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Texas Authorities Were Waiting for an Excuse to Enter the YFZ Ranch

2010-01-21 11:18:05

By Donald Richter

 

Prior to the hoax phone calls that triggered the 2008 raid on the YFZ Ranch, Texas law enforcement and CPS were poised and ready to conduct an invasion. All they needed was a plausible excuse to obtain a search warrant.
 
During a Rule 15 interview with attorney Michael Piccarreta, Ranger Brooks Long made somewhat evasive statements concerning a meeting that was held after Flora Jessop’s March 25, 2004, press conference with David Doran in front of the Schleicher County Sheriff's Office: “…I was present myself, Captain Caver, Lt. Bullock was present at a meeting in Schleicher County with the AG’s Office and some federal agencies discussing what, that the FLDS was out there and there may have been a discussion amongst the federal agencies about their plan, not me.”[i]
 
Questioned more particularly by Mr. Piccarreta about a planned entry of the Ranch, Ranger Long initially admitted that there was one and then attempted to undo his answer by feigning ignorance: “Yeah, there was, there may or may have, I don’t recollect that there was but it could’ve been brought up.”[ii]
 
When the Schleicher County Sheriff’s Office received the initial report from NewBridge concerning the alleged “Sarah,” Deputy George Arispe took the call then handed the phone to Sheriff Doran. Upon receiving the information from the Crisis Center, Doran placed a call to Ranger Brooks Long.[iii] We can almost hear him saying, “Brooks, we’ve got what we’ve been waiting for.”
 
That Long was well aware of a plan to involve both state and federal authorities in an invasion of the Ranch is further suggested by the fact that as soon as it appeared that law enforcement would be going into the Ranch in response to the “Sarah” calls he contacted the FBI office in San Angelo to let them know what was going on. FBI agent Rick Phagen accompanied Long to Sterling City on April 3, when he was trying to find Judge Walther to sign the search warrant and was present with him when the warrant finally was signed in San Angelo.[iv]
 
The Associated Press reported one week after the raid that “State troopers put into action the plan they had on the shelf to enter the 1,700-acre compound…” The article reporting this information is subtitled “After four-year inquiry, sheriff says he got legal ground to act last week.”[v]
 
Additional evidence of a preplanned invasion was given by Sheriff Doran himself in an interview with Randy Mankin, published in the Eldorado Success two weeks after the raid:
 
Mankin: That’s a big operation to put together in three days, surely law enforcement must have had a preliminary plan in place ready to deal with this kind of eventuality?
 
Doran: Let’s just say that law enforcement was and is prepared to answer a cry for help at the YFZ Ranch.[vi]
 
 Doran seemed to realize that he had revealed too much in this statement and in a subsequent interview with the Deseret News tried to cover himself by suggesting that the whole invasion had been arranged on the spur of the moment:
 
Deseret News: There was such a huge response with sheriffs from numerous counties, an armored personnel carrier, snipers. Was there ever a contingency plan in place for the eventuality of going out on the ranch? You can’t just call all those resources overnight.
 
Doran: Yeah, you can. When the call came in, the plan was formulated immediately how to logistically go in there and do it in the most calm and low-profile manner that we could….[vii]
 
Amazing! One has to wonder what the invasion would have been like if it hadn’t been such a “low-profile” affair. Add a bomber squad or two?
 
When law enforcement and CPS entered the Ranch, it is obvious they had much more in mind than just finding “Sarah.” Sgt. Aaron Grigsby reported: “At approximately 2:15 pm [April 3, 2008], law enforcement agencies from the area massed for the operational briefing involving the approach of the YFZ Ranch and entry onto the facility to check the safety of the juveniles at the ranch and check for evidence of any crimes against the children present.”[viii]
 
When Brooks Long was on the witness stand at the suppression hearing in May of 2009, the following interchange took place:
 
Q. Ranger Long, what was the whole purpose behind getting the search warrant to begin in [sic]?
A. To give us a vehicle to enter into the ranch legally.[ix] [Not to find Sarah or Dale.]
 
Investigative supervisor Angie Voss testified at the 14-day hearing concerning the broader intent of the CPS involvement:
 
Q. And you were only asking about Sarah, or were you asking about other things too?
A. Other things, too. We were doing an investigation.[x]
 
Circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that CPS officials had in place a plan to remove the children from the Ranch before the authorities ever set foot on the property. After obtaining entrance to the Ranch on the evening of April 3, CPS investigators spent the night interviewing girls between the ages of seven and seventeen. In the early hours of April 4, Angie Voss approached Brooks Long for assistance from law enforcement to remove eighteen girls between the ages of seven and seventeen, saying she had obtained an order from Judge Walther.[xi] When Long protested that officers had not yet made their search for the caller and asked that the request be put in writing, Ms. Voss produced the following note, asking assistance in removing not just the girls but all of the children:
 
April 4, 2008
 
On behalf of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Child Protective Services, that Brooks Long and other Law Enforcement officers assist myself and fellow Protective Staff in extracting all the children located at the compound from the premises. I have spoken with Judge Walthers [sic] who advised me that it is her Order that C.P.S. take immediate possession of the children located here.
 
Angie Voss
CPS Supervisor[xii]
 
When she was questioned later at the 14-day hearing, Angie Voss denied that she was the one who had made the decision to remove the children:
 
Q. So I assume by that, you’re the one that made this decision?
A. No, sir.
Q. Oh, who made it?
A. With information I provided my program director, my program administrator, our regional director and I believe several persons from our state office came.[xiii]
 
It is inconceivable that these officials came onto the Ranch during the first night of the raid and made such a decision and highly unlikely that Ms. Voss even discussed the matter with them over the phone in the middle of the night. If there is any truth at all in her assertion regarding who made the decision, the matter must have been discussed and decided some time before the raid.
 
Texas officials had been waiting for some time for just such an excuse as was provided by the “Sarah” calls. Consider the statement of Harvey Hilderbran quoted in the New York Times shortly after the raid:
 
The Texas lawmaker who represents Eldorado, Representative Harvey Hilderbran, a Republican, said the authorities had been looking for a tool, if not a spark, to combat the particular form of polygamy that arrived here in 2003, when the group’s members came from Utah and Arizona….
 
“We’ve been fighting this for awhile, trying to do something about it,” Mr. Hilderbran said. “But we needed a complaint. You can’t just say: ‘Golly, I can’t get into that ranch, I bet you lots of awful stuff is going on in there.’”
 
Mr. Hilderbran said that based on recent conversations with law enforcement officials, they had been poised to respond if and when a cry for help came.[xiv]
 
What we are looking at here is much more than just being prepared ahead of time. Law enforcement misled the court as to their real purpose in obtaining a search warrant; they neglected to make even a routine investigation of the “Sarah” calls before assembling a small army for invasion; they twisted any “evidence” to fit their preconceived notions of what they would find when they got on the Ranch; they have purposely avoided filing charges against the woman responsible for the hoax phone calls lest their flimsy pretext for obtaining a search warrant be further exposed; and they are currently in the process of carrying out a vindictive prosecution of selected FLDS men in a desperate attempt to justify the atrocities they committed during the raid.
 

And why should this bother anyone besides the FLDS? When the constitutional rights of any people are infringed upon, a precedent is set that threatens the freedom of every citizen. The cause of any minority group is really the cause of all Americans.


[i] Lt. Brooks Long, Rule 15 Interview, State vs. Jeffs, CR2007-953, 18 Dec. 2008, 22.
[ii] Ibid., 23.
[iii] Sheriff David Doran, Rule 15 Interview, State vs. Jeffs, CR2007-953, 18 Dec. 2008, 21.
[iv] Long, 64, 62.
[v] “Texas Authorities Defend Sect Raid,” MSNBC.com, 10 Apr. 2008.
[vi] “Interview with Sheriff Doran,” Eldorado Success, 17 April 2008.
[vii] “News Interview with Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran of Texas,” Deseret News, 4 June 2008. (Emphasis added)
[viii] DPS Sgt. Aaron Grigsby, Report of Investigation, p.2, ¶ 1.2. (Emphasis added)
[ix] Motion to Suppress Hearing, Schleicher County, Texas, 51st Judicial District Court, 15 May 2009, vol. 8, p. 92.
[x] “14-Day Adversary Hearing,” 17 April 2008, 147.
[xi] Brooks Long, Report of Investigation, 1 July 2008, 7.
[xii] Copy of handwritten note in State of Texas vs. Alan Keate, State’s Discovery.
[xiii] “14-Day Adversary Hearing,” 17 April 2008, 294-295.
[xiv] Kirk Johnson, “Texas Polygamy Raid May Pose Risk,” New York Times, 12 April 2008. (Emphasis added)


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