Published: April 17, 2008  Author: Brooke Adams and Kristen Moulton
	For Education and Discussion Only.  Not for Commercial Use.

 

ELDORADO, Texas - Concealing their anger but not their tears, more than two dozen women of a polygamous sect told reporters they were surrounded by troopers and forced to leave their children in state custody Monday.

In an extraordinary break from past reticence, the women met with reporters at the YFZ Ranch hours after leaving their children and accused the Texas Child Protective Services of lies and trickery.

"They just as well line us up and shoot us as take our children away," said Donna, a 35-year-old mother who left behind a 10-year-old daughter. The women used only their first names.

After a week's stay at two makeshift shelters - described by one woman as a "concentration camp" - state authorities moved women and children to the San Angelo Coliseum on Monday, promising them they were being taken to a "bigger, better" place. They were told they would be reunited with other family members, the women said.

Once at the coliseum, the women were separated according to the ages of their children.

Mothers of those age 6 or older were herded into a room, each one flanked by a CPS worker. More than 50 troopers, according to the women, lined the room. The women were given a choice: return to the ranch or go to a domestic violence shelter.

Their children, they were told, were no longer theirs. "They told us the state is in charge of them now," said Donna.

"They wouldn't even let us go back and say goodbye to our children," said Sarah, who now has five children, ages 8 to 16, in state custody.

Like many of the women, she wept as she spoke.

Marissa Gonzales, spokeswoman for CPS, said 82 women remained Monday with the youngest of the 416 children taken from the ranch. She said 51 women returned home and six chose to go to a "safe location."

Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney representing the FLDS families, said no women went to the shelter.

One woman said that CPS workers pressed the women to go to the shelter, assuring them they would see their children more often if they did.

Donna said she didn't believe it. "We have not been able to trust anybody.= "

State authorities raided the YFZ Ranch on April 3 after receiving a report from a local family violence shelter that a 16-year-old girl telephoned several times, claiming she had been abused by her "spiritual" husband.

The women from YFZ Ranch said Monday the girl does not exist and the calls were a hoax.

"It is a bogus person. It is a person they made up. That person does not exist on this land," said Joy.

Janet said no one has heard of the girl named in a search warrant. "She is a fictitious person."

Another girl with a name similar to that of the girl in the search warrant was grilled for hours by investigators, Janet said. They kept telling her " 'You are this girl. Why don't you want our help?' " she said= .

State officials said Monday they still have not located the caller but are "hopeful" she is among the children in custody.

Texas CPS say that because of a "pervasive pattern" of abuse and exploitation at the ranch, all children need to be removed.

The women said no one is forced to stay at the ranch and that anyone can leave at any time, contrary to the state's contention that it is a closed, controlled community.

Teenage girls were separated early on after the raid, and several mothers said that boys 12 and older were taken away Sunday. CPS said the boys have been moved to a facility "outside the area."

One mother said she was asked if her two daughters, 15 and 16, were married or pregnant. She said no. The girls were given pregnancy tests, she said, and the results proved she was truthful.

Asked if any teenage girls were pregnant, the women refused to answer.

Monday evening, reporters were allowed to travel the half-mile dirt road onto the ranch and were escorted to a log building, where they were met by the women, whose faces were drawn and weary.

Construction of the ranch began four years ago by members of the FLDS faith, most of whom lived in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.

The women described how Texas Rangers and CPS workers came knocking on their doors and began removing their children 11 days ago.

Sarah said she and her two teenage daughters were taken to a school building at the ranch, where authorities spent three or four hours questioning the girls. She has not seen the girls since.

"We just want our children back, clean and pure," she said.

While at Fort Concho, the woman said her 10-year-old son was asked by CPS workers if he was married and if he had ever been touched in "sacred" places.

"He said, 'Of course not. That is a stupid question,' " Sarah said.

Donna said that living conditions at the shelters became harsh Sunday when CPS confiscated the women's cell phones and forced even the smallest child to pass through a metal detector. Their bedding was searched, too.

When they were hastily separated from their children on Monday, the women had to leave bags of belongings - including medication - behind.

They described some of the CPS workers and troopers in tears as the women were loaded on buses that took them back to the ranch.

"There were a few whose hearts were touched," said Mary, now separated from her 8-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son.

"The truth is we need our children and our children need us," said Donna.

Janet said her 11-year-old son was hopeful that the buses were taking them home.

"The last thing my little boy said is, 'I just want to go home.' "

 

 

Exactly as I thought from the beginning. When I hear CPS I think power mad dykes. I've never personally had any experience with them, only read a lot of news accounts and lived in State Capital city. The parents who try to fight them not only lose their children, they go to jail.

This case is a little different perhaps in that these Mormons may not have signed their children over to the State via marriage licenses and birth certificates, so the only handle the State would have would be a criminal complaint; thus, apparently, someone made up a criminal complaint.

There is no way these Mormons can win in this. Attempting violence would only lead to their own deaths or imprisonment as the State unleashed all its tax-funded violence against them. Attempting a legal remedy can't be allowed to work either, as it would make a State agency look bad.

How many people, I wonder, are still in the State Prison in Washington State due to the lies and fantasies that a grandstanding cop in Walla Walla coaxed out of a retarded foster child in his care? That was all shown false, but the liability of the County and State were so huge that it was not allowed into court.

It appears they have no remedy available and will lose the children.

 

 

In other words the state has no victim and no crime complaint. And in fact may be implicated in a hoax/lie in obtaining the search warrant.

It in fact has nothing other than the self-appointed power to 'regulate' the minutiae of life from cradle to grave. And a brainwashed 'population that will swallow the moralization bs that they will put forward. "Look we needed to save the chilren",the state will say, and you will see millions of bobble heads start with the refrain,"Yes save the chilren!"

 

Update

Polygamy Trail Leads to Colorado

Texas Rangers Take Part in Arrest of Woman Who Allegedly Made Hoax Call in Colorado

By JIM AVILA, TERI WHITCRAFT, REYNOLDS HOLDING, ANDREA BEAUMONT and SCOTT MICHELS

SAN ANGELO, Texas, April 17, 2008 —

Texas Rangers participated in the arrest of a Colorado woman who allegedly pretended to be a girl locked in a basement. The Rangers were in the state as part of their investigation into the Texas polygamy custody battle, local police told ABC News.

It was unclear if the arrest was related to the phone call from a woman who claimed to be a 16-year-old girl, a phone call that sparked what has become one of the largest child custody cases in U.S. history. ...
the ziohoaxer article

 

 

 

Texas has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the country. In excess of 80,000 abortions were performed in Texas in 2006 and of those about sixteen thousand were performed on girls under the age of nineteen, and a quarter of those were performed on girls under the age of fifteen. Until 2005 when a parental notification law went into effect abortionists were not obligated to inform parents when their minor child was given an abortion.

One might wonder if the Texas Child “Protective” Services monitor abortion clinics so they can prosecute men who impregnate underage girls. I think it is doubtful. They are also unlikely to take underage, pregnant girls from their parents who neglected to protect them from engaging in underage sex. In my town the local high school funds a special program for its many pregnant high school girls, but the CPS is noticeably absent – not really interested in how these girls came to be pregnant at fourteen to seventeen.

The psychiatrist who testified today suggested that it was bizarre for teenage girls to look forward to “having as many babies as possible”, but it hasn’t been so long ago that virtually all young girls would look forward to “having as many babies as possible” and the only thing that would identify them as immature would be the additional fantasy that they would marry a man of means who could support their dream of a large family.