Sect films police raid on polygamist ranch

Police wore body armour, sported automatic weapons and were backed by an armoured personnel carrier for a raid on a West Texas polygamist retreat, photos and video show.

Four still photos and a slice of video were given to The Associated Press by Rod Parker, spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which owns the raided Yearning for Zion Ranch near San Angelo in Eldorado.

Sect members took the photos and video during the first few days of a seven-day raid that involved police agencies from six counties, the Texas Rangers, the state highway patrol and wildlife officers. Authorities were looking for a teenage girl who had reported being abused by her 50-year-old husband.

A sect member whose wife shot the video said sect members got the impression that state officials “were doing something more than they said they were going to do”. The man would not give his name for fear of problems for his children, who are in state custody.

Tela Mange, a state Department of Public Safety spokeswoman, said officers were trained to protect themselves.

“Whenever we serve a search warrant, no matter where or when, we are always as prepared as possible so we can ensure the operational safety of the officers serving the warrant, as well as the safety of those who are on the property in question,” Ms Mange said.

The armoured car was precautionary and designed to remove someone from the property, not to force entry to the ranch, she said.

Mr Parker said rumours have circulated since the 1950s that the FLDS would respond with violence to threats on their way of life. “It’s never been substantiated at all. Nobody who knows these people could possibly believe that,” he said.

Parker said that if there was any suggestion that the FLDS would respond to police with violence, there would have been a cache of firearms found during the raid. “Instead they responded by singing and praying,” he said.

While there were hunting rifles at the ranch, search warrants filed in district court do not show that police seized any weapons.

Eldorado is about 200 miles south east of Waco, where authorities tried to arrest Branch Davidian leader David Koresh for stockpiling guns and explosives in 1993. Four federal agents and six members of Koresh’s sect died in the shootout that ensued.

After a 51-day stand-off, Koresh and nearly 80 followers died in an inferno that the US government says was set by the Davidians but that survivors say started when authorities fired tear gas rounds into their compound.

Law enforcement surrounded the FLDS ranch on April 3, carrying a warrant seeking a 16-year-old girl who claimed she was trapped inside the church retreat and had been beaten and raped by her husband. The search also revealed that a soaring white limestone temple at the ranch held a bed where officials believe underage girls were required to consummate their spiritual marriages to much older men.

More than 400 children – all of whom lived in the large, dormitory-style log homes – were seized in the raid on suspicion they were being sexually and physically abused. They are being held in the San Angelo Coliseum and are awaiting a massive court hearing tomorrow that will begin to determine their fate.

The 416 children held by Texas authorities had been accompanied by 139 women until Monday, when officials ordered all the women away except for those whose children were under five.

The mothers have complained the state deceived them, revealing the plan only after they and their children boarded buses from historic Fort Concho, where they had been staying, to the larger San Angelo Coliseum.

But yesterday Texas Children’s Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said officials decided that children were more truthful in interviews about possible abuse if their parents were not around.

Officials have yet to identify the 16-year-old whose call for help to a Texas domestic violence hotline triggered the raid.

The renegade Mormon sect is led by Warren Jeffs, who was convicted last year in Utah of being an accomplice to rape and is awaiting trial in Arizona on similar charges.