Behind the fence
Marleigh Meisner, spokeswoman for Texas' Child Protective Division, said Monday that ''absolutely'' no decision has been made on whether to permanently remove 401 FLDS children from their mothers.
Two points.
1. They already have been separated from their fathers.
2. The first step in removing them from their mothers has been taken by placing the children in temporary legal custody of the state.
Marleigh was asked yesterday at a press conference what specific conditions the state has found to take that first step. She gave two broad examples: risk of abuse and the environment in which the children were living.
What does ''environment'' mean exactly? The children we've seen look healthy, clean, well-fed, happy. State officials themselves describe the children as ''very'' polite, quiet and well behaved.
Environment apparently means isolation, a word that several people have used in describing what they see as wrong about the FLDS: They live in isolation.
It may mean other things but that is not how officials and other people who support the children's removal explain it when they talk to me.
I was asked last night if the women at Fort Concho are aware of the process now in play. I have no way of knowing. One thought:
The new search warrant signed by Judge Barbara Walther on Sunday gave authorities permission to take cell phones capable of storing images. I was told that the women and children had cell phones initially and were in contact with their family back at the ranch and with each other. I have no way to know if that is still true, but it seems unlikely given the judge's new order. The cell phones might have been an avenue for them to get a broader picture of what is happening around them.
Looking at the women and children across the wide expanse of grass at Fort Concho, it is hard to know exactly what you're seeing. You can't hear anything or ask any one about what they are doing or why.
So I can only describe what I saw and what impression it left me with, and yesterday I saw this: A group of maybe a dozen or two younger girls pressed against a fence and waving repeatedly and strenuously at someone.
I couldn't see who they were waving out at first because my view was blocked by a building. So I moved to get a better view. I could see the older woman that so many of the younger girls had gravitated to the day before. She stood on the edge of a porch of a building some distance away from the girls. She made no moved to go over to them.
Are the older women being kept from these girls?
Another thing we've seen as we try to get glimpses of the FLDS women and children: they always appear to be accompanied -- watched? -- by one or two CPS workers.
Look again at our pictures, at least the ones that are not tightly cropped. You'll see it, too.
As those girls pressed against the fence and waved, a CPS worker stood directly on the other side of the fence, feet away, watching them.
Two points.
1. They already have been separated from their fathers.
2. The first step in removing them from their mothers has been taken by placing the children in temporary legal custody of the state.
Marleigh was asked yesterday at a press conference what specific conditions the state has found to take that first step. She gave two broad examples: risk of abuse and the environment in which the children were living.
What does ''environment'' mean exactly? The children we've seen look healthy, clean, well-fed, happy. State officials themselves describe the children as ''very'' polite, quiet and well behaved.
Environment apparently means isolation, a word that several people have used in describing what they see as wrong about the FLDS: They live in isolation.
It may mean other things but that is not how officials and other people who support the children's removal explain it when they talk to me.
I was asked last night if the women at Fort Concho are aware of the process now in play. I have no way of knowing. One thought:
The new search warrant signed by Judge Barbara Walther on Sunday gave authorities permission to take cell phones capable of storing images. I was told that the women and children had cell phones initially and were in contact with their family back at the ranch and with each other. I have no way to know if that is still true, but it seems unlikely given the judge's new order. The cell phones might have been an avenue for them to get a broader picture of what is happening around them.
Looking at the women and children across the wide expanse of grass at Fort Concho, it is hard to know exactly what you're seeing. You can't hear anything or ask any one about what they are doing or why.
So I can only describe what I saw and what impression it left me with, and yesterday I saw this: A group of maybe a dozen or two younger girls pressed against a fence and waving repeatedly and strenuously at someone.
I couldn't see who they were waving out at first because my view was blocked by a building. So I moved to get a better view. I could see the older woman that so many of the younger girls had gravitated to the day before. She stood on the edge of a porch of a building some distance away from the girls. She made no moved to go over to them.
Are the older women being kept from these girls?
Another thing we've seen as we try to get glimpses of the FLDS women and children: they always appear to be accompanied -- watched? -- by one or two CPS workers.
Look again at our pictures, at least the ones that are not tightly cropped. You'll see it, too.
As those girls pressed against the fence and waved, a CPS worker stood directly on the other side of the fence, feet away, watching them.
11 Comments:
You sound as though you are taking a position.
I hope that's not the case.
You are my main source for information on this.
You have been doing a great job.
But wouldn't you expect the state to have workers watching the kids. Seems to me, if they were left alone outside, that would be an issue, too.
If they are investigating possible crimes against the kids' fathers, then legally they need to keep them separated from adults until that's done.
I think you should give the courtesy of referring to the state spokes person by her last night, as is usual newspaper style.
But, please keep up the good work.
I do not mean to be so negative.
I am reading reports everywhere on this, and your stuff is out-front the best.
I do not agree that Ms. Adams appears to be "taking a position." It appears to me that she is objectively recording what she is observing.
In a witch-hunt climate, that alone can be an act of courage.
However, if Mr. Liam has already taken a position (and if that position is that the raid was warranted, and all these children need to be taken away from their parents ASAP) then I can see how he might feel she has taken a stand, simply because he senses she may not agree with his own stand. As in, "Those who are not with us are against us."
Having spent time in Hildale and talked intimately with families who support Warren Jeffs, I am dubious about what news reports are calling the "willing" evacuation of these teenage girls and women. Is this the Short Creek Raid all over again, just less violent? Only time will tell.
I do not endorse Jeffs and I personally believe the hold he has on his followers' minds to be an unhealthy one. My primary beef has always been that children born and raised in the FLDS cannot be said to be exercising Free Will, because they have never had opportunity to truly know about the existence of other options.
That said, the children I know from Hildale have been among the happiest, nicest, healthiest and most pleasant children I've ever known. I would chose their company over that of the "average" main stream American child or teenager any day!
There are no easy answers. I do want to see these children have a choice, which means exposure to the information & education they need, if they are ever to truly make informed decisions and choices about how they would like to live, as adults.
However, if the choice they make (as adults) is to live in an isolated community following their own belief system, I want to see them continue to be free to make that choice.
What is a monostary or nunnery, except an isolated community?
Bravo, Brooke Adams, for the splendid coverage, and for your open-minded willingness to see things for yourself, rather than kow-tow to those who demand we all rise up and condemn the FLDS lifestyle out of hand.
Again, there are no easy answers. It is important to ask the right questions. That is what Ms. Adams has been doing.
I'd like to know how Christians and Latter-day Saints deal with the "Free Will" issue. Most of them aren't allowed to experience the "outside world." What makes the FLDS any different other than the practice of plural marriage?
Dee: Excellent post. Thank you. I learned a lot.
I have not taken a position.
Full disclosure: I am a non-Mormon, and I live on the East Coast. I *have* read "Under the Banner of Heaven," so I probably have some negative connotations toward the Jeffs' situation.
On the other hand, it frightens the heck out of me that the government can come in and take so many people away.
I am really struggling with that.
Clearly, you have a great deal more knowledge than I do, so I will defer to your knowledge.
I think she's doing a great job. I assume you are in the Utah area, but in the rest of the country, the response to this has been very slow. You didn;t really start seeing much reporting until yesterday or today.
No matter how you view the situation, this is a story of national proportions.
I just felt that by questioning why the children were being separated, she was not acknowledging criminal justice procedure, and I felt she was belitting the Texas spokesman by calling her by her first name. (It's a button, I am a former reporter myself).
I desperately want balance on this, that's all.
You sound like a very balanced and caring person, and I know I can learn from reading your stuff.
I assure you again, that while I may well seem to be leaning to one side, I am anxious to know everything.
Marleigh Meisner, spokeswoman for Texas' Child Protective Division, said Monday that ''absolutely'' no decision has been made on whether to permanently remove 401 FLDS children from their mothers.
"Children's Protective Services spokesman Marleigh Meisner, who said she was also involved in the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco."
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080407/D8VTAD1G0.html
Thanks to blogger JACIII for posting that little gem on his blog.
Orion: That's an interesting note.
But, she may have been involved, but that doesn't make her complicit in what happened there. As far as I know, that was a combination of the ATF, FBI and David Koresh.
To me, while some terrible things mye be happening with families being split up, thank God there has not been the violence.
That was certainly my fear when the news first started coming out.
I don't think Brooke Adams is taking a position here. She may sound like a "dissenter" so to speak as she is reporting facts that the average coverage simply doesn't show at all.
I am glad that the Tribune is allowing her to do so.
This blog is one of the main reasons why I read the Tribune site
Perhaps what Ms. Adams has been witnessing is so outside of anything we have ever seen in this country that it is impossible to report it without evoking the emotion and compassion that her articles have so admirably achieved.
I personally would make a lousy reporter, because I would be writing things like 'we are witnessing a police state' 'is this Nazi America?'
Thank you all for trying to be so politically neutral, but I'm not even in Texas and I can't sleep at night, I am feeling the trauma of witnessing these events unfold. If I don't start seeing some decent public outcry for the civil rights of these people, well, I think we should be ashamed of ourselves for being so apathetic towards the travesty that has occurred here.
To new blogger;
I can tell you that unless things really turn, you are not going to see an outcry against the government.
I am looking at this as an observer, as someone who lives on the East Coast and spends a lot of time on the internet, both for work and pleasure.
Most of the comments I am getting from a fairly wide circle of friends are biased against FLDS, almost entirely.
Now, I will admit that the 300 or so folks who read my main blog are liberal, and many are either non-religious or involved in non-mainstream religion.
They see it as secular law being broken and something that the government has done correctly.
(Again, I am trying to learn as much as I can, and I keep trying to make sure I am not taking sides yet).
I am anxious to see how this is going to develop and finish.
I think the concept of "informed choice" is paramount, here. Without objective information, one's choices are no more than the outcome of coersion. This is a coercive life.
Beyond the absense of real choice, there are overwhelming indications that true abuse is taking place. Both coercive sexual abuse....marrying and bedding young girls barely into puberty.....and overt sexual abuse, the bedding of daughters by fathers. Then there are all the other "abuses" that are surfacing; excessive corporal punishments, food deprivation, lack of basic education, threats of abandonment, etc.
The state has an obligation, set forth in both state and federal legislation, to protect children and youth from this, and prosecute the perpetrators. The state also has a balanced obligation, again, set forth in state and federal statute and regulation, to respect families and do everything possible to assure their integrity. To that end are the comments about "not knowing" if, or when, the children will be returned. I would also imagine that is the rationale behind allowing the mothers of the children to remain with their children. The fact that most of these mothers are barely adults themselves is secondary.
I am also an eastcoast stranger looking in. I am not Mormon, although I understand that I have roots going back to one of Joseph Smith's wives. I am a stranger to this.
That being said, it is a story of national proportions. And I am someone who is intimately aware of the issues of trauma and such that are part of this phenomenom. I am aware on both a personal and professional level.
I applaud the state of Texas for the courage to take action on this scale. It is a daunting challenge. And I applaud the care they are taking to protect the rights of the parties, as well as the more subtle needs that are more 'good practice' than rights protection. Recognizing the huge cultural chasm that has to be crossed, vigorously protecting the individual's annonimity, creating an insulation from the press and other curios....these are good things....
and, Brooke's reporting is about as good as it gets. It gives us a glimpse into the enormous emotionalism this is evoking. I find her to have achieved the ability to be both touched emotionally and yet objective in her conveyance of information. That is a skill most media persons can only dream of achieving. It is why I also, rely on this site for 'the inside scoop'.
And I am very grateful for the opportunity this blog offers to contribute my own two cents and read that of others.....
Keep up the good work, Brooke...your readers trust you!
The texas governor Perry should study the fate of other governors, namely:governor Boggs of Missouri, governor Ford of Illinois, and governor Pyle of Arizona, their names live in infamy and so will his, what an abuse of power! history will be the judge.
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