That was the decision earlier today as a state appellate court ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize some of the more than 400 children they took into custody during a three-day raid in early April of the 1,700-acre Yearning For Zion Mormon fundamentalist ranch in West Texas.
The Texas Court of Appeals, Third District in Austin, stated in an opinion that the evidence presented by the state was “legally and factually insufficient” to allow the state child welfare department to maintain custody of the children of 38 mothers. This ruling did not involve parents of all the children removed from the ranch.
The idea for it came from an energetic young teacher in Houston Independent School District frustrated by all the emphasis the district places on getting kids to college when the stark reality is that as many as half are dropping out of high school totally unprepared for employment or postsecondary education.
Not only that but as many as 40 percent of kids who enroll in college don’t finish, carry huge loan burdens and end up in jobs that require no college education.
Amanda Lilley was 6 years old when she went to Texas West Oaks Hospital in Houston, broke her arm in her room and although medical personnel knew she’d hurt herself, no one in the private psychiatric facility realized her arm was broken until she was picked up days later by her mom who rushed her to an emergency room.
Alan Chambers was 43 when he successfully hung himself behind closed doors last year at Texas West Oaks Hospital. He’d been brought there after he cut his wrists at his wife’s office, then ran home where he ate every pill in his garage apartment and assembled a pipe gun just as he was interrupted by EMTs. Although he was supposedly under suicide watch, he’d been allowed to stay in his West Oaks room unsupervised after he had a fight with his parents.
Richard Wexler has followed the FLDS case closely, especially after the news that the state plans to send the children in groups to foster facilities.
"You can make a case that some of those children needed be removed from the compound, but none of them needed to be taken from his or her mother. That is the crucial failing here," Wexler says. "The original rationale for taking some of the children was, 'Well, that'll be a way of getting them to talk.' Waterboarding would make it easier to get them to talk, but that's not a good idea either. And even Texas CPS may know that infants can't talk. I don't even know what their rationale is now."
Wexler runs the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform in Virginia, and when the Presswrote about Child Protective Services last year, Wexler told us he ranked Texas as one of the worst states for child welfare.
"This is the United States," Schleicher County Justice of the Peace James Doyle told me two years ago when I was reporting on polygamy in West Texas. "And I don't kick in your door and you don't kick in mine and we don't kick in theirs. They're citizens of the United States and we've got to have a probable cause."
The citizens he was referring to were members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, who’d built a temple in the West Texas brush near Eldorado. Polygamy was common within this breakaway Mormon sect, and with Prophet Warren Jeffs still on the loose, there were fears of all hell doing exactly what hell is known to do.
Jeffs has since been captured, and authorities finally got their probable cause last week when a girl called and said she was only 15 when she'd been married to and impregnated by a 50 year old. The SWAT team suited up, and more than 200 women and children were removed from the compound for questioning, although the girl who phoned authorities still has not been identified.
Last Monday, I trekked back up to Somerville, Texas, set just past Brenham along US Highway 290 some 90 miles northwest of Houston. My editor sent me to do some reporting for this week’s news story on recent environmental testing in the schools. I wasn’t exactly greeted with open arms.
Dr. James Dahlgren, a health expert hired by the plaintiff attorneys who treated rescue workers at the World Trade Center site and served as lead toxicologist in the famous Erin Brockovich case, says the entire town should be evacuated immediately.
In honor of Chris Gray’s feature on the return of The Judy’s, we rounded up some greatest hits from YouTube. Just like with any other search of that site, we found the good, the bad and the fairly weird.
First, in December 2006, controversial Chicago alderwoman Dorothy Tillman was exposed by a community newspaper for using a taxpayer-funded development project to steer contracts to family and friends and possibly cheat the IRS. Then, in April 2007 – despite being endorsed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama – Tillman was booted from office after representing the historic black ward for more than two decades. Now, the 60-year-old Tillman has landed herself in jail.
Early yesterday morning, Tillman was arrested in her native Montgomery, Alabama and charged with criminal trespassing for tussling with local hospital administrators. Tillman says she was the victim of excessive force. She smiles in the mug shot photo – a rare picture in which she is without one of her trademark, wide-brimmed hats. “They knocked my hat off,” Tillman, referring to police, told the Chicago Tribune. “One of them put his knees on my spine and threatened to Taser me.”
I used to talk to Barack Obama on a regular basis back when he was a rank-and-file state legislator in Illinois and I worked for a pair of community newspapers there. I lived two blocks away from him and worked in the same building that housed his favorite barbershop.
Obama’s rise from political unknown to political icon has been astounding. In 2004, when Obama was running for U.S. Senate, I followed him on a tour of small churches on the Chicago South Side. The pews were empty, and his speeches received lukewarm applause, at best.
Okay, it might not be 300, but this Amtgard "ditch fight" will hopefully whet your appetite for good ol'-fashioned boffing fun. Amtgarders are always looking for a few good men / women / monsters, so if you think you've got what it takes, check out this video and then hop online to the offical Amtgard Web site to find your inner warrior. -- Craig Malisow
Here's the third of three videos to supplement Russell Cobb's story about mescaline on the Mexican border. This one features an interview with Humberto Fernández, who eats peyote for breakfast. -- Keith Plocek
