Hildale/Colorado City - FLDS Losing Power?

[tropaka 143]

Not a good week for the FLDS I guess.  Please remove if posted elsewhere, but it seems there's a civil case against these two communities.  Jeffs' former body guard/attack dog has turned:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/25/us/jessop-flds-warren-jeffs-short-creek/index.html

 

Quote

As "Thug Willie," he defended his prophet with pit-bull ferocity. But by the time we meet in a fourth-floor hallway at the Sandra Day O'Connor federal courthouse, Willie Jessop has changed sides. He's the star government witness, testifying on behalf of outsiders he once considered his enemies.

He carries himself like a man determined to unburden his conscience even if it means turning against everyone and everything he once believed in.

Burly and middle-aged with a mop of brown hair, Jessop spent more than a decade as security chief and spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a polygamous sect that split from the mainstream Mormon church at the turn of the last century. As head of the "God Squad," he was perhaps the highest profile FLDS member -- with the exception of its prophet, Warren Jeffs.

For a while Jeffs occupied the same row as Osama bin Laden and Whitey Bulger on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Jessop admits on the witness stand that he once helped the fugitive prophet run from authorities. He describes one scheme in which Jeffs dodged a raid on the FLDS meeting house: While others rode out on four-wheelers as decoys, Jeffs and Jessop rode out in another direction on Honda motorcycles packed with cash and fake IDs. They raced up a dry creek bed to the airport.

At the civil trial, expected to go to the jury next week, the government is alleging that the FLDS runs Jessop's hometown like a theocracy, controlling virtually every aspect of life in Hildale, Utah, and its neighbor, Colorado City, Arizona. The cities and their shared police force discriminate against anyone who isn't FLDS, attorneys from the Justice Department's civil rights division contend.

But the cities say the federal government is discriminating against them -- and the FLDS -- because they practice a religion others don't like.

Only the cities are on trial; Jeffs and the FLDS are not named as defendants.

Jessop has been on the stand for most of the day when a government prosecutor finally poses the question everybody wants answered: Why did you switch sides?

Spectators lean forward in their seats only to be taken aback by the blunt response:

Willie Jessop was FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs' loyal enforcer. But no longer.

"Those sons of bitches were raping little girls down in Texas. I knew it and they knew I knew it, and this battle rages on today."

 

[FundieFarmer 14,888]

He's just one in a long line of people who have stood up and turned coat, with proof and evidence and everything else. It would be nice if those people were actually validated for once and something was done about it. Maybe because he's higher up it'll turn into something, but I'm guessing not since "only the cities are on trial; Jeffs and the FLDS are not named as defendants". 

I mean, we've known about this shit for years because of all of the things the survivors have had to say. When is something actually going to be done about it!?

Edited February 29, 2016 by FundieFarmer

[Whoosh 5,164]

TW - Willie J left the church a few years ago and has already won a lawsuit against them.  From what I know, he has been working quite hard to turn things around in this whole situation.  His "change of heart" or what have you came after he heard tapes either about or of Warren Jeffs assaulting young girls in Texas.  

This was discussed in the other FLDS thread - it may make sense to merge the two.  It is a great article to post as there's a LOT going on right now on several fronts with regard to the FLDS community.

[Howl 58,648]

There's more to come in the dismantling of the FLDS stranglehold in Short Creek.  Interesting that this was published by the Columbia Daily Tribune in Columbia, Missouri.   Apparently, though, many Mormons are returning to northeast Missouri, where important events happened in Mormon history.  But, I digress.  

Quote

Columbia Daily Tribune, July 24, 2016

Police leaders to back disbanding polygamous town marshals

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Federal prosecutors plan to bring a mix of law enforcement leaders and ex-sect members to a hearing in which they will ask a judge to disband the police department in a polygamous community on the Utah-Arizona border.

The disintegration of the town marshals is a proposed remedy after a jury concluded the sister towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., violated the constitutional rights of nonbelievers by denying them basic government services such as police protection, building permits and water hookups.

The towns fiercely oppose the idea, saying problems at the agency don’t require such a drastic step....

....Justice officials contend the slate needs to be wiped clean because of the deep-rooted control of the town marshals by leaders of a polygamous sect run by imprisoned leader Warren Jeffs.

Justice attorneys say less severe remedies, such as assigning an outside monitor to the department, wouldn’t be sufficient to change the culture. They say 30 percent of town marshals over the last 15 years have been decertified, including four chiefs since Jeffs took over in the early 2000s.

The towns say they can resolve their problems through policy changes and employee training and should be able to demonstrate their compliance through reports and documents.

This would be an incredible step forward for those in the community who are not FLDS.  I'd have to agree that current FLDS LEOs are incorrigible and no amount of retraining will work to change their basic beliefs and allegiances.  

Short Creek is getting a taste of freedom and justice; no one can take it back to the old days. 

Edited July 27, 2016 by Howl

[withaj 6,770]

On July 26, 2016 at 11:14 PM, Howl said:

There's more to come in the dismantling of the FLDS stranglehold in Short Creek.  Interesting that this was published by the Columbia Daily Tribune in Columbia, Missouri.   Apparently, though, many Mormons are returning to northeast Missouri, where important events happened in Mormon history.  But, I digress.  

This would be an incredible step forward for those in the community who are not FLDS.  I'd have to agree that current FLDS LEOs are incorrigible and no amount of retraining will work to change their basic beliefs and allegiances.  

Short Creek is getting a taste of freedom and justice; no one can take it back to the old days. 

I saw recently in a Colorado City Facebook group that they have been hiring new police officers, or at least soliciting applications. New blood would be good (well, it probably wouldn't be new blood if they're locals, but I digress...). There are a growing number of ex-FLDS members who have remained in the area and are working hard to change the community. Someone like that with real insight into FLDS happenings would be ideal to have on the police force.

[Howl 58,648]

Yes, I'm sure there is some sense of a new beginning, and I hope it works out that way.  Knowing there is a real police force that is not just an extension of FLDS would probably embolden even more people to escape or just leave. 

[Iokaste 1,439]

I watched this older (1988/89?) documentary on polygamist mormon splinter-groups last night. Several times Short Creek, present day Hildale/Colorado City, is refered to as "Short Hill". 
At 10.28 the name is used in a vintage newsreel about the 1953 raid, at 12.38 it's used again in an intro to a segment about the FLDS. Dan Barlow, FLDS mayor of the town, might even be using it himself.
Has anyone hear that name before? Is it to blur what town they are really talking about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NXpIaX05Io 

The docu is kind of slow and there was nothing in it I didn't already know, but we do meet Mable Allred, one of Rulon Allreds twin sister-wives, the two mother-daughter pairs that make up the wives of Tom Green at that point (Linda is 17 here) and most interestingly we get a glimpse of an 80ies Colorado City/Hildale in which the girls and women have long hair and modest, frilly dresses but nothing coming close to the praire dresses and elaborate hairmesses of the YFC Ranch-era, the girls are even shown playing soccer, with boys!  

[Howl 58,648]

yes, I think things went to hell when Warren Jeffs ascended to the throne. He's as crazy as a bed bug; it seems the more perverted he became, the more restrictive he was about the details of other people's lives.