The chief law enforcer in two Utah-Arizona border towns is accused of misconduct for pledging allegiance to the leader of a polygamous sect who was on the FBI’s most wanted list.
“I love you and … know that you have the right to rule in all aspects of my life,” Fred Barlow wrote in an October 2005 letter to Warren Jeffs. “Without priesthood I am nothing.”
Barlow warmly addressed Jeffs as “Uncle Warren” and closed the letter by referring to himself as Jeffs’ “servant.”
Barlow is the police chief of a joint department serving Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah. Jeffs is the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which has 10,000 followers in those two towns.
The FLDS church practices polygamy and congregants revere Jeffs as a prophet and are taught to be obedient, including marrying at his behest.
The Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board is using the letter as evidence in one of three misconduct charges against Barlow, who could lose his certification. The Salt Lake Tribune obtained the letter and published it Friday.
Separately, the Utah Peace Officer Standards and Training Council this week voted to conduct its own probe of the police force, whose officers are accused of being too loyal to Jeffs.
Not a bad example of the reasoning behind separation of church and state.
One word: ICK!
The old saying that that the biggest nuts comes from Virginia just isn’t true anymore…
It might seem surprising, but a lot of these polygamists have an uncanny brainwashing ability, like a leader of a cult or something.
And you thought Polygamy was to “get the chicks”!
Jeffs regularly ‘gives’ adolescent girls to icky old men as ‘brides.’ This is beyond creepy, it’s criminal. For a stomach turning glimpse into this twisted world, check out Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven.
C’mon, people! Could someone tell me why it is more or less acceptable to be gay these days and it is still not all right to have more than the traditional number of partners in a family? They are all consenting adults, leave them alone!
#6.
You mean these underage girls he has been setting up with really old palygimist should just be left alone?
#6 – It is not “more or less acceptable” to be gay these days… It’s clearly acceptable to any logical and reasonable person… and anyone else’s opinion shouldn’t matter.
And, there is nothing wrong with polygamy either… except in the case of these sad people under the control of a charismatic cult leader, who doles out children as sex slaves to sick and mysogenist religious freaks of the older male persuation. We aren’t talking about consenting adults here. We are talking about theist whack jobs. They need to be rounded up, charged with every last crime we can find that will fit, and locked away.
I guess his “total allegiance” was a double-edged sword – it cuts both ways…
ps – is fighting against polygamy just fighting against one particular facet of the arab world? (as in the harem)? and if so, is it helping to win the war on terror? cuz I dont see it working over here…
To say that Warren Jeffs little operation there is a cult is to put it mildly. Here is basically what he is up to and how he makes his money.
Step 1: Learn everything he can from his father about FLDS. His father was the previous ‘prophet’ as they say, and bilked people and the goverment for millions during his lifetime, all the while spreading the joys of polygamy, incest, child sexual abuse, fraud, and oh, the word of God.
Step 2: Declare himself a ‘prophet’ after his father gets senile.
Step 3: Make himself up a bunch of new rules to go with the old rules his father had. Rules such as: your money, your women, your thoughts, your freedoms, your children, your lifestyle and your rights are mine, mine, mine. God told him to do this personally.
Step 4: Keep selected trusted older men around to help him run things by marrying them to children age 12 to 18. Jeffs tells the men God told him they should be celestially married and it is ok to have sex with underage children.
Step 5 (the money maker): Older men get younger women pregnant, they in turn go on welfare, food stamps, assorted government assistance, what have you. Younger women not being ‘officially’ married are eligible for these government services and have obtained over 100 million US dollars in the past 20 years. Younger women donate all money to the FLDS church and the church in turn provides for them (kinda heh). Younger women pump out the babies, the church keeps the girl babies for future profits and pretty much kicks the boy babies out on their own once they turn 18 and are no longer eligible for benefits under their mothers house. Baby girls grow up (once again, kinda), you give them ‘church school’ and marry them off to the older men hanging about. In other words keep em young, dumb, barefoot and pregnant.
Step 6: Rinse and repeat as many times as necessary. Feel free to make up new ‘prophet’ rules as needed, after all Jeffs talks to God all the time.
The governments of Arizona and Utah have until very recently condoned this behavior for more than a century. Why? Because the mainstream LDS church turns a blind eye towards their ‘wayward’ brothers and the LDS church controls or is made up of most politicians in these two states.
Heck of a way to be one of the ‘chosen’ peoples huh. That ‘Chief’ should be arrested along with most the police force in Colorado City for co-conspiracy to commit fraud, rape, child abuse, child sexual exploitation and extortion.
I blame this on the Mormon Church. And I blame the pedophile priest problem on the Catholic Church. (I was raised Catholic so I am not prejudiced). The Mormons have turned a blind eye to this behaviour and it is the so called Church that needs to step up to the plate to denounce this kind of criminal behaviour. Stop hiding behind God/ government and do something about this abomination. The Feds need to take a look at a compound near Mancos, Colorado for more of the same.
Re: #10
Oops, misspelled ‘Prophet’.
Prophet = Profit
Substitute as required 🙂
#11, no, the Mormons have not turned a blind eye to this. The leadership of the LDS church has strongly and formally condemned this behavior on many, many occasions. The practices of the FLDS church are not the at the blame of the LDS church, no matter how much ignorance-based over-simplification and hatred may want them to be.
#13
And the shouts of denial from the mainstream LDS church begin. Subtle name calling and innuendo accomplish nothing, much like the LDS churches ‘condemnations’ of the FLDS sects.
Why does the Leadership of the LDS church not !LEAD! in the battle against these FLDS cults that so disgrace the Latter Day Saints? Why did the gospel and teachings of Joseph Bishop and Brigham Young within the Latter Day Saints during the early years of the church (mid 1800s) condone and popularize these practices within the church? How come the current leaders like to change the Doctrine and Covenants? Did God change his mind? Answer that instead of calling people names. We don’t hate you, we wonder why and how you become so brainwashed with pure poppy-wash. If your leaders have to call themselves a ‘prophet’ (and the mainstream LDS church is indeed led by a ‘prophet’, sorry – errr ‘president’ now, Gordon B. Hinckley) they are not one.
I for one am totally for freedom of religion. People are going to believe spiritually what they will. But lets make it an informed educated decision and if not, then let the message of right and justice bring the lost into the light.