The Great Texas FLDS Raid – Legal Authorities Misleading and a Gullible Media
One practice of authorities that is particularly deplorable is that of publicly undermining the accused, their associates, and communities. The raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) on 4 April, 2008 has produced prime examples.
Whether there was wrongdoing and the Texas authorities were justified in capturing, in stages, all persons living at the ranch under the age of seventeen, remains to be seen. The telephone call used by Texas to justify their heavy‑handed approach could very well be a hoax.
News programs and commentators have not been very discerning. Many simply regurgitate claims by self‑proclaimed experts and some rather bizarre statements by authorities.
The affidavit supporting the children’s captivity of 6 April, 2008, recounted third hand; the statements made by a caller who claimed she was using a borrowed cell phone and was at the ranch because of her parents who lived out of state. Some of the claims in this affidavit could have been verified before the raid, but the police took a great deal of time before acting on those bits of information.
This affidavit also included such favorites as grooming females to become sex slaves. The document stated that minor boys are groomed to become sexual predators upon adulthood. The author, Lynn McFadden, concluded that all of them were at risk of “emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse.”
The news commentators dutifully repeated this information.
An affidavit for search and arrest warrant was also issued on 6 April, 2008. This was authored by Texas Ranger Leslie Brooks Long. She stated that in the FLDS Temple, she found a bed with disturbed bed linens and a long strand of hair that she concluded was a female hair. She also stated that this was a sex bed for raping underage females.
Long quoted Tina Martinez, Rebecca Baxter, and Ruby Gutierrez of the Texas Department of Protective and Child Services on interviews that indicated that some mothers living on the ranch were impregnated before their seventeenth birthday.
The Schleicher County Sheriff, David Doran, told Long that he had knowledge of adult males having sex with minor females and that the Temple was used for that purpose. Why Doran did not act upon that knowledge is not stated. Nor, why the homes of the community were not preferred to a Temple bed for the purposes of procreation. It is a convenience that the Sheriff’s statements buttresses Long’s claims after the fact.
Again, the news commentators belted out the song. When the authorities stated they had a document on cyanide poisoning, only a few reporters caught onto the fact that this was a page from a first aid book.
Another favorite sex word from law enforcement is patriarch. They are referring to Abraham who fathered a son with the servant (a euphemism for slave), Hagar, of his wife Sarah. This was done however, at Sarah’s insistence. After Sarah’s death, Abraham continued having children with his concubine, Keturah.
Now, a patriarch is a sex‑crazed old man lusting after young girls and it is used frequently in the press releases of law enforcement.
The press wants to buy into this concept and pretend that adult females of this faith have no freewill. Members of the press want to believe that patriarchs are only motivated by sex with young girls. Members of the press want to believe anything that is shocking. It is too bad that the speakers in the news media are incapable of independent thought.
There have been cases of statutory rape associated with the FLDS. So far only males have been prosecuted. If the State of Texas were honest, all women involved would be prosecuted also. But, the fine legal minds in Texas are claiming the adult FLDS women are incapable of thinking or acting. And, the press parrots that silliness.
When the police try to coerce the children into giving testimony and this doesn’t work, they claim the children were brainwashed. But, it is too typical for law enforcement to work toward eliciting false statements from children.
Now, Child Protection Services are moving the children again. CPS has kept the children isolated and are moving them around like cattle. First, CPS placed the children with the CPS Baptists allies. Next, they warehoused them in cramped quarters in a musty old fort. Who knows where they are going now?
I like to believe that members of the press have a duty to stash their beliefs, stereotypes, and prejudgments, and attempt to present the news in an honest and open manner. But, too often newscasters regurgitate only official channel PR and look to shocking and scurrilous statements to masquerade as fact.
by Brian McCorkle
in category FLDS,Rants
