use threats of harming the children to coerce/control the behavior of women.

My abusive ex-husband used this gambit all too often. Thank goodness we are free from him now, but whenever I hear someone question how an abuser can control an abusee from a remote distance, I am ready to reel off a list of ways.

[slackmaster]

25. Seeing "cell phones" and "polygamous sect" in the same sentence seems, well, odd

:shrug:

[emad]

26. The original planning application at the Yearning For Zion temple was

for a 'hunting Lodge.'

No plans ever formally submitted for a fully fledged Wack-style polygamost commuinity.

Someone, somehow allowed the original hunting lodge plans to be upgraded to the behemoth mpnstrosity of the present erection.

And who was in charge of Texas during all this?

George W Bush, Governor.

[kestrel91316]

29. For those who want FACTS in this case:

Texas DFPS has a website with current status info and timeline.
http://www.dfps.state.tx.us/
News Brief: Monday, April 14, 2008
The Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) and other state agencies continue to provide for all the needs of 416 children living in shelters in San Angelo, while awaiting a hearing to determine if they will remain in state custody.

DFPS will recommend to the court that all the children removed from the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints compound remain in state custody and be placed in foster care to prevent further abuse.

An investigation identified a number of young teenage girls who had been sexually abuse and were pregnant or had already given birth to children. Investigator found a pattern and practice in the compound of grooming young girls to have sexual relationships with much older men as their “spiritual” wives. Under Texas law children under the age of 16 cannot marry under any circumstances.

Last week Judge Barbara Walther ordered DFPS to keep all the children in the San Angelo area until a hearing on April 17, 2008. This weekend she ordered DFPS to confiscate the cell phones of the 139 women to prevent witnesses tampering and interference with the legal process.

For now, the women and children are being housed in a collection of nearby shelters. They are all being provided wholesome food, a place to sleep, personal items they need, and medical care by a team of doctors and mental health professionals.

A number of the children arrived at the shelters already suffering from a variety of illnesses including chicken pox, upper respiratory infections, ear infections, etc. Each is receiving the appropriate medical care.

-------------------

And for those who want to contribute money to the FLDS church fund to continue their abuse of women and children - and they will also probably need a heck of a defense fund:
OOPS, they don't seem to HAVE any way to donate to their church. Gosh, I wonder why. Could be they don't want to have to answer donors' questions? But I am sure a clever person could track down their attorney/spokesman and give some money. When you do so, please be sure to let us know on this thread.

[mainegreen]

38. Are they seizing phones from women over 18?

Or only minors?

Because I can see how one is legal and justified, but the other is fascist totalitarian BS, no matter the intentions.

[LisaL]

39. From everyone, according to the OP article.