Opinion

An Independent Attitude

DFPS commissioner should be held accountable

Hardly anyone who follows the news could have missed the ongoing saga of the state of Texas versus the Yearning for Zion Ranch and its residents, members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Publisher George Schwarz

By way of recap, the case exploded April 3, when Department of Family and Protective Services officials responded to a "tip" that the church's polygamist beliefs also involved child abuse by forcing teens under the age of 17 to marry. And to submit, it would seem, to the consummation of those marriages.

The full power and force of the state swooped down on the ranch near Eldorado, taking mothers and children of both genders out of the compound and placing them in foster care scattered through Texas. Some of the boys ended up at Cal Farley's Boys Ranch.

Here is a verbatim release from DFPS officials on April 8, "DFPS received a report that a 16-year-old girl was being sexually and physically abused. A girl called a family violence shelter twice (over the weekend of March 29-30) She was seeking help to leave the compound and indicated she was wife number ‘7' of a 49 year old man and who she married when she was 15.

"The report indicated she had been at the compound for three years, and she had been physically abused since shortly after she arrived.

"She said her ‘husband' beat her and hurt her whenever he became angry and, in one case, broke some of her ribs. She said she got her hands on someone else's cell phone and called the shelter for help. The Shelter called in the report to the Abuse/Neglect hotline.

"During the investigation CPS investigators found a number of young, pregnant, teenage girls, as well as several teenage girls who had already given birth to children.

"Based on that ann (sic) other observations and interviews, investigators determined that there was a widespread practice of conditioning young girls to accept becoming the ‘spiritual' wives of older men and to have sex with them.

"Based on the finding of our joint investigation with law enforcement, CPS concluded these children were in immediate danger of continuing abuse and a district judge agreed."

The latest posting, as of May 27, on DFPS' media Web site is May 19. It doesn't mention the latest news: The Texas Court of Appeals last week rebuked state officials and the district judge, ruling the children were taken illegally from their homes and parents based on evidence that was flawed. "Flawed" is a kind word for it. In copyright stories, the Houston Chronicle (and others) reported the evidence DFPS used to make its case simply wasn't true.

I am not countenancing child abuse of any kind.

But if state officials are going to throw the weight of the state at someone, they better have the facts, and so far the court has ruled they don't.

How much has this cost the Texas taxpayers so far? According to the state's Health and Human Services System estimates, as of May 15, this fiasco has cost taxpayers — that's you and me — more than $5 million, and we're still adding up the costs.

What is disturbing in all the news coverage of this attack on the polygamy sect is that the "information" from the state is being put out by a "spokesman."

Nowhere in any of the coverage I've read or seen am I finding the name of any single person making or taking responsibility for the decision.

Not Gov. Rick Perry. Not HHS Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins. Not Carey Cockerell, DFPS commissioner.

I learned, by asking the simple question, who made the decisions to initiate the action and who is making the decisions to continue the action by asking the state supreme court to take the case.

You learned it here first from The Amarillo Independent.

Cockerell himself made the decisions, said DFPS spokeswoman Shari Pulliam.

That's where the buck stops and who in the state government, paid through the collection of our hard-earned tax dollars, should be held accountable now for this debacle.

George Schwarz: Editor and publisher of the Amarillo Independent. george@amarilloindy.com

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Posted: May 29, 2008