Child welfare in Texas removes children from polygamist compound UPDATE #13
Wasn't this guy already charged and found guilty of something related to this? :rolleyes:
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/polygamist_retreat
Fri Apr 4, 4:53 PM
By The Associated Press
ELDORADO, Texas - Child welfare officials and state troopers have removed a busload of children from a secretive Texas religious retreat built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.
The children were taken after authorities received a complaint to state child welfare investigators.
A spokeswoman for Child Protective Services says a white bus that drove out of the compound accompanied by state troopers was filled with children being taken away from the compound.
There's no immediate word on how many children were taken.
The bus left the compound filled with what appeared to be mostly girls.
Authorities surrounded the retreat, built by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, late Thursday.
They served search and arrest warrants Friday. The children were removed several hours later.
I just don't know about these folks
I know that I do not agree with this religious group, and think they are a bunch of nutballs. BUT.....this is about religious beliefs....and I wonder why our government has the right to barge in and take children. There are lots of girls having sex at age 14 and under, with cousins, and geessseee, they don't get arrested. I know, I know. I don't like it but these folks are at least feeding and clothing and educating their families. The word cult comes to mind, but this craziness is based on their religion.
I once attended a "gypsy wedding"....in Philadelphia. The kids were well under 16. I don't know if they were related, but I do know that the pool of genes (as well as the weak genes) were very close in the reproduction process for the group. It is their culture to marry early and stay within the group. You should have seen the gold necklaces everyone wore. That is how they invest their money....it is quite portable and not taxed by the IRS.
Anyway, I don't think these folks are right but I do respect their rights to practice their religion, however odd and crazy it may seem.
Just my opinion, doesn't make in right! :eek:
UPDATE: 52 girls removed from Texas polygamist sect
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/u...rmons_abuse_dc
Sat Apr 5, 6:11 AM
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Texas authorities said on Friday that they were investigating a potential child-abuse case at a ranch operated by followers of a breakaway Mormon sect linked to jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.
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No arrests had been made as of late Friday afternoon but officials said 52 girls have been removed from the secretive sect's compound.
"We took 52 children out, they were all girls between the ages of six months and 17 years," said Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
"Eighteen of the 52 have been legally removed into state custody," he added.
A spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety said no suspect had been taken into custody but a search and arrest warrant had been issued.
The ranch is about 120 miles northwest of San Antonio and is a compound for a renegade Mormon sect called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which is under the sway of Jeffs, a self-proclaimed prophet.
In November, Jeffs was sentenced in a Utah court to 10 years to life in prison as an accomplice to rape for forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her 19-year-old first cousin. Jeffs is awaiting trial on similar charges for arranged marriages in Arizona.
Local media reports said the Texas compound had been sealed off by investigators.
Crimmins earlier said he could not comment on the nature of the investigation but said "generally speaking, an abuse and neglect investigation is triggered when there is a complaint to the agency."
The mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon faith is officially known, renounced the practice of polygamy more than a century ago and is at pains to distance itself from breakaway factions that bless multiple marriages, often involving adolescent girls.
(Reporting by Jim Forsyth in San Antonio and Ed Stoddard in Dallas; Editing by Philip Barbara)
Some of the children seized from Texas polygamist compound are Canadians
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/0...gamist_retreat
Some of the children seized from Texas polygamist compound are Canadians
1 hour, 58 minutes ago
By Michelle Roberts, The Associated Press
http://d.yimg.com/ca.yimg.com/p/0804...9RsTU3oagYBw--
SAN ANGELO, Texas - The attorney general for British Columbia said Friday he was alerted by officials in Ottawa that some of the children taken from a polygamist compound inhabited by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are Canadians.
The confirmation came hours after Angie Voss of Texas Child Protection Services testified at a custody hearing for 416 children, seized in a raid earlier this month because of evidence of physical and sexual abuse, that some of the children before the court are Canadians.
State District Judge Barbara Walther, meanwhile, ruled that the children will stay in state custody.
She also ordered that all children and parents be given genetic testing. Child welfare officials have said they've had difficulty determining how the children and parents are related because of evasive or changing answers.
In Vancouver, Attorney General Wally Oppal said he had been alerted about some Canadians.
"I received the same report from Ottawa so it seems that that is accurate," said Oppal.
He said the Justice Department or External Affairs called "indicating that there are Canadians."
"What that means is that External Affairs would get involved in something like that."
But Foreign Affairs in Ottawa did not confirmin what Oppal said he was told by federal officials privately.
"To date no confirmation has been received on the citizenship status of the children," said Eugenie Cormier-Lessonde, a department spokeswoman.
Canadian consular officials have been in contact with Texas officials, she said.
Oppal said "this has been an issue for quite some time in that it has been said that at Bountiful there are said to be some Americans there as well."
"It sort of adds another dimension to the problem here. That is, that people move in and out of these communities and it's sometimes difficult to find out who's where and what."
Bountiful, located in southeastern B.C., is home to a polygamist compound.
Oppal said the call from Ottawa was "giving us a heads up because they know that we're involved in that same issue here.
Earlier in San Angelo, Voss testified that some of the children are Canadian citizens, although the New York Times reported that she did not say how many, or their age or sex.
Girls in the west Texas polygamous sect enter into underage marriages without resistance because they are ruthlessly indoctrinated from birth to believe disobedience will lead to their damnation, experts for the state testified Friday.
The renegade Mormon sect's belief system "is abusive. The culture is very authoritarian," said Dr. Bruce Perry, a psychiatrist and an authority on children in cults.
But under questioning from defence lawyers the state's experts acknowledged that the sect mothers are loving parents and that there were no signs of abuse among younger girls and any of the boys.
A witness for the parents who was presented by defence lawyers as an expert on the FLDS disputed the state's contention that a bed in the retreat's gleaming white temple was never used to consummate the marriages of underage girls to much older men.
Instead, John Walsh testified, it is used for naps during the sect's long worship services.
"There is no sexual activity in the temple," Walsh said.
Lawyers for the children and the parents appeared to be trying to show in cross-examination that their children were fine and that the state was trying to tear families apart on the mere possibility that the girls might be abused when they reach puberty several years from now.
Only a few of the children are teenage girls. Roughly a third are younger than four and more than two dozen are teenage boys. But about 20 women or more gave birth when they were minors, some as young as 13, authorities say.
The judge controlled the hundreds of lawyers with a steelier hand Friday than she did the day before.
Under cross-examination, Voss conceded there have been no allegations of abuse against babies, prepubescent girls or any boys.
But her agency, Child Protective Services, contends that the teachings of the FLDS - to marry shortly after puberty, have as many children as possible and obey their fathers or their prophet, imprisoned leader Warren Jeffs - amount to abuse.
"This is a population of women who appear to have a problem making a decision on their own," Voss said.
In response, the FLDS women, dressed in long, pioneer-style dresses with their hair swept up in braids, groaned in chorus with their dark-suited lawyers.
Walsh disputed that young girls have no say in who they marry.
"Basically, they're into match-making," he said of the sect, adding that girls who have refused matches have not been expelled.
"I believe the girls are given a real choice. Girls have successfully said, 'No, this is not a good match for me,' and they remained in good standing," he said.
Jeffs is in prison for being an accomplice to rape. He was convicted in Utah last year of forcing a 14-year-old into marrying an older man. W
-With files from The Canadian Press.
