Sunday, June 08, 2008
Parents of the polygamist sect in Eldorado have their children back, but they aren’t all in the clear.
Until the DNA speaks, it’s not clear who’s a parent and who, as a child victim, became a parent.
Criminal charges may spring from what remains in play after the Texas Supreme Court ruled Child Protective Services overreacted when it took 440 FLDS children into custody.
If this was a certifiable overreach, as two appellate courts say, I gladly vote for this over the chain of reactions in 1993 which left charred corpses on a blackened patch of prairie outside Waco. The initial concerns in that debacle were the same.
In that case, to prosecute something that started out as a child abuse case, officials chose federal SWAT teams in cattle trailers over caseworkers and deputies.
The feds opted for flash-bang grenades over diplomacy. They chose a big production over a quiet arrest of David Koresh away from the compound on the many occasions in Waco when he was being a guitar-loving messiah about town.
In the resulting shoot-out, 51-day standoff and horrific end by fire, 85 people died.
The DNA ultimately would speak to crimes that demanded someone’s attention. Koresh fathered 13 children who died in the fire. Some were the result of his bedding minors.
Throughout those events, in which Waco became the media center of the universe, I got to sample a bizarre night-and-day divide of letters to the editor from two groups of outraged people.
On the one hand were the locals who wrote, “Support law enforcement.” On the other hand were faxes from afar (before most of us were e-mailing) denouncing law enforcement as “jackbooted Nazi thugs.”
In either case, the observers were blind to the culpability of those with whom their sympathies lay. Both the feds and the Branch Davidians were egregiously, horrifically at fault.
Now, with the case in Eldorado, I’ve seen mass e-mailed letters to newspapers like ours flinging charges at Texas for Gestapo tactics and for pursuing “fictional abuse.” We’ve also heard from a “polygamy rights” group.
Breathe deeply.
The state’s claims — that 31 teenage girls were impregnated — were way off. It turns out that all but five were legal adults.
This may sound to you like an exoneration of the FLDS. It may also bring to one’s mind the phrase “a little bit pregnant.” Five pregnant children is no small deal.
Sect members say all was consensual. Texas law says, “If she’s a minor, there’s no such thing.”
FLDS members now say they no longer will countenance marriages involving minors, a confession of something forbidden in the first place.
Once again, feel free to denounce CPS for overreaching and exaggerating. I vote for child advocates who move their feet when clear suspicions present themselves.
Due process has prevailed thus far in this child abuse investigation. It had no such opportunity in 1993.
The investigation continues in Eldorado, as it should. In the incident that became known as “Waco,” all the truth that was left about the crimes that first alerted investigators was in the DNA.
John Young’s column appears Thursday and Sunday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.
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Comments
By rene howitt
Jun 9, 2008 10:45 AM | Link to this
The public needs to understand that returning children to the abusive/neglectful parent is the norm. CPS=Child Protective Services not....Parental Rights....but watch how the system works. Due to the parental rights laws returning children to their parents is the goal of the system. What the parental rights law presumes is that the "best interest" of the child is served by "family reunification." So in the vast majority of child abuse cases children will be removed by CPS to protect the child. However, CPS is mandated by law to set up a service agreement with the parents so that reunification can happen. The judge in this case overrode the service agreements returning the children to the parents sooner. Everyone needs to understand the children would have went back anyway because....reunification is the ultimate goal. Anyone having a problem with this need not take their anger out on CPS, they have to follow the law and the courts interpretation of the law. Maybe we, as a society, need to take a look at this law! Anyone wanting to have a better understanding of this law really impacts the lives of children who have already been abused needs to read "Whose Best Interest". The unintended results of this parental rights law are the reason we have most of the problems we have within our child protection agencies. www.whosebestinterest.com
Children who are abused do love their parents they just want the abuse stopped. Their first choice would be for their parents to get healthy so they can live with them in a loving, nurturing, permanent environment. Children are also naive and certainly don't understand that most often this will never happen. As our government spend billions of dollar nationally trying to make these parents get this so that reunification can happen, the children are lingering in foster care and then ultimately lose their entire childhood. The law needs to address this issue but doesn't. Children often want things that aren't good for them.
This law has been in place for over three decades, so here is the question we need to ask.....If the experts and law were so right on....why aren't we seeing better results by now? Children who are failed by their parents and then ultimately the system set up to protect them will grow up angry. Angry children become angry adults. Angry adults will act out on society. So the cycle continues.
By Robbie
Jun 8, 2008 11:39 PM | Link to this
In a raid of this scale, there is no easy way to go about it. Any actions that law enforcement took would be critqued. I'm sure, had law enforcement chosen to leave the kids in an abusive environment pending the investigation, the very people angry at them for removing them from their home would be equally as loud about law enforcement leaving them in danger.
It's an awful catch 22 for the authorities. It remains true, however, that they went above and beyond to prevent the same events that took place outside Waco many years ago.
When law enforcement receives a call, their first action is not to investigate the origins of that call. Their priority is to remove the danger. In this case that priority was to remove children from a situation that posed a high risk of sexual abuse. Many of the young girls, minors, removed from the compound were pregnant, which leads me to believe that sexual contact with minors did occur. DNA samples were taken, and the investigation continues.
As mentioned earlier, with the children away from the compound the risk for continued abuse during the investigation was zero. Now that they have been replaced, the risk of abuse returns, as does the risk of tainted evidence. Should either of these situations arise, the accountability becomes the judge's.
By Rob
Jun 8, 2008 7:13 PM | Link to this
Robbie, I don't know how you think "Texas" law works but in the United States there is a thing called "due process". No criminal charges have been filed as a result of this investigation and no crime has been committed. We all know now that the call was a hoax. Texas was wrong to take the children.
By Robbie
Jun 8, 2008 6:07 PM | Link to this
dlr,
I'm not sure how they do things in Wisconsin, but in Texas we have laws. Our laws prohibit sexual contact of adults with minors, no matter what religion you may claim. It does not matter to the law whether you are FLDS, Baptist, Catholic, Hindu, etc. Sexual contact with minors is illegal. That is what prompted the raid, not their religion. Texas law enforcement rightfully removed the children from their abusive environment in a professional, forthright, and cordial manner, as written in the link I posted. While caring and loving mothers turned the other cheek community elders preyed upon young girls. It is evidenced by their growing wombs. And state judges have returned them to that environment. Should the abuse continue, the guilt will lie equally behind their gavels.
By dlr
Jun 8, 2008 3:57 PM | Link to this
At least no one died in this standoff - Did I read that correctly? I have agonized over the plight of the FLDS children for the past two months. Who in their right mind would take nursing toddlers away from their mothers? I would trust my children to these parents any day before trusting them to the CPS.
Robbie - Life was not lost do to exemplified law-enforcement professionalism but to the fact that the FLDS follows the teaching from the Christian Bible to Turn you cheek.
A lot of hate has come forth out of the FLDS raid, and it has steeled me, to further walk away from the Western Culture.
From the sidelines in Wiscosin.
By Robbie
Jun 8, 2008 3:40 PM | Link to this
CPSWatch,
The raid was carried out by the Texas Rangers, and according the their Captain, "Texas Ranger Capt. Barry] Caver said no shots were ever fired on the ranch." [Facts...Facts...Facts...
This story offers as many details of the raid as I have seen.
By CPSWatch
Jun 8, 2008 11:10 AM | Link to this
Actually, shots were fired by the police. FLDS did not return the fire. Facts...Facts...Facts... the truth is bad enough, we don't need to exaggerate it.
By Robbie
Jun 8, 2008 9:36 AM | Link to this
This is weird. What I'm about to say shocks me. Good editorial, John. The State of Texas showed resolve in this matter, having learned from the past law-enforcement blunder, in removing children from their abusers. Not a shot was fire, nor life lost in this "raid" which exemplified law-enforcement professionalism.
It all seems to be in vain considering that the children are now back in the hands of their abusers while the investigation is still pending. Shame on those judges for allowing those children to return to that environment before the legal system had the chance to prove guilt or innocense. With the children away, the chance for continued abuse by FLDS elders was zero. Now that the judges have returned them, that chance looms in the back of the minds of those children. Should that abuse continue, the responsibility lies directly on the shoulders of those appointed to direct justice.
By Fred
Jun 8, 2008 8:00 AM | Link to this
Waco's Branch Davidian Children's "slaughter" will never be forgotten. Remember Waco.
By Doug
Jun 8, 2008 6:57 AM | Link to this
Good editorial! Thanks on behalf of children - and child advocates.
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