Under The Olive Tree

Well, Excuse Me.

An analysis of the “news”

Let me keynote this by saying that I don’t regularly take an AP article and critique it, but that is what I am about to do – believe me, the following comments will be my opinion and as such – there is a good possibility that I may be soft on some of the facts. However, it gets tiring to read without some response. My comments are in red.

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — The members of a polygamist sect (also known as US citizens) raided by authorities two months ago have their children back, but with a criminal investigation looming, the sect’s troubles may not be over. Good lead – let’s be sure that we don’t coddle these people any – let’s keep the heat up – shall we? If we do that it will make it seem that the CPS was justified – when the Texas Supreme Court says they overstepped their authority. Keep reading – this is a great propaganda article to convince you that the CPS are the good guys. Where is the public outcry at misuse of public funds and resources? Where are the calls for the dismissal of those in public office who mishandled this situation?

A mother and son shriek with delight as they are reunited two months after the FLDS raid in Texas.

“There have been criminal problems located out there,” said Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran, who was with state troopers and child welfare authorities when they raided the Yearning For Zion Ranch in West Texas on April 3. I certainly hope they are going to take into account the single bogus complaint that the entire raid was hinged on as cause to dismiss any evidence gathered by breaking and entering, seizing property without a warrant, etc. In Germany under the Gestapo, by the time they came in numbers, armed, waving a single piece of paper as their mandate – and kicked in your door, terrorized your family, and carted them away to places unknown, and then ransacked your home to get what ever “evidence” of any wrongdoing on your part that they could find – I think you could sleep well that night knowing you were going to be prosecuted no matter what they found.

The Texas Department of Public Safety and the attorney general’s office have taken over the criminal investigation at the request of authorities in the rural ranching community. Although they confirm that they are investigating, neither will say how long the investigation may take. 7 million dollars and counting! If you divvy that up among 460 children you get $15,217.39 per child. I bet you wish the State was spending that kind of money on you and your children. Where did all this money go? Who spent it – will there be an itemized accounting of this reckless waste of public money?

Child-welfare officials have alleged that members of the church that runs the ranch pushed underage girls into marriages with older men, but the evidence needed to support a criminal case could prove elusive. Allegations are pretty hard to prosecute – unless you have evidence, a plaintiff, a crime – supposedly the basis of why authorities raided these people’s homes in the first place – because they had a crime being committed – so why should it now prove to be elusive to substantiate? I thought that is what the original search and seizure was based on? Did I miss something?

DNA evidence acquired in the custody case is off limits to criminal investigators without a court order, and a prosecution probably would go nowhere without at least one willing witness in the insular ranch community. Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had a strong distrust of outsiders even before all the children at the ranch were taken away. Gee, I wonder why they would have any distrust?

The children were allowed to leave foster care (“allowed to leave”? – how hardhearted are you? CPS had no right to have them in custody in the first place – the Court stated that they must be “released from custody” – not “allowed to leave”. Remember, half of these children were under the age of 5. after a judge bowed to a Texas Supreme Court ruling last week that the state overreached by taking all the children even though evidence of sexual abuse was limited to five teenage girls. What evidence? Half the children taken from the ranch were no older than 5. Well, if they weren’t abused before they were taken into custody – they certainly have been abused now – haven’t they?

All 440 children were returned to parents by Wednesday, Child Protective Services spokesman Patrick Crimmins said. Watch a happy family reunion »

The high court ruling and state District Judge Barbara Walther’s orders returning the children do not affect the criminal investigation, which involves several trailer loads of documents confiscated during a raid lasting nearly a week. Authorities removed all documents and photos they say might show relationships between underage girls and older men. Wow, they did all that on one phone call from one alleged victim who they now admit was never in their custody? And they believe that they have several trailer loads of pertinent and revealing documents (by the which we mean, all your personal letters, photo albums, school records, religious records, and legal and financial documents) – On the one hand they say the evidence is elusive, and on the other hand they say they have several trailer loads of it, that doesn’t sound elusive to me. Which is it?

“It’s going to take a while. And more money, looks like the people of Texas will be footing the bill for more expenses. With any criminal case we investigate, we do as much as we possibly can before turning the case over to the prosecutors,” said public safety spokeswoman Tela Mange.

Last week, investigators from the attorney general’s office took DNA from Warren Jeffs, the jailed prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, saying they were looking for evidence of relationships between Jeffs and four girls ages 12 to 15.

Under Texas law, girls younger than 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult. At a custody hearing, state attorneys introduced a photo they said was a wedding picture showing Jeffs embracing a girl and kissing her on the mouth.

Jeffs has been convicted in Utah as an accomplice to rape in the marriage of an underage sect member. He faces similar charges in Arizona, though no trial date has been set. I won’t comment on a criminal case where I have not seen the evidence, but if you have a criminal case with a victim, I say prosecute it. One thing is certain, they are trying to link Jeffs who they have convicted to these girls from the YFZ Ranch so they can justify their actions. It was all a big fishing expedition by the authorities at the expense of the children and their welfare. I do not believe it when the CPS spokesperson says they care about the children. That is what Janet Reno said in her authorizing the actions of authorities that resulted in the deaths of 21 children at the Branch Davidian community in Waco.

Authorities have DNA from all the children and many of the parents at the YFZ Ranch — 603 samples in all — but those results cannot be used by law enforcers without a court order because they were taken from parents and children as part of the custody case, not under a criminal search warrant. Forced DNA testing is going to be standard for a lot of investigations in the future, probably before the fact – DNA samples of everyone on record. And since when was it a custody case? I thought it was a case of abuse? Or do they mean that the CPS was fighting to get custody of children they had no evidence to take into custody, and ordered the forced DNA tests to try to shore up this lack of evidence. Well, while they were at it the CPS also ordered forced immunizations (how can that be part of a custody case?), and separated younger children from their older brothers and sisters who could comfort and uphold them through the ordeal they were facing. How were they able to do all of this without any evidence except some unverifiable phone calls? It now surfaces that the phone calls came from Colorado – not even from Texas. Do you mean to tell us that the authorities didn’t know the calls were from Colorado? My cell phone tells me where calls are from – are we expected to believe that the CPS or other Texas authorities don’t have that technology?

Even if the DNA shows that children were born to underage girls and adult men, any prosecution will probably be difficult unless a victim testifies. Without a victim there is no crime. They are insinuating that these people will not testify against each other for fear – and that could be one reason – but it could also be because they love and trust each other a lot more then they trust the authorities? - and it seems with good reason.

Utah prosecuted three FLDS members and got a no-contest plea from Jeffs after years of investigation, but Arizona authorities have had to drop some charges because the victim quit cooperating. Ha! I wonder why?

Without a victim’s testimony, it’s impossible to establish jurisdiction for prosecution, a key element that has prevented some charges of members who frequently move among the sect’s residences in Arizona, Utah, Texas and elsewhere. I believe this statement is misleading – lots of people move for a lot of reasons – especially when they could be subject to the kind of heavy handed dealings that these people have had to endure. It is a free country, and you are free to move if you want – ever heard of extradition? The reason they can’t prosecute is because they don’t have a crime.

In any sexual assault case, it can be difficult to persuade victims to assist in prosecutions, but such cases are even more challenging when they involve a community as insular as the FLDS, said Paul Murphy, a spokesman for the Utah Attorney General’s Office. Of course it is difficult – in a lot of cases it is a boyfriend/girlfriend situation that has gotten out of hand – and it doesn’t just happen with these people – it happens all the time. And what makes them more “insular” then you or me. Do you live by yourself with your family?

Sect members are raised and work within the community, developing few financial or personal resources away from other members. How many of us have very many financial or personal resources away from our present chosen situations, our families, our jobs, our schools, even our little Podunk town no matter how much we dislike it? Remember, these are children we are talking about – are children supposed to have resources to be able to leave home – or outside contacts that can finance their doing so? This statement is here for the sole purpose of casting these people in a bad light.

After a raid by Arizona authorities in 1953, FLDS members lived on the Arizona-Utah line with little interaction with government officials, who got involved only when allegations of underage marriages and abuse surfaced in 2001.Because the public realized that the 1953 raid was horrible and these officials wanted to keep their jobs; and also if they were not breaking any laws – they couldn’t prosecute them.

Texas authorities raided the YFZ Ranch after three calls to a domestic abuse hot line, purportedly from a 16-year-old mother who said she was being abused by her middle-age husband. The calls, which Doran said continued even after all the children were removed from the ranch, are now being investigated as a hoax. Really, you don’t try to find out if the calls are genuine before you take these kinds of actions? Wow – it sounds like a real abuse of authority to me. Why did they wait until now to investigate this? – because they didn’t do this raid based on the phone calls in the first place. Do you really believe that they got all that fire power together on an unverifiable complaint? Buses waiting to move mothers and children to the San Angelo Arena – armored personnel carriers, Texas Rangers, local police and sheriffs – CPS, trucks waiting to take away documents and personal belongings – if you believe that this was all based on one call for help from an abused 16-year-old – you should ask a friend to slap you.

The children and their mothers were taken to a shelter in San Angelo, where they were separated. Separated in the most disgusting way – children ripped from their mother’s arms and driven off to sites unknown in vans with darkened windows – children terrorized – let’s all be thankful that it was for their “own good.” E-mails obtained by The Dallas Morning News under Texas public records laws show that state officials had proposed sending them to another location because of fears of violence. A judge rejected conducting the separations in Midlothian, and the children were taken from their mothers without incident. Once again, this is pure propaganda to portray these people as unstable and liable to be violent. These people suffered violence at the hands of the CPS and other authorities – who was planning for violence in the first place? And to say that the children were taken from their mothers without incident is a lie – or should we say a damned lie – it sure wasn’t without incident for the children or the mothers – these children will be haunted by this action that took place “without incident” probably for a long time to come except for the grace of God.

The e-mails also showed state officials’ concerns that some of the mothers were planning a “run” from the shelter before they were separated, something FLDS elder Willie Jessop called absurd. Do you really expect us to believe they were going to try to run away in Texas! That is so funny! Janet Reno again, “The children were still being abused, so we had to step in.” The mothers were there to take care of their children, and had cooperated completely – this is just more propaganda to put the blame on the FLDS mothers – saying that the action was because mothers planned to “run” and that was why the authorities had to step in and grab the kids - this is just what Willie Jessop says it is, “absurd.”

“We never, never did anything other than to comply and to endure what they put us through,” he told the newspaper in a story published Wednesday. Exactly – with all their rights denied – these folks acted in an exemplary manner.

The FLDS, which believes polygamy brings glorification in heaven, is a breakaway sect of the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago. What bearing does their belief in the afterlife have on anything? – once again, this statement is here to make it look like these people have to abuse little girls to have a good place in Heaven. The statement is no doubt a gross misrepresentation of anything that these folks believe – these kinds of statements cater to a mob justice mentality. On another note – consider this, any man willing and able to live with more than one woman, have children, and keep the peace in his own home under said circumstances probably is a saint. Most men cannot do that with one woman. Jessop said this week that the church would not preside over marriages between sect members who were not of legal age. Good for them – this is a wise move on their part and in no way qualifies as an admission of previous crimes.

He sidestepped questions about whether such marriages ever occurred but has said the sect has been unfairly portrayed. Duh. This is fair reporting, right – including a the mandatory “token” quote or comment from the persecuted – “but let’s make sure that we take one last shot at them – even while we allow them to make a statement – let’s see, how can we do that – let’s say he “sidestepped” – it will make him sound guilty – we can make him look like a liar.”

I only find one thing surprising about this article – and that is in this article they failed to call these people’s homes and community a “compound” – a much employed pejorative used to cast a certain air of fanaticism and outright ridicule upon innocent people that live in homes and communities just like you and I do. These people are US citizens.