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If it were up to blizz and B2B, they'd just leave the damn kids there to be ed by the elders. Why get involved?
167 children taken from FLDS complex in Texas
By RANDY MANKIN
http://www.thespectrum.com/apps/pbcs...EWS01/80405002
ELDORADO, Texas -- Child protective officials have removed 167 children from a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints complex near Eldorado, Texas.
The YFZ Ranch was built by members of the FLDS church whose self-proclaimed prophet, Warren Jeffs, remains in a Utah prison after being found guilty of two counts of rape as an accomplice last year for arranging a marriage between an underage girl and her older cousin.
Buses from the Schleicher County school district and First Baptist Church of Eldorado were pressed into service Friday to transport the children from the YFZ Ranch where they had been removed from their parents' custody by Texas Child Protective Services in accordance with a court order issued by 51st District Judge Barbara Walther.
The children range in age from 6 months of 17 years. There are 96 boys and 71 girls. CPS is trying to determine if the parents of the babies are among the young girls they took into custody, or if the parents even live at the YFZ Ranch.
CPS is seeking immediate temporary custody of 18 of the children while the remainder are to be interviewed to determine if they are "at risk."
Community members as well as congregations from several Eldorado churches began preparing food for the children. They also helped prepare cots and bedding in hopes of making the children as comfortable as possible.
The move to take the children into custody began with an allegation that an underage girl at the YFZ was being sexually and physically abused. Law enforcement officers sealed of all the roads leading to the YFZ Ranch late Thursday afternoon. The lawmen demanded entry to the ranch just before midnight that night and escorted CPS workers onto YFZ property without incident.
CPS interviews of the children lasted throughout the night and well into the afternoon on Friday. That's when a number of buses began transporting children from the YFZ Ranch to the Schleicher County Civic Center south of Eldorado. There the children were turned over to CPS workers.
It is not clear who will end up with custody of the children once hearings are held Monday before Walther in San Angelo, Texas.
CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said Friday that the residents at the YFZ had cooperated with investigators by providing access to children they needed to interview.
Lawmen were also hoping to serve an arrest warrant and a search warrant while on the compound. It is unknown if either were successfully executed.
Meanwhile, the roadblocks continued into the night Friday as lawmen were told to prepare for another long and chilly night.
FLDS church members purchased the property near Eldorado in late 2003. The following year they began construction of numerous dormitory style buildings and a massive white limestone temple. Since that time a small town has been built on the property.
If it were up to blizz and B2B, they'd just leave the damn kids there to be ed by the elders. Why get involved?
The ing Mormons are crazy. They should be seen as a cult.
Warren Jeffs, the 52-year-old leader and "prophet" of the 10,000-member church, was convicted in Utah last year and sentenced to 10 years on two counts of being an accomplice to rape, charges related to a marriage he performed in 2001. He faces trial in Arizona on eight charges of sexual conduct with a minor, incest and conspiracy.
Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints bought the land near Eldorado four years ago and built the ranch, which they call the YFZ Ranch. The letters are said to refer to the words Yearning for Zion.
It is home to as many as 400 members who relocated from their Arizona and Utah compounds.
State and local law enforcement agencies set up roadblocks around the ranch Thursday evening, preventing journalists from seeing what was happening on the property, according to Randy Mankin, editor of the Eldorado Success weekly newspaper.
"This came totally out of the blue," Mankin said.
There were no indications of violence around the ranch, he said.
When CNN crews have visited the ranch, it was guarded by armed men equipped with night vision gear and other high-tech surveillance tools to prevent intruders.
When CNN flew over the ranch in a small plane last year, the crew saw a massive temple, the three-story housing units where Jeffs' chosen followers live, the water tower, the school and community center, the dairy and cheese factory and a massive concrete mill.
The church openly practices polygamy in two towns straddling the Arizona-Utah state line -- Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona -- but members living on their Texas ranch rarely venture into Eldorado, four miles to the south.
Critics of the sect say that it arranges marriages for girls as young as 13 and that compe ion for brides may be reduced through exiling young men. If male followers are excommunicated, the critics claim, their wives and children can be reassigned to someone else.@ reassigned
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04...f=mpstoryemail
All I remember is that the place was locked down tight when I was working in San Angelo.
Kori is from UTAH DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
Karl Malone LOVER
I'm not from Utah. I grew up in Phoenix and I lived in Los Angeles for 17 years.
I thought you lived in Utha or coverved the Jazz, I remember reading osmething similar to this a while ago.
What took Texas so long?
Did this "complex" just spring into being overnight?
Well... the FLDS "church" is a splinter group off of the main LDS movement. This particular group that has been in the news in recent years broke off when the "mother church" in Salt Lake City renounced polygamy in 1890. The fundamentalists believed that the LDS religion had no right to change what had been revealed decades earlier to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, et al.
Now ... as to the beliefs and practices of the early Mormons, then yes, you are right in saying that they had many characteristics of a cult -- (a) such as special hermeneutical keys in interpreting scripture that they alone claimed to possess, (b) highly centralized leadership that demanded loyalty, and (c) the belief that only their only local group had all of the truth. Whether or not the Mormons are still a cult is up to debate.
But don't lump the FLDS in with the Mormons.
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