Utah, Arizona say polygamist sect fled crackdowns
If Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has heard it once, he's heard it 100 times: Utah and Arizona should have conducted their own Texas-style anti-polygamy raid years ago.
After all, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints resided for nearly a century on the Utah-Arizona border before building a compound in Eldorado, Texas.
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs...727258444/1001
Polygamous dad speaks out month after ranch raid
ELDORADO, Texas - As Richard Barlow walked eight of his children to a bus that would take them away from the YFZ Ranch, he gave each one advice.
"I spoke very freely. I said, 'Let us be at peace,' " he said.
And: "Be strong."
That was a month ago. Today his children are scattered from one end of Texas to the other and he and his wife, Susan, are desperate to see them.
Only a few men who lived with their families at the ranch, all members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, have spoken out since the April 3 raid that led to removal of 464 children because of abuse allegations. Most fear doing so will make them targets of prosecution or hamper their efforts to bring their children home.
But Barlow, 40, decided to take that risk to share how the event has torn apart his family.
http://www.sltrib.com/News/ci_9155045
States divided on approach to polygamous sect
Law officers in Arizona and Utah say their method of confronting the FLDS must differ from that of Texas.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0505/p...ju.html?page=1
The FLDS argument will not hold up
By MARCI HAMILTON
Special to the Star-Telegram
When Texas authorities entered the Yearning for Zion (YFZ) Ranch, one of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) compounds, on April 3, they did so using a warrant based on calls from a person who alleged that she was an underage girl being subjected to physical and sexual abuse, including rape, at the ranch.
Once the authorities entered, they discovered pregnant underage girls, girls with more than one child, papers indicating that rampant polygamy was occurring at YFZ, and even a document involving cyanide poisoning. The authorities then intelligently decided to remove all of the children from a situation that posed obvious and serious danger to them.
Lawyers for the FLDS members have been arguing in the press that the entry and removal of the children constituted a "massive" violation of due process. Others have argued that the authorities' actions represent the unfair targeting of one religion. Each of these arguments is singularly misguided.
http://www.star-telegram.com/245/v-p...ry/620718.html
Posted: 2008-04-28 07:16:32
Just down the dirt road that passes Cookie Hickstein's home, an isolated group of neighbors has drawn intense interest here in the sparsely populated Black Hills.
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) has put roots on 140 acres of rugged territory. It is the same sect as at the ranch near Eldorado, Texas, where the practice of men taking multiple wives and allegations of sexual abuse of underage girls have sparked a custody battle over more than 400 children.
No such allegations have been made here, but local police worry about whether they can do their job when many of the people in their jurisdiction live in a closed, secretive society.
"It's difficult," Custer County Sheriff Rick Wheeler says. "They don't just open their doors. It's a locked-down operation, a locked fence. -- I don't get precise answers, and yes, that concerns me."
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/sd-town...28071609990077