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.
Saturday evening, ambulances were brought in, said Allison Palmer, who as first assistant 51st District attorney, would prosecute any felony crimes uncovered as part of the investigation inside the compound.
"In preparing for entry to the temple, law enforcement is preparing for the worst," Palmer said Saturday evening. They want to have "medical personnel on hand in case this were to go in a way that no one wants."
Apparently as a result of action Saturday night at the ranch, about 10:15 p.m. Saturday, a Schleicher County school bus unloaded another group of at least a dozen more women and children from the compound.
Although members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, have provided varying degrees of cooperation to the sheriff"s deputies and Texas Rangers searching the compound, all cooperation stopped once authorities tried to search the gleaming white temple that towers over the West Texas scrub, Palmer said.
"There may be those who would oppose (entry) by placing themselves between law enforcement and the place of worship," Palmer said Saturday afternoon. "If an agreement cannot be reached " law enforcement will have to " as gently and peaceably as possible " make entry into that place."
Sect members consider the temple, dedicated by then-leader of the sect Warren Jeffs in January 2005 and finished many months later, off-limits to those who are not FLDS members, said Palmer, who prosecutes felony cases in Schleicher County.
Palmer said she didn"t know the size or makeup of the group inside the temple.
The earlier refusal to provide access was even more disconcerting because CPS investigators have yet to identify the 16-year-old girl or her roughly 8-month-old baby among the dozens removed from the compound, Palmer said.
"Anytime someone says, "Don"t look here,"" she said, "it makes you concerned that"s exactly where you need to look."
The girl told authorities in two separate phone calls a day apart that she was married to a 50-year-old man, Dale Barlow, who had fathered her child, Palmer said.
The joint raid included the Texas Rangers, CPS, Schleicher County and Tom Green County sheriff"s deputies and game wardens from the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.
Although CPS and Department of Public Safety officials have described the compound"s residents as cooperative, Palmer disagreed.
"Things have been a little tense, a little volatile," she said.
Authorities removed 52 children Friday afternoon and 131 women and children overnight Friday. About 40 of the children are boys, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.
No further children have been taken into state custody since Friday, when 18 girls were judged to have been abused or be at imminent risk for abuse. CPS has found foster homes for the girls, Meisner said, and will place them after concluding its investigation.
Meisner declined to comment on the fate of the 119 other children and said authorities were still searching the ranch for others Saturday evening.
"They"re in the process of looking," she said. "They"re literally about halfway through."
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You're only one post away from a federal watch list.
Folks have gotta learn that in the U.S. freedome of religion does not quite extend to letting middle aged men do the nasty with 14 and 15 year old girls.
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"Shoot him again....his soul is still dancing"
Location: land of the Lilliputians, In the state of insanity
Posts: 24,186
RE: FLDS Sect busted
This is just crazy. 401 kids on this compound. It is all over our news. I dont think all 401 kids will be separated from their mothers. So far only 1 man has been charged with crimes. Its going to be interesting to see where all these people end up going. I dont think the State will keep but a fraction of these kids as a ward of the State, the rest will most likely live off welfar until there motherscan find jobs. I can see this being a strain on the Texas economy for a while. Not so much on houseing but on care until they get back on their feet.
More interesting question; How much child support are these men going to be hit with once the waters are all cleared. Because we all know the man will only be living with his legal wife, if even that. I bet these menthink the whole polygamy thing wasnt a very good idea after all. That is once they have lost their controle over these women.
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kaafir mushrik
Unintended consequences and God have one thing in common: Liberals dont believe in either of them.
Most of the women and kids in these crazy FLDS compounds are on welfare. They call it "bleeding the beast." There were apparently few juvenile males on that compound. The old geezers see them as competition for the teenage girls and run them off.
FLDS Sect busted
