Kudos to Texas for conducting this raid without causing or receiving injuries. Inasmuch as the FLDS had made threats of violence over their protection of Warren Jeffs, the authorities used caution to minimize the chances fo violence during the raid. I'm hopeful the state can track down and prosecute any men who had sex with underage minors as well as any men or women who acted as accessories to the crimes. It's not likely that Texas will prosecute over polygamy, but my feeling is that authorities should enforce their laws or change them.

Wow, the big rough tough Texas Rangers!!! Not a shot was fired and THEY take all of the credit. Maybe the credit should be given to the members of the FLDS Church who didnt resist and didnt fire a gun in anger. I am certain that all kindergardens in Texas are in awe of their crime busting Texas Rangers cause being a kid can turn nasty in any playground. Next on the list is for these heros to take on the Girl Guides of America. Now THERE is a tough group!

larri3,

Maybe you could go down and help. Don't forget to do the goose step while your at it.

Once again the gov't steps in and creates a mess! None of these adults have even considered the emotional trauma they are placing on these children!! Our gov't is too big and has way too much control!!

They did their raid by the book. Well done. In such work overwhelming force saves lives. It did in this case, didn't it.

I totally agree with Iarri3

Sending the police Army against and unarmed community is probably very pleasing to city officials and they should be proud of the attack. However, their logic in the raid leaves a lot to be discussed. Does this open the door to police raiding all homes that are being used as communal homes? Like the ones we have where several fammilies of illegal aliens living in the same home? I would hope for this and it would be more justified than raiding homes for religious beliefs that are probably better kept and with better living conditions than the communal homes of the illegals. Then does this justify the raiding of homes when a child has been punished by their parents for misbehaving and a 911 call has been reported? Children are taught to turn on their parents and report them if they get punished for doing wrong, then the children are placed in rooms under interogation that the CIA, NSA, FBI, and other 3 lettered organizations would love to have at their disposal. Get forced confessions and whatever statements they want to hear, even if it takes weeks of confinement and interrogation of the children. This is good for children?

It looks like to me that Texas was willing and ready to repeat what took place in Waco. They should enforce the law, so how did this get out of control? The FLDS just didn't show up on their door step. They are taking children from their mothers on the hope to find evidence, what is that about. What happened to innocent until PROVEN guilty? Now the system has to deal with children who are brothers and sisters and now don't have a mother and father and most likely won't be together.

The cops I understand, but why the game warden?

Good grief, this is an abuse case we're talking about here, not armed rebellion. Nothing came close to justifying sending in the SWAT teams, tanks and declaring war on these guys. These polygamists might be wackos but they are not violent, nor had they threatened anyone, or even resisted. Heaven help us, the U.S. Constitution is dead.

why would the teams need weapons . . . ? if the flds were a peacable group, why would there be an armored personnel carrier . . . ?

Hitler invaded Poland, TexaSS invades a religious group. Makes perfect sense.

Why did Texas let the Pedophiles stay home? They should have rounded them up first!

To larri3 and all the rest of you folks who seem so happy about the way a branch of our government has handled this raid on a group of unarmed peace loving religious families who believed in the protection of the Constitution of the United States. We all seem to agree that people anywhere who are engaging in criminal behavior should be found and punished for that behavior, but this was overkill by big government and we'll all suffer for it in the end. Remember this truism written by a religious leader following WWII in Europe?

"In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up."

--The Reverend Martin Niemöller, a pastor in the German Confessing Church who spent seven years in a concentration camp.

I can only speculate, but the weapons were likely there to prevent violence.

Wow. Texas CPS scares me. I know of people in Texas with a neighbor who has a relative that works for CPS. The neighbor does not like them and looks for any "infraction" that can be used to call CPS (a child getting outside and playing in the front yard unattended). The neighbor called and CPS came and investigated the family and made them sign a document relating to the event or have their children taken away. It seems to me that this is a case of: "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely". The case of FLDS is about abuse (which it very well may be); but it seems that CPS is also playing the part of abuser.

from CNN before the incident that these supposedly peaceable people were armed and had night vision goggles. I think the authorities handled this as well as could be expected under the circumstances.

I have never read more uneducated and idiotic posts in my life. Are you people insane. This was a raid on a town where they were all breaking the law. They were living off the grid. From history when governments have attempted to make arrests in these types of situations, violence has occurred. Unfortunately the government cannot read minds and know if anyone is going to get upset at being arrested and shooting them. Pull your heads out of the sand. No one knows who is going to be "peaceable" and who is not. Quit buying into eveything the media shoves down your throat. READ A BOOK!

Members of the FLDS had threatened to shoot down any aircraft over the property. Plus they DID have weapons, but they were found unattended in the guard shacks. Anyone that has ever been in the military knows that you overwelm your opponent with force so there are less casualties. I commend DPS for their professionalism and patience with these people. It reminded me of a clip from the 60's war protests.

I am really saddened by this event. I am sad for the children and the mothers and the fathers. I'm sad for the CPS workers who have to handle this. I'm sad for all the officials who are ridiculed for doing their jobs. There is a saying that goes something like, "The passaage of time opens the window for great understanding." I think that when all this is over, there will be great understanding. Abused kids will have received protection. Perpetrators and those complicit in the abuse will be held accountable. Course correction for some FLDS will occur. Good families will be restored, but some FLDS adults will be awakened to truth concerning some of their leaders. I urge all to be calm and let this all be sorted out. Kids are resilient following trauma (caused by both sides here) and Texas officials will get to the bottom of it. Remember that the Nazi's slaughtered innocents. Texas will not do that in this case. I agree that some here need to READ A BOOK.

You are absolutely right Rantings, great post!

Just find the girl that made the claim, or all this is an embarssament to the Texas do gooders and a complete violation of constitutional rights.

There was only one person accused, not an entire community.

The FLDS patrolled the perimeter of the ranch with night vision gear and were observed as armed. So should the autorities just walked up and asked, pretty please, can we come in?

They did it the right way. How do I know? It worked.

Texas CPS and DPS are the greatest, don't mess with them. They're professional and deserve to be treated with respect.

larri3, your reply was spot on. Look at who responded and how? People who have no valid argument always resort to name calling and insults. Consider yourself and your response as validated.

It's interesting that one sect member says the authorities entered the compound under false pretenses.

The FLDS entered TEXAS under false pretenses when they told the real estate agent in charge of selling the property that the ranch would be used as a game preserve!! They treat their wives and children like livestock so maybe that really WASN'T a lie?

Whatever. They acquired the ranch under false pretenses so I guess they got a taste of their own wicked medicine.

Folks, this cult is very scary. They are masters of duplicity and they are playing the press like a fiddle, trying to get sympathy from the public when they don't deserve any. They shun outsiders, unless they can use those very outsiders for their own gain.

I don't feel ONE BIT sorry for those abusive FLDS men. My heart goes out to their brainwashed wives and children. Texas did the right thing. Their show of force most likely AVERTED a Waco-like standoff. All went peacefully, did it not? Of course it did!! What's the beef??

Good job, Texas!! Excellent work.

That's why all the tanks etc were bought in. The government paid for them, so they wanted to show them off and insist that it was money well spent. Pitiful.

If your investigating a murder an while investigating the murder discover a entirely different murder do you ignore it?

Even if they don't find the 16 year old or she never comes forward, they discovered and will now work to prevent many future offenses!

The state of Texas didn't take the pictures of the armored vehicles, the SECT did, and then fed them to the press via their lawyer. Who is showing off??

Like I said, they are playing the press like a fiddle and you people are falling for it.

Just a few simple qustions, from a non-legal person, I am just an engineer.....where are the indictments? Where is the girl? Who authorized the broad search warrent, has that been made public? Is the guy who allegedly had sex with and abused the 16 year old...is he in custody?

I think the answer to the last one is...he is in St. George and has not been arrested, he was questioned, but not arrested. The gir?...I've heard two things--she either has not been "found" or, I've also heard, she "changed her story". I think we need a good article summarizing some of these important facts. Honestly, it LOOKS and SOUNDS like this is a massive screw up, there won't be indictments, there won't be a conviction, and Texas is going to look pretty bad when it is finished. If this doesn't happen we all have cause to worry.

I only have one thing to say about the headline for this article. DUH!

This is just shocking. One phony phone call from an alleged 16 year old victim, and 600 peoples’ lives are ruined. No attempt at keeping this in proportion. No attempt to find an individual suspect. In fact, maybe they just took out their frustration by kidnapping the children. I’m sure they felt they needed all that armor and firepower to go in there and steal peoples’ children and wreck their homes.

But of course, the FLDS don’t do things the way we do, and so they deserved it, right? They believe in polygamy, so they deserve to have their children stolen, taken to reeducation camps, and turned into “good” evangelicals, right? I bet the invaders and attackers are upset that they didn’t get a chance to blow someone away. If only Janet Reno were still around, then they could have had the Waco rerun that they obviously were hoping for.

This was about religion from the beginning. The alleged whistle-blower has yet to materialize because there wasn’t one. It was either a hoax perpetrated by an embittered apostate, or a pretense by the state for an armed assault on our fellow citizens.

Lawbreakers were not targeted. Innocent Americans were.

its_Chet: You are wearing blinders, completely ignoring the facts. These people were left in peace for four years while they bred like flies with teenage girls and lied about how many people were in the compound.

It is WELL documented how these people behave and how they mask their pedophilia in the name of religion. They got what they deserved and with modern DNA testing, I am certain that many of their so-called men will end up in prison for raping underage girls.

I've decided what's good for the goose is not good for the gander in the FLDS eyes.

Authoties lied to mothers and moved them to a different room before busing them home. (Bad) FLDS mothers and children lie about ages, parents etc. (Good)

Jeff's can rip familes apart in the name of God (good) State notices abuse and seprate families to try and protect innocent children (Bad).

Armed Guards known to patrol the compound (Good) State Uses force to try an thwart aff any violence (Bad).

Welfare Fraud, Tax Evasion, Local authorities in UT and AZ with a blind eye to crimes. It's OK to break the law as long as it suits your purposes.

Has anyone else noticed that the FLDS are evasive when answering the press's questions about marrying age, the lost boys, physical/sexual abuse. I saw an interview with one mother and her response was. I won't comment on that we just want our children back. Another mother said We do everything for our kids out of love.

Let's not address the abuse allegations let's just ask for our kids back. Blame the evil government It's not abuse if it's done in love

I'm sure that I'd not respond well to armored personel carriers, swat teams and the like surrounding my church and to collect all of the children in the congregation on the allegation of a crime by an anonymous accuser. Who, can't now be identified.

While I'd not condone any forced, under-age marriages or chile abuse there are lots of open due process questions on this one. And the FLDS Women's PR effort on GMA this morning was gaining credibitiy.

It's clear that the supposed phone call from the 16 year-old girl was just a ruse for Texas authorities to execute a plan that they had prepared and organized for weeks, maybe even months, before the raid. It takes lots of time to organize all the different law enforcement agencies to do what they did the day they entered the ranch. The plan to raid the ranch was in place just waiting for an excuse to bring it all about, and now it looks as though the excuse was bogus.

I think Utah and Arizona authorities have a better knowledge of the history of groups such as the FLDS, and for that reason haven't done the same thing as the Texans. They know the history of polygamous groups is a very complicated history, and one that doesn't inherently involve underage marriage. So without a better understanding, they have painted all the members with the same brush, and now the innocents are suffering. This is a mess!

While it is true that Texas has made out a credible case of underage marriage and manipulation of young women, it isn't clear to me that their remedy will be better for the children.

Most people who applaud Texas see it as having won a match against others. Perhaps some of those others were ready to parlay, and that is why they did not resist. Maybe there is dissatisfaction there.

What I don't see is that identifying all these children as products of rape and victims of abuse will be helpful to them in their future fates within the foster care system. Their privacy is being invaded, their histories are being fabricated by the press, and when they finally come into the system, they will in a position to be terrorized by unscrupulous people who ALSO exploit the vulnerable. I think that each child needs a guardian ad litem to watch out for his or her welfare every step on the way, and that this person has to be charged with protecting the child from further abuse, as from other clergy or care providers. Without quality control on services, this is a mockery and travesty.

In every news story I have read, NOT ONE of the sect members will address the question of the teenage pregnancies. NOT ONE. When asked about the teenage pregnancies, they are silent. Gee, I wonder why???

Let's get real here, folks.

If they were breaking the law why have criminal charges not been filed?

<its_Chet: You are wearing blinders, completely ignoring the facts.>
Not to make this personal, but I feel the exact same way about you and those with whom you agree. God have mercy on anyone who attempts to justify kidnapping, which is what happened. But perhaps there’s a third side to this story. I’m certainly not claiming it’s impossible that an isolated case of abuse could have occurred in that community. But even if it did, it’s no excuse for how the government handled this. To call it an over-reaction is severe understatement.

< These people were left in peace for four years>
Not long enough.

< while they bred like flies>
Not a crime, nor immoral.

< with teenage girls>
I want to see something more substantial than one bogus phone call before they pull a stunt like this. And even then, I demand that they limit the children they take to those of the alleged abuser only. And then I demand that they do not roll in with machine guns and armored vehicles.

< and lied about how many people were in the compound.>
At this point, I cannot blame them. I call it trying to survive.

The Texas Department of Public Safety was proactive and did the right thing. Old men marrying 14 – 16 year old girls is immoral and can’t be hidden behind a cult ideology. Utah and Arizona are the states that should be ashamed for allowing this lifestyle to fester for over 100 years.

Texas CPS is very selective about who they take children away from.

My brother in law in Houston married a woman with 3 grown daughters. Two of the daughters are normal, fine mothers of 6 little boys.

The third daughter was an alcoholic and a junkie. She had one son. While she never beat time as far as we know, but she didn't feed him, or keep him clean. She would frequently leave him home alone. She went through a series of live in boyfriends.

Her mother and 2 sisters tried and tried to get their grandson and nephew out of the bad situation. However, CPS in the Houston area never took an interest.

One day, while stoned out of her gourd, she walked into traffic and was hit and killed. Her son went to a foster home, while the boy's grandmother and her husband went through an exhaustive CPS background check before they were "allowed" to take custody of the son of the dead junkie drunk.

Needless to say, this boy, now 14, is very screwed up emotionally. Texas CPS didn't bother to try to save him. Why not? Because his mother was a white Protestant.

PHIL, dude... there is an ongoing investigation. The authorities want to get all their ducks in a row so the charges STICK. They still have mountains of evidence to sift through and they still have to identify the kids through DNA because nobody knows who's family they are from. The women all lied when they were in the shelters.

Remember Warren Jeffs...? It took awhile, but they got HIM, and HE is the FLDS' fearless leader who moved all those people to Texas under false pretenses in the first place.

There will be charges filed, mark my words. Have you no clue how the law in this country operates?

You guys are like ostriches with your heads in the sand. Amazing. No wonder this cult has prevailed for so long!!

Interesting that the comments asserting that the phone call from the abuse victim was phony are from MEN. None of you have any proof at all that it was phony. That girl was probably spirited away from the compound IMMEDIATELY or they built some sort of bunker hideout and she's still there. This cult is notorious for that sort of thing.

Obviously, none of you FLDS cheerleaders has ever been in an abusive situation at the hands of a MAN.

Thank GOD somebody is finally doing something about this cult. GOD BLESS TEXAS. A heartfelt thank you from this Montana girl.

<It is WELL documented how these people behave and how they mask their pedophilia in the name of religion.>
Where? In books written by embittered and vindictive apostates? They won’t lie, will they? There’s no historical precedent for that happening, is there? I’ll admit, I’m no expert on this group; I only know what I’m seeing in the news. But I have a soul, a heart, and a brain, and I can see that what is being done to these people right now is inexcusable. Period.

< They got what they deserved>
Tell that to the children screaming in tears for their parents. Tell that to the parents who just had their children literally ripped from their arms at gunpoint, with the APCs, the helicopters, and the participation by evangelicals eager to “convert” these children.

<and with modern DNA testing, I am certain that many of their so-called men will end up in prison for raping underage girls.>
Certain? Sounds more like wishful thinking and speculation to me. Once a person can unburden themselves of bigotry and suspicion, rational thinking suggests that at least some of the fathers in this group were good men, despite peoples’ differences in religious beliefs.

OOPS, sorry. I forgot to sign in and was anonymous in that last post.

As long as I'm back, let's just say that there are enough ladies like me out there who feel the way I do...

...that this story is NOT going to die, and we are going to demand JUSTICE for those preyed-upon children. This is just the tip of the iceberg and mark my words, the DNA testing is going to be the downfall of that cult. It will take MONTHS to sort it out, but the FLDS is never going to recover from this.

Give it time. Give it time. Be patient. Take a deep breath. Find something to occupy your time. Ask again in a month. OK?

It makes me SICK that people are sympathetic to the FLDS! What is wrong with some of you??? If this were a social experiment it would fail and be shut down! Is the deseret news sympethetic to the FLDS girls who have been sexually abused and molested? The boys kicked out of their homes at a young age to keep the young girls preserved for OLD men whom they are "marrying" against their will. Last time I checked I still lived in America and it was illegal to have more than one wife, commit fraud (welfare), and rape and molest...

This is a classic example of why we have a 2nd Amendment. The Framers know that armed resistance/rebellion was the only solution to a tyrannical government. Let alone the 4th Amendment. Making a case for unreasonable search and seizure, a lack of probable cause and use of excessive force should be easy for any 1st year law student. Throw in the civil rights abuses after the detention of the women and children and these people are set for life. If only the government will let them live it.

People don't like polygamy. I get that. But we should reject the wholesale trampling of rights that is going on here. Prove the abuse and prosecute it. If the evidence is not there, put things back. We don't publicly villify drug cartels or gang bangers for not cooperating with police during an investigation. Its called the 5th Amendment. This looks so much like a witch hunt intended to coerce confessions that it taints any future evidence that might legitimately be brought forward.

Conspiracy theories, supposition and inuendo nothwithstanding, this situation is shameful and ugly.

Re: "Officials said the raid was prompted by a cell phone call from a 16-year-old girl who said ..."

This phrasing assumes facts not in evidence. A more accurate reporter would have said something like, "Officials said the raid was prompted by a cell phone caller who said she was a 16-year-old girl ..."

Well done to TXDPS and related agencies for their assistance in going in and SAFELY returning home. Over-use of back-up weapons and personel? Not in my book. They went in prepared for the worst, and thank the Lord, the worst didnt happen.

It makes me so angry to see the FLDS women go on TV and "cry" about "the children" and how horrible the conditions were. The media hasnt spoken about the 2 WalMart trucks and HEB food trucks that donated all new cribs/beds/sheets/food/toys for the kiddos or the numerous donations and care packages sent by the caring good West Tx people. We DO care about the safety & well being of those kids. DONT MESS WITH TX OR OUR KIDS !!!

To all of you who are blaming the state of Texas for the kids' plight... if the cult had not been breaking the law in the first place, none of this would have happened.

I don't think anybody in the state of Texas feels too good about what's happened to the kids, however this cult MUST be stopped from sexually preying upon on minors. If Texas had waited any longer, there would be 1000 kids to deal with, at the rate the cult is breeding.

Like I said, just wait for the DNA to tell the tale of which underage mother was raped by which old man.

And as far as these "apostates" go: if life was so hunky dory for those women in the cult, if it was so WONDERFUL, why did so many of them escape? Why on earth would these stories all sound so familiar, so IDENTICAL?

And by the way, and I mean no offense by this, it's only an observation based on my personal experience:

Many of your words make you sound like classic abusers. Some of your comments go hand-in-hand with the clinical definition of an abusive man.