MHMR workers blast CPS treatment of FLDS mothers & children

[WolverineDG]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA051108.01A.mhmrreports.3a4fa3e.html

[Warpy]

1. Oh, for crying in the beer

If those "mothers" wanted to stay with their kids, they should have identified them instead of lying repeatedly to CPS staffers.

It seems to me that CPS has been bending over backwards to accommodate those people.

[LisaL]

14. Explain this to me.

This is from the article.
"“These lovely women and children were gracious and kind always,” one wrote. “They tried to cooperate with every request, even when terrified that they were going to be separated from their children. The mothers are incredibly loving and patient with the children. The children were well-socialized and well-behaved and interacted willingly and happily with us.”

Another wrote, “The children were sweet and well-mannered upon our arrival. They obeyed their mothers and appeared to be healthy and well-nourished. They had none of the traditional withdrawal common in abused children.”"
It's a mental health professional saiying this, not FLDS member.
So, where is the abuse from the mothers to these children? Sounds like they were exemplary mothers.

[Warpy]

16. It's completely at odds with what the police, CPS and the DA

have all said.

The explanation is that either somebody's lying or somebody got fooled by an act.

[truedelphi]

28. Please see my post # 27. n/t

[uppityperson]

2. link to topic 5/9 with other updates. I'm glad this is still in the news

From your link:

To respond to the allegations, CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins asked for a list of written questions and replied with a two-sentence e-mail. “We have received no complaints from Hill Country MHMR,” Crimmins wrote Thursday. “However, we will be looking into what are obviously very serious allegations, and sharing these allegations with other agencies as appropriate.”
(clip)

Shelter directors and CPS spokesmen have previously acknowledged the shelter was chaotic, especially in its first days, and the needs of its residents were a challenge to meet.Kevin Dinnin, the president of Baptist Children and Family Services who served as incident commander at the shelter under a contract between his agency and the state, said he couldn't confirm many of the allegations made by the MHMR workers.

“Some of it is unfounded,” he said. “Some of it is accurate, depending on your point of view. Were the shelters crowded? Yeah. But it's a shelter. And yes, CPS workers were taking notes and listening. Yes, they were always around. I'm not defending CPS, but it's hard to give people privacy in a shelter.
The CPS and the MHMR staff could have reduced tensions with better communication, Dinnin said.“They should have coordinated better,” he said.

Dinnin said he remembers a young MHMR staffer making announcements at the shelter that contained misinformation to a group of FLDS women. He asked the staffer to leave, and a DPS trooper escorted her out.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=3266285
I am glad ACLU is watching, and it is still a mess.

Edited to add, OP, you crack me up.

[WolverineDG]

3. So do you

What possible motive do the MHMR workers have to lie? Their own board president and a board member stand up for them (their quotes are further down in the article), but you choose to believe only those who toe the CPS line. So long.

dg

[uppityperson]

6. I quote your article and you say I say MHMR workers are lying?

What. ever. Maybe it would be better for you to counter with other quotes?
Thank you for posting this as it is a big mess and I am glad that it is still getting media coverage.

And yes, I'd rather discuss in public. You crack me up by blocking pm's after I say I am doing so but will discuss in public. Too funny.

Did you check out my linked topic? Wondering since you haven't said anything about the immunization issue, which I am torn on.

[blue sky at night]

4. IDKWYATA......

BYUA.

[truedelphi]

5. I understand where you are coming from

Back when I was attending local city council meetings, county meetings and environmental meetings, the acronyms would sometimes be identical but mean totally different things.

But anyway this OP is about the children who have been parcelled out to various "shelters" and foster care agencies in Texas because their place of origin was a ranch where adult males abused children (Usually underage teenage girls who were "persuaded into marriages"

I'm not sure what FLDS stands for - have no idea what the F refers to but assume L stands for "Later" D for "Day" and S for "Saints," as in the Later Day Saints.

[uppityperson]

8. F=Fundamentalist. eom (end of message)

[truedelphi]

10. Thanks - in all the discussion of this in the news

On TV and in print, I haven't seen the "F" explained.

I was wondering as a spoof of course if it stood for fornicatin!!

[blue sky at night]

22. thanks...

the use of acronyms drives me crazy at times.....

[truedelphi]

7. The entire affair makes no sense

Why not leave the kids at the ranch and hold all of the adult males somewhere rather than traumatizing the women and kids.

Yes, perhaps a majority of the adult males are innocent, but why not traumatize them rather than the kids?
To me it is deplorable that CPS is acting (as it so often does) in a manner that is unecessary and totally backwards in approach.

[EFerrari]

20. Bingo. They're just adding to the trauma as far as I'm concerned.

Why not take the suspected perps away and treat THEM like cattle instead of the moms and kids?

[truedelphi]

21. And the "police" are actually Blackwater mercenaries

At least that is what I am hearing.

It is illegal to have mercenaries take actions against any US citizens here in this country, but it is happening in Texas against the FLDS

[uppityperson]

23. Where do you hear that? If there is reputable link, I would like to see it. Really.

And I am serious, since all I find is links to the discussion in other forums "should have sent in blackwater". While I am opinionated, I will look at info and consider it, have admitted I was wrong and changed my mind. If there is a reputable source, I'd like to see it. Thanks.

[truedelphi]

26. FIrst of all, at this point, I am not saying I have a reputable link.

Someone sent me a photo of what appears to be military (Texas National Guard? Blackwater?) people inside a vehicle. They enclosed their own personal rant abt Blackwaer and the illegality of mercenaries on operating on our soil.

So I'll say this: thank you for asking. The internets can and should be a source of speculation - if a group of us had not "speculated" about the voting machinery back in early 2004, there wouldn't be a voting rights movement operating to protect elections. (Though for every step forward we take, there are a dozen steps back, it sometimes seems.)

So at this point, this is speculation. If I was going on the local TV station reporting this, it would be wrong - but this isn't the local news. I think of this type of forum as the back room at the local news station, "So now, Woodward, you say someone identifying himself as "Deep Throat" is gonna meet you in the hotel garage at 9:15PM. Do you know Charlie Atwater, of the FBI? Charlie is a big guy - 6ft nine inches - is your source that tall? Charlie has a Georgia accent? Does your source have a Southern accent? Could it be him?"

SO as far as the photo I was sent -- from a photo I cannot tell you where that vehicle is. It could be our soldiers in Baghdad for all I know - gritty desert looking terrain - possibly Texas? Possibly Iraq?

I am very bad at capturing photos embedded in email, but if you want it badly, I can have Mr Delphi capture it and post it here.

[musette_sf]

25. because the only way to do it

is to start with the kids. UT and AZ have been going after the men, at a glacial pace, and the FLDS is still going strong in those states.

http://www.star-telegram.com/245/story/620718.html

the women are complicit in the abuse and they allow it to go on.

i'm listening to "Escape" right now (by a woman who was brave enough to leave this abusive cult) and i cannot believe that anyone who hears the truth about the cult could NOT be thankful for what Texas did. they did the right thing - the only right thing to make this abuse of women and children STOP.

[Catshrink]

9. Another take on the relationships of FLDS mothers with their children

This article was written by Carolyn Jessop who "escaped" the compound 5 years ago. Acoording to her, mothers aren't allowed to have warm relationships with their children.

Here's an excerpt and the link:

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/viewpoints/articles/0511vip-jessop0511.html

"As incredible as it might seem, I had to learn to kiss and hug my children again. I was always affectionate with my first child, Arthur. It came naturally to me. But in the FLDS, women are not supposed to show affection to their children. It's conferring value on an individual, and only the prophet and the head of the family are allowed to do that.

My son was taunted because I kissed him, so I stopped. As my other children came along, they rebuffed my affectionate gestures. They'd say, "Mom, that's bad," or "You know you're not supposed to do that!"

After we escaped, a woman who was helping us settle into our new lives said, "Carolyn, it's OK to kiss and hug your children again." I needed permission to do what was once as natural as breathing to me.

I have heard people say they think it's cruel that children have been separated from their mothers because of the raid on the Texas compound. But that's a projection of an attached and loving relationship. Some women manage to forge a connectedness, but many do not. Most children attach to another child for survival and protection like children do in orphanages.

I was forced to leave my nursing babies at home to teach school, which was another way to sabotage my bonds to them. I'd rush home at lunch to nurse them and find them in drenched diapers and unfed. Merril's teenage daughters were supposed to watch the babies, but they did so haphazardly. It broke my heart that my babies were not getting proper care."

[madmusic]

11. The womens are getting uppity!

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_9211573

[ljm2002]

12. Some of the comments are scary...

...lots of people defending them (and many who do not).

That column does not sound at all like one of the real wives there -- in fact I'd bet good money it was ghost-written. As one of the commenters pointed out, the writer claims to now have a briefcase instead of a diaper bag, and to have all sorts of time on her hands because of all of this. She also claims to have a big mouth and the column would seem to bear that out -- another reason I don't think it is really the product of one of the FLDS wives at all. Somehow we are to believe that, as soon as the children were removed, one of these pastel-clad wonder women marched into her closet, got out the pantsuit that was hidden in the back, and started using her dayplanner for appointments with lawyers instead of "appointments" with her children. Sounds like utter hogwash to me.

Also of course while "she" bleats that she never broke any laws, "she" fails to address: polygamy, forced marriage, rape, incest, welfare fraud, and throwing out young men on trumped up reasons. Did not address a single one of those issues. In other words, it was entirely a self-serving fluff column, designed to stir people up emotionally while conveniently avoiding addressing any of the actual issues that precipitated the action by Texas authorities.

She claims to have the same rights as other U.S. citizens. But somehow it has escaped her that the FLDS children also have the same rights.

[uppityperson]

13. Religious rights do not excuse child abuse. eom

[LisaL]

15. Mental health professionals observed these mothers with their

children. They described the mothers as loving and patient, and children as well adjusted. So, where is the abuse?

This is from the article:

"Board President John Kite said the entire board was “very upset” by the reports. He said he is trying to get Gov. Rick Perry and the legislative delegation for the multicounty region served by Hill Country MHMR to meet with the workers.

“We were literally astounded at what they told us,” Kite said. “They are trampling all over human decency and those people's civil rights. How do we stop an agency that is out of control? We should not just sit here and let it happen.”"
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA051108.01A.mhmrreports.3a4fa3e.html
One mental health worker says that over his 20 years of experience, he had never seen children and women treated that poorly.
I am glad at least some poeple have the courage to speak out for these people.
And I love how the Board President described CPS.

[uppityperson]

18. I call having sex with a minor statutory rape and child abuse.

Don't you?

I am glad that Tx CPS is being watched also, hoping that the publicity will help make positive changes in the imperfect system.

[ljm2002]

19. The abuse, as others have pointed out...

...is that the girls are farmed out to older males when they are still underage, when they do not have the benefit of actual matrimony -- statutory rape for starters. The fact that some of these mothers are underage teenagers and pregnant with their next child, is also evidence of abuse. What is hard about this???

[ismnotwasm]

24. Stepford wives

From what I've read and seen, these women are much better at miming expected emotions. You don't dedicate your 3 year old girlchild to a future marriage to someone who might be 50, and stay in a situation where that child will have no say at 14 if maternal "love" is involved, unless the mother has been severely psychologically damaged herself.

It's abuse, always has been abuse, and always will be abuse, crying women, or other emotions doesn't affect me one bit when I know what they've allowed or expected to be allowed to be done to their children.

Whatever else those kids get out of "foster" care, at least they'll counseling and information that they do have a choice in sexual activity and marriage.

[knitter4democracy]

17. After reading the article, it sounds like an interagency fight.

One of the MHMR ladies had to be removed from the shelter for giving out misinformation, MHMR is mad at CPS, CPS is mad at MHMR, and it sounds like they're all fighting each other. It's not that unusual, really, since they're often at odds with each other, having different purposes and different philosophies.

As for saying the mothers are perfect and all is sweetness and light, I wonder why anyone in the mental health field would say that? All abused kids withdraw? Really? I didn't as a kid--I knew what would happen if I gave any sign of being abused. I was coached. It's not that hard to coach a kid. I'm just saying, from my experience as a child, it's easy to fool some people and hide what's really going on.

It's almost like reading of some criminal how all the neighbors thought he was nice.

[truedelphi]

27. Here is the sort of thing being posted on blogs across the internets

Personal Rant on Blog - The author is one Timothy V Gatto

The most disturbing part of this entire episode is the follow-up of this story. Since April 8th, when the airwaves were blasted with video of the women being “rescued” and the church compound almost 24/7, the reports from the area abruptly stopped.

This just happened to occur at the same time that authorities admitted that they couldn’t find the “mystery caller”. I can’t believe that I am the only person in the country wondering what has happened since. I have a hard time understanding why the networks aren’t asking the government why they had to trample on the Bill of Rights. I want to know where the women who were “rescued” are now. I want to know if The First Baptist Church is still caring for them. I want to know why they couldn’t wait until they had solid evidence before they pulled this raid.

I want to know if anyone was disciplined for violating just about every amendment that comprises the Bill of Rights. Most importantly however, I want to know why the mainstream media has not followed up on this critically important story.
#######################################

As far as the last two sentences - I add my own personal "Amen!"

How come these police (or whoever) are taking actions tantamount to punishing/arresting the innocents involved? Why not go after the adult male perps?

Why do the network news people fail to ask the important questions? People, this is a police action on our soil.

In my opinion, we all need to think abt this. You go to a peace demonstration to protest the coming war in Iran. And a week later, your kids are taken from you because a lady, no identity offered, at a pay phone in Denver says she knows that you and your spouse are molesting your children. And that therefore the authorities are gonna put your kids in homeless shelters or in foster care. And if you have a problem with that, you can go molest yourself!!

[Warpy]

29. They need to run the DNA to find out which men

bedded which teenagers and produced which children.

At that point, I'm sure the men will be arrested and thrown in the clink with their prophet, Jeffs.

Until then, they're doing what they can with a population of women who have repeatedly changed their stories about which children belong to whom and with children who apparently don't have a clue who Mom or Dad really is.

It's a horrible situation, but that's not the fault of the women, the children or the Texas authorities. It's the fault of the old men who created a factory farm for young tail to amuse them in their dotage.