The seriously outgunned (by a ratio of several hundred to zero) religious weirdos in the facility, which has been downgraded from "compound" to "ranch" to "retreat", claimed they were terrified that they were going to be attacked. And given the track record (no pun intended) of mechanized law enforcement against nut-fudge religious types in Texas, can you really blame them?
UPDATE: The FLDS types apparently tried to document the whole thing in writing and video, but got a bunch of their evidence confiscated by the coppers. Curtis Lowe responds with the money quote:
Like they always say to us, if you have nothing to hide, then you shouldn’t be worried, right? Seems to me that honorable men who were proud of their work would welcome cameras and eye-witnesses so that the FLDS members couldn’t accuse them of something they didn’t do.Cheap video technology has cut both ways for law enforcement. Honest cops seem to welcome the dash cams that help show that they were within the bounds of the law. Only the bad ones have anything to fear from being taped.
31 comments:
If Matrix was here, he'd laugh too.
Lots of lies by the authorities on this one. On the first day they reported how the "compound" was protected by armed guards with night vision goggles.
Hey Tam, I know you use to live in Atlanta, so I assume you may be familiar with the village of Stone Mountain - they bought an surplus APC from the .gov for the Olympics in '96 and were going to keep it but the ridicule forced enough embarrasment that they sold it back.
I remember my shock at discovering that Roswell had a SWAT team back in the late '80s. This is back when the Roswell jail was a Maryberry RFD thing with a handful of cells and an inmate could come take a smoke break on the porch with visitors so long as they didn't run off or nothin'.
WTF is Midland County doing with an armored personnel carrier? And more importantly, what is it doing in Schleicher County a couple of hundred miles from home? Did Midland County SWAT get likkered up one night, go joyriding in the APC, and get lost?
This question, and others like it, are routinely pondered over at The Agitator, including this one from yesterday. Select "Police Militarization" from the category pull-down on the left for more.
"given the track record (no pun intended) of mechanized law enforcement against nut-fudge religious types in Texas, can you really blame them?"
They were safe, there were no ATFI or FBI Hostage Roasting Team ninjas.
I hope the military was giving out free surplus APCs to local law enforcement. I'd hate to think a sheriff was stupid enough to pay for one.
Wow. The local sheriff's office has an armored vehicle? I don't think we got one of them there tanks here in Boone County. We need to armor-up!
This is just another disgusting case of our government intervening where it has no place doing so - are we not free? Don't we have rights to avoid religious persecution? The thing that really burns us fellow Americans as we watch this event unfold is that there is apparently no 16-year old girl who made a call to authorities. They say 'Sarah' hasn't come forward. Well, I bet she won't - Sarah is a figment of an over-zealous FBI or Law Enforcemnt leader whose own whacked christian zeal has caused him to violate the United States Constitution.
If 'Sarah' is never found, and the 'allegations' never proven, the person who ordered this raid should go directly to jail. Ruby Ridge, Waco - wrong in their conception but there was an aspect of violence - YFZ compound - just a bunch of peaceful folks living their religion. Military-style response was unjustified on the part of the Christian right police forces, and we should hold the folks who are responsible accountable.
America is really becoming a crappy place to live.
These women and children are victims of the crimes of bigamy and statutory rape, perpetrated by the men in the sect, who should have been arrested. The women and children should be protected and sheltered. This does not mean separating those women from their homes and their children. So we are punishing the victims and letting the criminals go free. The religious sect that promotes this anarchy is only going to be strengthened in their belief that the government is out to get you.
dayvo said...
Lots of lies by the authorities on this one. On the first day they reported how the "compound" was protected by armed guards with night vision goggles.
7:30 AM, April 16, 2008
Yeah, I like how it's gone from "16 year old accuser" to "we can't find her, but we've got more interviews to do" to "it was an anonymous tip". The allegations of statutory rape are also cute, given the 'authorities' then turned around and subjected all the kids to involuntary gynecological exams. To say nothing of the fact that all of this is being carried out because of one anonymous tip...
Oh well, they're freaks, right? Freaks don't deserve due process, right?
My CITY has a couple of M-113s. It's not a big city either,with only about 100,000 people.
I saw them driving down the road in the opposite direction the other day toward a display the city PD was putting on.
The county in which the city exists, again not a giant or populous county with less than 250,000 people, has 5 or 6 M113s and 4 Kiowa helicopters that they bought surplus along with several hundred M16A1s, spare airframes and engines for about $20K.
My local city and county PD's could probably conquer Guatemala with the armament they have
Town (yes, town) next door to ours, with a population of ~ 5K and a total crime wave of maybe 2-3 stolen cars PER YEAR, just ordered M-16s for their officers.
Not AR-15s. M-16s. Full-auto, with select-fire capabilities.
For a town with five thousand people, ONE stoplight, and no industrial or commercial base.
Machine guns. For a town very similar to Mayberry...
Who authorized all this. I love TX and I am sure probably somebody had very good intentions but the execution sounds like some sort of Nazis raid or even worse. Taking children from their mothers so that they put them into the "right" religion?
A lot of people seem to be saying "leave them alone it is their religion which is protected". Please face facts, children are being abused and laws are being broken. It is the responsibility of the government to protect the innocent esp children. Just as ffod for thought, when America entered the war against terrorism, did you not support it? The Islamic people were also "only following their religion" as the firmly believe in the "holy jihad". So why are we picking which religious beliefs to allow people to break laws with against others?
I must have missed where I said anything about leaving anybody alone.
I've had friends who were caseworkers whose jobs involved investigating allegations of child abuse. They seemed to be able to accomplish their daily tasks without needing ski-masks, assault rifles, or f___ing tanks.
PS: I'll "face facts" if you start using a spellchecker. Do we have a deal?
There were two mothers and a baby-sitter interviewed this morning on the Today show. One of them started to call the place a "fort" and then switched to a less "bunker-mentality" word...
This kind of stuff happens every day where parents (suspects) are separated from children (victims) in abuse cases, just not on anywhere near as large a scale. It's the scale and the religious angle that's got everyone's attention. If religion wasn't involved, (just big compound where we let the other guys screw our kids) no one would be freaking out about it.
Someone needs to photoshop Barney Fife into a APC!
Freaking out about the cops going in, not the screwing kids part.
I thought the only Military Police that had APCs and automatic weapons were in the ACTUAL MILITARY... well, I have been wrong before.
I also seem to recall Col. Cooper had something to say about people who run about with machne guns and cover their faces.......
"Please face facts..."
What facts? Do you have evidence?
No factual information has been released by the government yet...unless you think them constantly changing the story about the accuser falls under the category of "facts". Further, if they are guilty (and I'm not saying they aren't) don't they still deserve the Constitutional right of due process? My god, all of this is based on one (1) anonymous tip that might not have even existed at all.
If you're actually worried about the kids being sexually abused, Anonymous, you should be speaking out about them being placed in foster care, where the sexual abuse rate is 1 for every 3.
Oh well, nice to see the government living up to the horrors the 'freaks' were "brainwashed" to believe.
And if the home schoolers aren't terrified by this whole thing, they should be.
I found the Baptist Bus used to move the women and children ironic. I found the State of Texas where they think seventh grade is when girls need vaccinated against cervical cancer a bit strange when thinking that marriage at fourteen would be really wrong. I personally know that any one, or any government, should not try to get between me and my family - especially for our benefit. The idea just brings all kinds of nasty hormones to the surface and into a bright red rage.
It is very interesting that TODAY, the day before the children’s hearing, there seems to be a media blackout over the “sect”. Could it perhaps be related to the developing anger over how these mothers and their children were treated as is FINALLY being shown by pictures these women took in their so-called “shelter”? Since their seizure and the state of their living conditions has become better known, and since the mothers are speaking out, sympathy (hopefully) is increasing for them.
Some commentators have tried to paint their stories as “rehearsed” and to paint them as mind controlled, ignorant women. Yet when they are questioned by media and allowed to speak, they are intelligent and not ignorant of the world. They truly love their homes, children, and lifestyle, and they know that, as American citizens protected under our Constitution, they and their children have rights that were severely violated.
Hundreds of people rounded up and held against their will with only a vague allegation? Guns and no warrants and armored Humvees! Good grief, America!
Guess, we should all learn a lesson from this abusive saga: ALWAYS take (and hide) your cell phone, and make sure it is a cell phone with video capabilities. Pictures, pictures, pictures, so your predicament cannot be distorted by "authorities" and the media.
The more I hear of this whole saga, the less I like. Putting those kids in the "care" of the state is only going to reinforce their beliefs that the outside world is a bad, bad place.
I am a bit conflicted here ... people should have the right to make any kind of marriage they want ... but these folks are pushing the envelope.
400 kids in state custody is a bad thing, but ...
... what alternative did they have?
These goons were forcing their daughters into plural marriages, and kicking out teenage boys into the street ( can’t have them competing with the old men for wives now ... ).
Islami’tards do the same thing ... sell daughters off to older friends or even relatives for money or influence, punish teen-agers for having sex, and then encourage teen age boys to leave home and get themselves killed trying to approach a US Army or Marine position.
If these FLDS ‘tards started shouting Allah Ahkbar, and instead sent the teenage boys against the police with suicide bombs, the leftist press would be making excuses for them.
If we were reading about this story happening in another country then we'd be outraged. The only time I know of the government seizing people en-masse was during WWII when Japanese Americans were rounded up and re-located to military bases.
An interesting note about the affidavit requesting the initial search warrant. If you read it on thesmokinggun.com (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0408081texas1.html), page 4, it's stated that the anonymous caller said her husband had three other wives. On page 3 of the same affidavit, it's stated that the anonymous caller said she was wife number seven.
It's also been stated that the woman who took the phone calls is a "former" FLDS member. The woman allegedly works to remove women from the FLDS church. Can anyone see a motive here?? Why couldn't the police / judge see it??
At least no one got shot or burned alive this time around.
I guess this means no one involved in this raid will be getting promotions or pay raises.
Oh well...
'We're a small, rural sheriff's department. Not much crime around here really. How could we best utilize our meager budget?'
'Hmmm, well, we could probably use some armor.'
(Charlotte's got armor. We rock.)
This story has smelled badly to me from the start.
So far I've seen the AP report a whole bunch of damming allegations published as fact. Because I have seen the way the AP usually twist the truth (gun rights, anyone?), I'm not AT ALL convinced that these "facts" are anywhere NEAR the truth.
The more information I learn about this story, the fouler the odor becomes. The ninja cops and their lack of skill are just icing on the cake.
Off topic, I saw a couple of LEOs practicing on the range today. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! If you can't put the bullets into one, ragged hole at 5 FREAKING YARDS when you have all the time in the world, YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN'T BE CARRYING THAT GLOCK 22 AS PART OF YOUR JOB! Maybe I should give up my day job and start teaching LEOs and security guards how to shoot.
"Not AR-15s. M-16s. Full-auto, with select-fire capabilities."
Those are probably surplus A1s that they got from Uncle Sam. I've seen other departments do the same thing. It's a sweet deal for them.
I lived in Midland when Bobby Burns and company got that thing along with the county. It was one of the cast off toys that you could get from the government surplus real cheap and so they did.
Midland county and Midland the town are very rich. It is oil center of west Texas and there is a lot of rich oil workers out there who get taxed a lot but want a safe city.
Midland was (and I assume is still) a law and order town and that is all there is too it. It was a nice break from Houston where you could live and not worry about locking your house and know that the cops were friendly and not to be messed with.
The question should be why does not Ector county have one or maybe Presidio. They could use it!
The constitution says freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to the privacy of our homes etc from the government.
Breaking into their temple, 'confiscating hundreds of pounds of administrative and private documents, kidnapping the children... to parody the film, "the nazis are coming! The nazis are coming!" Is your Church next? Your home? Your rights?
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