Comments about ‘ Search continues for FLDS men; Texas agency feels vindicated’

I see that the Texas agency that perpetrated what the Texas Supreme Court ruled was an egregious abuse of authority lacking in legal basis is still interested more in defending its abuse of civil rights rather than actually protecting anyone. It is all well and good to indict men believed to have committed crimes connected with underage sexual relationships. To say that this somehow justifies summary imprisonment of innocent victims of these practices, and tearing babies and small children away from their mothers, shows that the agency is just as abusive of women and children as any of the men involved, and ought to be indicted as well.

Raymond, I feel really sorry for you. Those children were not imprisoned, they were being protected from mothers who are more concerned about their salvation than their childrens safety. It was sad to see the young children removed from their mothers because young children don't understand the situation but these mothers are not good mothers (and need to face a consequence for their participation in this horrible abuse). A good mother would fight an army to keep their child from being assaulted and these women encouraged it! Those children deserve better.

I agree completely Raymond.

For your information CPS does not imprison anyone. When people are not cooperating with the investigation and telling lies as in different names each time anyone talks to them, and giving different ages than what is obvious it makes it necessary to take action. Have any of you started reading the transcripts that are on iperceive.net or com? It is painfully obvious that the attorney's were making motions immediately therefore impeading the progress of the evidence available.

When there are allegations of sex abuse in a home all children are removed. What made this case particularly bad is the fact that this is an entire community that is condoning sexual abuse of children. All of the adults involved must at least be charged with failure to report child abuse.

raymond, you and your gramps need to get real

CPS may feel "Vindicated" however the Texas Supreme court ruling stands. CPS broke their own laws.
Six persons indited after the "imprisonment" of 450 persons and a raid complete with tanks, helicopters, and swat teams is hardly a great accomplishment. 14 million bucks to gain evidence that may be thrown out given the circumstances surrounding the pretense of conducting the raid and charges based on laws specifically targeting the Church may bring more Supreme court rulings before this soap opera is finished.
You can't unring the bell........and you can't paint the CPS as some white knight rideing to the rescue of some damsel. CPS was a tool used to circumvent the laws of the state.

I hope those accused of abuse are sentenced to the max if the state proves its case. But there are so many other issues that the state and CPS must address. I think most will agree that CPS over reacted and may have caused much more harm than they prevented. Just think of all the children that were traumatized by the actions of CPS. Every time I think about the crying children being forcibly separated from their mothers I just want to cry myself. I just want CPS to address the treatment of the FLDS mothers and children while the FLDS members were being held in the San Angelo coliseum. These allegations were made by state mental health workers brought in by CPS to help with the care of FLDS mothers and children. Ms Meisner said over a month ago that there would be an investigation into these allegations. Abusers of children must be held accountable even if they are state employees. If they are not true CPS should say so, but if any of them are true CPS should explain how itself and say what they are doing to make sure they will never happen again.

I agree with you completely concerned 12:10pm July 23rd

I am amazed at how easy it is to pass judgment on CPS, especially when most of what you are basing your judgment on is nothing more than reporting by various news agencies. When will people realize that news reporters make their news reports to catch people's attention. I know first hand how they can take an event and make it much more than it really was. That is their job - selling news. None of know exactly what the facts are and unless you personally know people from the FLDS faith, you can't begin to comprehend how brainwashed those women and children really are. I can only feel sorry for them for allowing themselves to become so brainwashed. Other than that, they are now receiving the consequences of their choices and it is difficult to feel sorry for them. For the children to be removed from their parents (mothers) is the only hope we have of trying to change their thinking and thus this way of living. FLDS is NOT a religion. It is a CULT. It consists of a bunch of horney old men who can't be faithful to one woman. They live like this to justify it.

Did Texas do the right thing in removing all the children from YFZ ranch? No, probably not. Any child under 10 should have probably been left, but given how much the FLDS attempted to confuse the ivestigation, the CPS probably felt they had no choice.

Did they take all the children out of spite? NO - they had legitimate concerns for all the children. You really think CPS wanted to take the children, knowing how much bad press it would generate? Don't be stupid. They remember Waco, and the last thing they wanted was for some of the children to stay and there be a stand-off later that puts them in jeapordy. Don't forget, religious fanatics are a scary bunch, as seen in Waco.

I would agree that all the parents, especially the moms, that had any knowledge of the underage marriages, should be charged with failure to report child abuse. That would send a real strong message to the FLDS followers. No jail time - the kids need their moms - but a good long probation period would work well to re-emphasize that you can't just ignore child abuse issues simply because they are done "for religious purposes".

I dunno if the grand jury is done hearing evidence yet, but consider the numbers at this stage.

We apparently have, now, four counts of sexual assault, one of bigamy, and four of failure to report.

If all of these accusations are true, they boil down to four instances of sexual assault (none of which were reported) and a guy who slept with a woman who was not his legal wife. This, in a community of four hundred-odd children.

Thus, at best, Texas has established that a child on the YFZ ranch had a 1/100 chance of being a victim of sexual assault. Remember, nationwide, the odds are one in four for boys, and one in six for girls.

So, Texas is approximately 1/20 of the way towards showing that the level of child sex abuse at YFZ was even on par with the national average.

Seems to me it's a little early for CPS to start crowing about "vindication".

So CPS feels vincdicated by the indictment of 5 men?!!! Unbelievable! You ripped over 450 children from the arms of their parents!!!! For 5 indictments? What you did is infinitely worse than anything the FLDS have done. I would much rather be raped, statutorily no less, than have my kids illegally kidnapped from me in broad daylight as sanctioned by the government that is supposed to protect my rights. For the indictment of 5 men?

We are talking about serious human and civil rights violations here. I hope any crimes that actually the FLDS actually commmitted get prosecuted, but Texas CPS is far from vindicated. They are the worst people in this entire mess.

Finding predators on the ranch isn't terribly surprising. But it doesn't "vindicate" CPS. They were still wrong in seizing all the children.

Realitycheck
I just wanted to share something with you. My neighbor is a CPS investigator, she talks with the kids. She even told me that it wasn't so much the FLDS lied to CPS agents as much as the agents got confused by all of the last name changes and they thought they were being lied to. Does that make sense? So Ashley was a Jeffs at birth and her dad got kicked out and now she's a Jessop from her new dad and she gets married and now she's a Barlow. She told CPS she was Ashley Barlow, I mean Jessop, I mean Jeffs.

It is astounding that CPS feels vindicated. These poor children will be scarred for the rest of their lives by what the CPS did to them. Indict Angie Voss.

These 4 cases are open and systematic abuse by grown men who "married" underage girls. The national statistics of children being abused includes many cases when it was a single incident of abuse, which does substantial damage but is different than parents giving the child to the abuser in "marriage ". We have no idea of how many FLDS children are abused by fathers, uncles, brothers etc (in other words, ordinary awful abuse like in the rest of America) because that wasn't the focus of the investigation. You can't justify what happened in this community by claiming it is worse elsewhere. Elsewhere, people don't condone what they are doing by believing it will lead to their and the children's salvation. Most abusers are wracked with guilt, but not in the FLDS--they glorify it and claim that it is constitutionally protected as a religious freedom and so the abused child is all the more damaged by abuse that it is not recognized as abuse. I hope these girls grow up and sue the FLDS like thousands have sued the Catholic Church (which merely looked the other way, but didn't promote this deviate behavior.)

Raymond you are right on with your comments. Notice: We live in a country where due process is the rule not "raids on citizens" that think different than mainstream. Yes, kidnapping kids is unlawful imprisonment whether government or anyone else unlawfully hauls away a child. I suspect many of you are uneducated in the law therefore you substitute feelings, Fox News bites and TV lawyer programs for truth.

Correction to my previous post: the statistics are one in four for *girls*, and one in six for *boys*.

Realitycheck: Come now. Texas CPS knew darned well there would be no violence. A cursory Google search would have told them that the FLDS had never, ever, through over fifty years of government harassment, resisted violently. Not when Barlow went to jail; not at Short Creek; not when Jeffs was convicted. The goons in riot gear and the APCs were a photo-op designed to influence future jurors, just like the stories of incinerators and the deliberate misrepresentation of a first-aid manual as "cyanide documents".

CPS took the kids because a) its institutional culture breeds a guilty-til-proven-innocent attitude, b) it was an opportunity to justify a budget expansion, and c) it is staffed primarily by individuals who hold Joseph Smith and the religious movements he sparked in complete and utter contempt.

So the Cowards are now on the Run their running and hiding like Ben Laden. They bring Sexual Terror on little girls and when brought to accountability run and hide. I hope that anyone that aids them in any way is also held accountable to the fullest extent of the Law. P.S. If you think these people are some how victims you need serious help. Even if the Texas Court made the Brave Hero Judge return the Children, that does not take away from the fact that enough evidence has been to indite these individuals. They has apparently broken Serious Laws and although some have only one count, one good count is enough. More if there are more, can be added later. So in Jail, Very High Bail.

Seems like a little self-vindification to me!