SAN ANGELO, Texas, April 24, 2008
Polygamy Sect's Kids Face Tough Transition
Radical Culture Shift Awaits More Than 400 Children Placed In Texas' Foster Care System
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Play CBS Video Video Polygamy Kids In Foster Care Texas is transferring the last of the children removed from a polygamist compound into foster care amidst concerns that the state system is not prepared to provide for them. Randall Pinkston reports.
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Video Polygamy Call Possible Hoax At least one of the phone calls that sparked a raid on a polygamist ranch in Texas has been linked to a Colorado woman previously arrested for making a false abuse report. Randall Pinkston reports.
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The children taken in the raid on the polygamist compound are being moved out of the crowded San Angelo Coliseum and will be placed in temporary facilities around Texas - some as far away as Houston, 500 miles off - until individual custody decisions can be made. (AP Photo/Mike Terry)
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Photo Essay Polygamist Compound Raid Secret calls from alleged abuse victim lead to raid of religious sect's compound.
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Interactive Eye on Religion Find out more about the beliefs, practices and history of some of the world's major religions.
The number of children in Texas custody after being taken from a polygamist retreat now stands at 462 because officials believe another 25 mothers from the compound are under 18.
Child Protective Services spokesman Darrell Azar says the girls initially claimed to be adults but are now in state custody. Earlier they had been staying voluntarily with their children at a shelter at the San Angelo Coliseum.
The official number of children taken from the ranch controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has been rising since a state raid three weeks ago. One reason is that some mothers under 18 claimed to be adults.
Roughly 260 children remain at the coliseum. The others were bused to foster facilities.
The 462 children taken from the compound in West Texas will be plunged into a culture radically different from the community where they and their families shunned the outside world as a hostile, contaminating influence on their godly way of life.
Many of the children have seen little or no television. They have been essentially home-schooled all their lives. Most were raised on garden-grown vegetables and twice-daily prayers with family. They frolic in long dresses and buttoned-up shirts from another century.
"There's going to be problems," said Susan Hays, who represents a toddler in the custody case. "They are a throwback to the 19th century in how they dress and how they behave."
Safety concerns are also worrying advocates for the children. There were four deaths in two facilities supervised by the state foster care system in 2006, reports CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston.
Another facility - Boys and Girls Country - northwest of Houston has also reportedly had problems in the past and it is on the placement list for the children removed from the compound, Pinkston reports.
Buses have already shipped 138 children to group homes or boys' and girls' ranches, but most of the remaining children will be separated from their mothers for the first time when they are sent out of San Angelo in the coming days.
The state Child Protective Services program said it chose foster homes where the youngsters can be kept apart from other children for now.
"We recognize it's critical that these children not be exposed to mainstream culture too quickly or other things that would hinder their success," agency spokeswoman Shari Pulliam said. "We just want to protect them from abuse and neglect. We're not trying to change them."
The children were swept up in a raid earlier this month on the Yearning for Zion Ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon splinter group. Authorities say it believes in marrying off underage girls to older men, and that there is evidence of physical and sexual abuse at the ranch.
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lawyer for one of sect's children
The youngsters are being moved out of the crowded San Angelo Coliseum and will be placed in temporary facilities around Texas - some as far away as Houston, 500 miles off - until individual custody decisions can be made.There's going to be problems. They are a throwback to the 19th century in how they dress and how they behave.
Susan Hayslawyer for one of sect's children
Those decisions could result in a number of possibilities: Some children could be placed in permanent foster care; some parents who have left the sect may win custody; some youngsters may be allowed to return to the ranch in Eldorado; and some may turn 18 before the case is complete and be allowed to choose their own fates.
Pulliam said the temporary foster care facilities have been briefed on the children's needs. "We're not going to have them in tank tops and shorts," she said.
Pulliam said the children will continue to be home-schooled by the temporary foster-care providers instead of being thrown into big public schools, where they could be bullied because of their differences.
In a related development, an arrest warrant affidavit made public Wednesday shows that a phone number used to report alleged abuse at the Texas retreat had been used previously by a 33-year-old Colorado woman.
It's not yet clear whether authorities suspect Rozita Swinton, of Colorado Springs, made any of the calls that triggered the April 3 raid of the compound.
Texas authorities have said a 16-year-old girl called a crisis center claiming she was abused at the compound. Authorities have not found that girl but say they have found evidence other children were abused.
In February, a woman calling herself "Jennifer" called 911 in Colorado Springs from the same number, claiming that her father had locked her in her basement for days, the document said. Swinton was arrested in connection with that incident on April 16 and later released.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 160 CommentsI am curious how stable your children are. Maybe you can quote some legal jargon that explains why you are America''s best parent.
It is clear that sympathizers don''t want to see this case go to trial or get prosecuted. It is clear that supporters who are posting on this comment stream will write anything to displace factual comments posted by those in favor of the prosecution.
The Foster Care part of the CPS provisions come with a special provision rider under the law that says, since the children are witnesses for the State of Texas, then anyone attempting to tamper with the investigation or acquire custody of the child can be charged with a felony for Tampering with a State''s witness.
There is no legal delemna on the State''s part. Texas can prosecute as many or as few offenders as they see fit. The accused witness clearly has a legal problem. There are no shortages of sympathizers, but most are undereducated and antisocial candidates for similar criminal behavior demonstrated in this crime. The State of Texas will be watching them.
Was there "hanky-panky" going on? Probally, but what about in YOUR neighborhood? Who''s sleeping with their babysitter? Who has a "special" secretary? Could YOUR neighborhood stand up-as a group, regardless of your individual actions- to the scrutiny that these folks are facing?
Face it, these folks have just chosen to follow a different path than the mainstream, and that scares some shallow but powerful people whose grip on that power relies on intimidation and subjugation.
This case is definitive of religous persecution.
http://www.captivefldschildren.org/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080425/ap_on_re_us/polygamist_retreat;_ylt=Ag0xKJrHe_P9has2mV6nSxtvzwcF
go to this website and you will see the girls and boys and what the true abuse...was it cps and the state coming to take all the children without evidence that all the families were guilty...see how happy the kids were before they got traumatized by the raid..there are pictures and videos there...
http://www.captivefldschildren.org/
There were more than 3 dozens of teenage boys sent to facilities and lots of little boys stayed with their mon and to foster recently...just watch the happy kids video on the website and it will make you cry...and also when all the kids were crying duting the raid...
today there was recent news on yahoo...here is the link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080425/ap_on_re_us/polygamist_retreat;_ylt=Ag0xKJrHe_P9has2mV6nSxtvzwcF
The raid is rasing many legal questions among children'' experts, lawyers, civil rights organizations and constitutional lawyers...many are not approving the raid of all the children...1/2 of the families DOES NOT live in polygamous marriages and have little kids...
MANY had no pregnant teenagers living in their home!!!
to put all the families in one basket because of their religion is not right...not all of them are the same...there has been more than 130 little kids under 5 taken away from their mothers!!!
CPS and the State has gone over the limit...some children experts are saying that they have never heard of such a case before...read the yahoo article...
No More Secrets : Violence in Lesbian Relationships
http://www.amazon.com/No-
More-Secrets-Violence-Relationships/dp
/0
415929466/
"This study of abuse in lesbian relationships looks you in the eye and dares you to turn away. Far from being a prurient study of a fringe group of violent lesbians, this book demands that the queer community at large--afraid of straight disdain --recognize its accountability. No More Secrets illustrates that despite what many lesbian feminists believe, acts of violence are not committed solely by men."
The objective of the KLK (whose members include the Texas social workers and judge on the case) is to obtain the humble, white Mormon children and adopt them out to infertile lesbian couples, and that is happening right now.
Once these kids are in the hands of the KLK, they''''re told there is no such thing as too early for ***. Whenever the head lesbian tells them to go ''''marry'''' an old lesbian, that''''s who they''''re given to. They''''re groomed to be pedophile fodder. Information presented shows that they''''re given to be concubines (not wives - lesbians can''''t have wives) at puberty or before, and have un-natural $ex while still children themselves.
there are thousand of teenage girls getting pregnant in our society...no one cares of how they got pregnant, how old are the men, or have taken the kids away from their parents...law should apply to everyone...the worst is that the parents in our society are coercing these teenage girls into abortion, this evn at the age of 14 yrs old...check the news on this webiste:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/apr/08042402.html
W have recently heard of two cases of teenage girls flushing their babies in the toilets, one on an airplane and one at a public school....why have their parents not been investigated? or the have they tried to find out how old the dads were???
everyday there are lots of cases like this that CPS and the state don''t give a ***...
but dare them, like forbid the state to come on your property to instal a sewer plant...and you will see how fast they will come with guns to your doors and accuse you of anything...
the law should be for everyone, not when the state won''t to abuse power!!!
It''s just a way of CPS giving control to the state over parental rights!!! and taking advantage of these women and instigating fear in them...when they made any kind of complaints against the state, the next day they were sent back to the ranch...if ever they say anything the state just take more measures to rip tehir children away from them..their lawyers could not access them in the shelters nor could they access these children...are we living in China? even China don''t rip little baes from their moms!!!
Posted by b-easy63 at 11:54 PM : Apr 24, 2008
I''ve been waiting for someone to write a good come-back to the argument that putting the children in foster care is more humane than leaving with their mothers under supervision. And you dunnit!
But - if they come to check on his wife, and find a big meth lab - guess what - he''s going down for the meth lab. But if he''s not a criminal, your neighbor is fine. In either case though, you and your wife are in trouble for a false report.
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