Mothers separated from their children after the police raid on a polygamist compound in West Texas have spoken out for the first time, denouncing the authorities in tear-filled accounts.
The interviews, with reporters invited to the compound, the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, Tex., about three hours northwest of San Antonio, made a powerful public relations salvo on Tuesday, two days before a court hearing in San Angelo, Tex.
The hearing may decide the custody of more than 400 children whom the state took into custody in the raid.
“I’m not going to just sit and wait,” said Monica, who like all the interviewees gave just a first name.
“I have to do something every day to let them know that I want my children back,” she said in a video on The Deseret News Web site in Salt Lake City.
Kathleen said she and the others were setting the record straight, that children in her community are not abused.
“The world has been so prejudiced against us,” Kathleen said in an interview with CNN posted on YouTube.com. “They have a false image.”
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which has temporary custody of the children, responded on its Web site. Mothers from the fundamentalist sect, the statement said, “have been unable to protect these children from abuse.”
On Monday, the agency moved many of the children to the San Angelo Coliseum, separating older children from their mothers, most of whom returned to the compound, about 45 miles away.
“It was absolutely necessary,” the agency said. “Investigators will never learn the full truth as long as adults who encourage a code of silence are standing over these children’s shoulders.”
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The interviews, with reporters invited to the compound, the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, Tex., about three hours northwest of San Antonio, made a powerful public relations salvo on Tuesday, two days before a court hearing in San Angelo, Tex.
The hearing may decide the custody of more than 400 children whom the state took into custody in the raid.
“I’m not going to just sit and wait,” said Monica, who like all the interviewees gave just a first name.
“I have to do something every day to let them know that I want my children back,” she said in a video on The Deseret News Web site in Salt Lake City.
Kathleen said she and the others were setting the record straight, that children in her community are not abused.
“The world has been so prejudiced against us,” Kathleen said in an interview with CNN posted on YouTube.com. “They have a false image.”
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which has temporary custody of the children, responded on its Web site. Mothers from the fundamentalist sect, the statement said, “have been unable to protect these children from abuse.”
On Monday, the agency moved many of the children to the San Angelo Coliseum, separating older children from their mothers, most of whom returned to the compound, about 45 miles away.
“It was absolutely necessary,” the agency said. “Investigators will never learn the full truth as long as adults who encourage a code of silence are standing over these children’s shoulders.”
Discuss Add this link to... Bury
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