FLDS Raid Turns Spotlight on Tom Green County

On Friday morning, April 4, I was informed of Child Protective Services’ intention to serve a warrant and investigate allegation of sexual abuse on the Yearning for Zion ranch owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a polygamist sect in neighboring Schleicher County. The initial indication was that it was for about 18 children, so I took due notice and proceeded to leave town and visit some friends at their ranch.
On Saturday I did not get out of the area of the ranch house until after noon when I decided to try my hand at calling in some turkeys. As I was setting up on the top of a hill, my Blackberry reacquired a signal and lit up like a Christmas tree. I had multiple calls from Jack Colley with the Governor’s Division of Emergency Management (DEM) and our sheriff’s office. I quickly called Jack back and was told that I really should be back in San Angelo because the initial warrant service had turned into a full-blown police action with most of the State’s contingent of Texas Rangers, DPS, Parks & Wildlife and sheriff’s deputies from almost all of West Texas. He said that they were in the process of taking all of the children out of the compound, which at the time he estimated to be 180 (later it turned out to be 468) and were planning on housing them temporarily at Fort Concho in San Angelo.
Jack Colley said that DEM and the State of Texas were taking over command operations at the fort; I was to assist in making it happen, and they (the State) would pay for it. I contacted our emergency management coordinator and our sheriff’s emergency management liaison and asked where I would do the most good. They said to come to the command trailer/staging area located at the abandoned Air Force radar facility just north of Eldorado. After I got there, I was briefed on what was taking place and was frankly amazed at the scope of the operation. Along with all of the aforementioned law enforcement personnel, there were helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, and an armored personnel carrier involved in the operation. After doing all I could there, including a brief visit to the compound, I returned home.
The next day I made my way to Fort Concho where another spectacle was unfolding. Almost every department from the city of San Angelo was involved in the conversion of a historic frontier fort and tourist attraction into livable housing for several hundred children and mothers. I was most impressed with the Baptist Child and Family Services (BCFS) Emergency Management Team that DEM hired to take over as Incident Command. BCFS is probably the best run emergency management operation I have ever seen. They came in with personnel who were highly trained and capable of taking over the operation immediately with enough resources to make your head spin. As the day wore on, every agency, state and local, having anything to do with emergency management came to participate in the operation. As the buses with the new residents rolled in, so did the media circus.
The full impact of what was about to happen with the impending court proceedings began to unfold as decisions were about to be made regarding the children and the CPS investigation. The action became the largest child removal operation in history. The district judge presiding over Schleicher County made the decision to have all court actions at the Tom Green County Courthouse because Schleicher County just did not have facilities adequate enough to address the coming onslaught of attorneys, etc. Approximately 600 attorneys from across the state were appointed as attorneys ad litem for the children and parents and offered to represent them pro bono (saved Schleicher County from default). The state leadership assured us that all allowable costs would be reimbursed, and so far they have kept their word. The court proceedings have taken some interesting twists and turns with the 3rd Court of Appeals weighing in on the issues and the Texas Supreme Court getting their two cents worth. As of this writing, all of the children who had been distributed to foster care facilities across the state have been returned to their “parents” with strict travel restrictions pursuant to the Appeals Court decision.
The CPS investigation is continuing along with the criminal investigation which should result in indictments at any time. Apparently the court proceedings have entered the slow grinding phase. While the media circus has left town, I feel certain that soon the Tom Green County Courthouse will again be surrounded by the remote satellite trucks, cameras and news personalities ensuring that we will remain in the spotlight for some time to come.
By Tom Green County Judge Mike Brown