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Search continues for FLDS men; Texas agency feels vindicated
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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.
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.
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".
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".
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.
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.
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.
A few more things to consider. A 16 year old can get married with her parents consent if she is a first wife. But if she is the second, etc. the state says she is a victim. Furthermore, until 2005 after the FLDS moved to West Texas, the state of Texas had no problems with 14 year olds getting married.
Furthermore, if any juvenile shoots somebody they become adults. In this country, there are 3000 people doing life without parole for crimes committed when they were juveniles. If you are old enough to do adult time, why are you not old enough to get married?
well, that just goes to show what happens when a culture (that's longhand for "cult") allows families to be kicked out and re-assigned. I understand taking your husband's name so you have that and a maiden name - but if your own dad is kicked out and you're "reassigned" then don't take the new guys name. He's just some guy that did a favor for the "prophet" and got paid in people instead of currency....
I don't justify what has happened. But I maintain that if a documented 25% abuse rate would not constitute "vindication" for infringing on *all* parent-child relationships within a community, than surely a documented 1% abuse rate does not provide such vindication.
I'm not sure where you get this idea that the focus of the investigation was the *reporting* of the abuse, rather than the abuse itself. I doubt the county district attorney would agree with you.
"Open and systematic abuse"? I don't discount the possibility (we'll see as the investigation and court proceedings move forward), but at now we have painfully little evidence for that except for a universally-acknowledged prank phone call and a handful of bitter women who are currently making scads and scads of money through the book and movie deals that recent events have enabled them to negotiate.
Just curious.....
and what happened with the kids is no different than someone being arrested and then released for lack of evidence. Since when is that "kidnapping"?
Umm, how about when the "affidavit of probable cause" underlying the warrant was fraudulent, and the person making those statements knew or had reason to know the statements were false?
So "what happened with the kids is no different from someone being arrested".
I agree completely. The kids were arrested.
Thanks realitycheck.
So, let me see if I understand you right. They arrested the children en mass, no due process here, with a questionably legal warrant,turning them over to strangers to be held for future processing when the government could extract confessions, blackmail the mothers and steal DNA for evidence and that is "due process"? realitycheck stop sniffing flds hairspray! Purposeful, unlawful detainment is kidnapping and its disingenuous to give the courts a pass on this one.
Arrest by definition is "the restriction of movement"
The women and children had their movement restricted.
Blacks law dictionary pretty much confirms the fact that they were arrested.
Walk away from a cop that wants to talk with you and you are resisting arrest......and yes....even if you were not breaking any laws the act of walking away from the cop is resisting the restriction of movement.
You don't have to say a word to the cop but you can not walk away from him until the officer says you may leave.
Just like they relocated the kids in the middle of the night at the compound.
Oh by the way rita, you will be getting married at 8 oclock this evening as soon as you get the dishes done, get your wedding dress on.
So are all foster children under arrest? Am I under arrest when I have to wait in the line at the dmv?? Am I under arrest if costco blocks off off part of the store have I been arrested, seems like they are restricting my movement. Is it stealing if I have to pay for a ticket that I received for speeding?? I did not ask for the ticket, and I dont want them to take my money.
The above paragraph sounds about as stupid as all you fdls lovers claim that cps did.
Child PROTECIVE Services. Get a clue
Check it.
Deseret News: Go look into Natalie Malonis' background. There is a reason she is the ONLY ad litem behaving as she is behaving that reason has nothing to do with concern for her client. Sadly, Natalie is a very, very disturbed woman who should not be practicing law, much less representing any child.
And why not? Or is this just intimidation, the state saying that it might be anyone, hoping they'll all go into hiding? And in the meantime, they'll try to find some real evidence that they can actually use in court.
What do you? THINK first.
An undersatement! Seems to be a lot of inaccuracy thrown around as facts lately.
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