AUSTIN – Texas had secret plan to separate polygamist mothers, children
Texas had secret plan to separate polygamist mothers, children 12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...2.4600b41.html AUSTIN – State officials, fearing a violent reaction from members of a West Texas polygamist sect, considered a secret plan to haul hundreds of children and their mothers to Midlothian to be separated, internal e-mails show. But a judge vetoed the plan. They also worried that mothers would try to make a "run" from the shelter with their children, feared a rampage of infections among the families and fretted about the fear of violence and state resources being overwhelmed by events. More than 1,500 pages of e-mails between the governor's office and Child Protective Services, obtained by The Dallas Morning News under state freedom of information laws, show top executives working day and night in early April to deal with a raid on the Yearning for Zion ranch that quickly mushroomed into a massive operation. In the first week, more than 1,000 personnel were deployed and costs reached $2.3 million. Conspicuously absent in the e-mail strings was Gov. Rick Perry. While his executive staff was exchanging information and tracking events, Mr. Perry did not receive a full briefing from officials until five days after the raid – when more than 500 people were being held in state-run shelters. Spokeswoman Krista Piferrer said that because the situation was highly charged and fluid, Mr. Perry used the phone and personal updates from his staff to stay informed. During his administration, he has avoided using e-mail because the content is subject to open-records requests. The governor's office and CPS withheld hundreds of pages of messages, citing state laws exempting confidential information. Ms. Piferrer said the governor was engaged but deferred to the experts at Child Protective Services and the Department of Public Safety to conduct the investigation and do their work. The governor's office was first informed there was a problem on April 1, when CPS and Texas Rangers said they were planning to raid the polygamist ranch in two days – on a Thursday. The impetus was a call from a 16-year-old pregnant girl – later determined to be a hoax – who reported physical and sexual abuse by her 49-year-old "spiritual husband." "They went in there not expecting to find 400 children," Ms. Piferrer said. "You can easily see where it went larger than just those two entities – CPS and law enforcement." Within a day of the raid, more than 100 girls and women had left the compound, but more children kept turning up as log cabins on the ranch were searched. Supplies were called in from the Red Cross, Goodfellow Air Force Base and local shelters. CPS workers' state-issued credit cards were quickly maxed out. Hundreds in custody As the weekend passed, more than 400 children were in custody. The Governor's Division of Emergency Management had set up a command post, state agencies had pitched in – including even the Forest Service – and hundreds of state workers had been deployed. Among other details the e-mails reveal: • Days after the raid, the governor's office apparently did not have a copy of the "search warrant that the media seems to be reading from," which contained basic information supporting the raid. Plus, an outbreak of chicken pox at the shelter prompts emergency operations chief Jack Colley to write: "Many concerns. ... This is getting out of hand." • The governor's staff prepared for him two pages of "key message points, mostly in preparation for an interview with religious broadcaster Pat Robertson to promote the governor's new book on the Boy Scouts. • On April 10, the governor's human service policy director Kristi Jordan reported that "we have reason to believe as a result of interviews that some of the mothers are planning to conduct a 'run.' Their objective would be to hide from law enforcement authorities." Security is beefed up. Many of the e-mails involve how to separate the mothers, more than 130 of them, who were staying with the children. CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins said that it is standard procedure in an abuse case to remove the parents to mitigate their influence. Picking Midlothian Initially, the plan was to carry out the separation on Friday, April 11, by putting all the mothers and children on buses headed to a Salvation Army facility in Midlothian because of "security concerns with the separation taking place in San Angelo," Ms. Jordan summarized in an April 8 e-mail. Ms. Piferrer explained that experts feared that emotional outbursts could turn violent, children could be hurt or alerted fathers could become involved. "There were concerns," Ms. Piferrer said. "We were prepared for that if indeed it came to a difficult situation." She said that Midlothian offered a better-equipped and more secure location. "The model of emergency management is to hope for the best and plan for the worst," she said. The women and children were not to be told until they were on the buses that all but nursing mothers would be separated into different living quarters from the children. "Salvation Army indicated it would not allow the conflict associated with separation to occur in its facility, which is why the separation would occur at a secure location prior to entering the Salvation Army grounds," Ms. Jordan wrote. The judge in charge of custody of the children eventually rejected the transfer. Instead, the separation occurred on April 14, without incident. But the e-mails show that field officers reported back to the governor's office virtually minute by minute on how it proceeded. Willie Jessop, a leader of the Eldorado sect, said it was preposterous that women in the shelters were plotting an escape or that some mothers were trying to thwart the investigation. "We never, never did anything other than to comply and to endure what they put us through," Mr. Jessop said. "There was never any type of inside escape plan. That would just never happen." He expressed outrage that the governor's office was trying to move the mothers and children and separate them en route, outside of public view. "When is the public going to hold this administration accountable for treating us worse than you would a dog?" he asked. Staff writer Emily Ramshaw contributed to this report. An Inconvenient Truth about Child Protective Services, Foster care, and the Child Protection "INDUSTRY" Child Protective Services Does not protect children... It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even killed at the hands of CPS. every parent should read the free handbook from connecticut dcf watch... http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US These numbers come from The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN) Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS Perpetrators of Maltreatment Physical Abuse CPS/Foster care 160, biological Parents 59 Sexual Abuse CPS/Foster care 112, biological Parents 13 Neglect CPS/Foster care 410, biological Parents 241 Medical Neglect CPS/Foster care 14 biological Parents 12 Fatalities CPS/Foster care 6.4, biological Parents 1.5 Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per 100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a bunch of social workers. THIS IS AMERICA'S HIDDEN HOLOCAUST Currently Child Protective Services violates more constitutionally guaranteed liberties & civil rights on a daily basis then all other agencies combined, Including the National Security agency/Central intelligence agency wiretaping programs… THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES BY: Nancy Schaefer Senator, 50th District of Georgia http://www.senatornancyschaefer.com/...s.php?filter=6 This is Child Protection? By Gregory A. Hession, J.D. http://www.jbs.org/node/4632 Mercenary Motherhood: "Memoirs of a Babystealer." http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...nion-rightrail FOSTER CARE IS A 80 PERCENT FAILU. A Brief Analysis of the Casey Family Programs. Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study. By Richard Wexler http://www.nccpr.org/reports/cfpanalysis.doc HOW THE WAR AGAINST CHILD ABUSE BECAME A WAR AGAINST CHILDREN http://www.nccpr.org/issues/1.html Adoption Bonuses: The Money Behind the Madness DSS and affiliates rewarded for breaking up families By Nev Moore Massachusetts News http://www.massnews.com/past_issues/...May/mayds4.htm A recent study has found that 12-18 months after leaving foster ca 30% of the nation’s homeless are former foster children. 27% of the males and 10% of the females had been incarcerated 33% were receiving public assistance 37% had not finished high school 2% receive a college degree 50% were unemployed Children in foster care are three to six times more likely than children not in care to have emotional, behavioral and developmental problems, including conduct disorders, depression, difficulties in school and impaired social relationships. Some experts estimate that about 30% of the children in care have marked or severe emotional problems. Various studies have indicated that children and young people in foster care tend to have limited education and job skills, perform poorly in school compared to children who are not in foster care, lag behind in their education by at least one year, and have lower educational attainment than the general population. *Casey Family Programs National Center for Resource Family Support 80 percent of prison inmates have been through the foster care system. The highest ranking federal official in charge of foster care, Wade Horn of the Department of Health and Human Services, is a former child psychologist who says the foster care system is a giant mess and should just be blown up. http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=2017991 Four rigorous studies have found that at least 30 percent of America’s foster children could be home right now if their parents had decent housing. This study found thousands of children already in foster care who would have done better had child protection agencies not taken them away in the first place. Front-page story in USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...m?csp=34#Close Read the studies online. Casey "alumni" study: "Improving Family Foster Ca Findings from the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study," http://www.casey.org/Resources/Publi...lumniStudy.htm MIT study: "Child Protection and Child Outcomes: Measuring the Effects of Foster Care," http://www.mit.edu/~jjdoyle/doyle_fo...arch07_aer.pdf Texas comptroller's "Forgotten Children" reports: www.window.state.tx.us/forgottenchildren The bottom line? - Child Protective Services and the Foster Care system for the most part turns out young adults that are nothing more than walking wreckage... CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED LIBERTIES & CIVIL RIGHTS ON A DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAMS.... CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON... BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION... |
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