The So-Called “Informant” In The Polygamist Issue May Have Been A Fake - Arrest Made
It’s beginning to look like Texas authorities may have raided the polygamist compound based on a totally false complaint:
A former polygamist sect member says a Colorado Springs woman who called her posing as a young abused girl could be the same person whose complaints led to a massive child protection raid in West Texas.
Former Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints member Flora Jessop said in a phone interview today that she first received a call from a woman, since identified as Rozita Swinton of Colorado Springs, claiming to be Sarah on March 31.
Authorities say a girl with the same name called a San Angelo, Texas, hotline, March 29, claiming that she was 16 and “spiritually married’ to a man who would “beat and hurt her” whenever he became angry.
Texas Rangers have gone to Colorado and the woman has been arrested:
Swinton, 33, was arrested at her home Wednesday evening on charges of false reporting in two Colorado cases, but Texas Rangers were present for the arrest, Colorado Springs police said.
Being too quick to jump based on an anonymous complaint can have its consequenses, and this may be it.
Over 400 kids have been taken from their families over what could well be a false complaint. That, combined with a preconceived idea about the polygamists - whether it’s correct or not - has caused some serious pain in some innocent kids’ lives.
Small wonder they couldn’t find their informant. If this is factual she never was there in the first place.
I had other problems with this from the start. If there were valid problems within that community regarding sexual abuse or exploitation of minors - and there may have been - you still don’t round up everyone who lives there before any investigation is even done. That’s like arresting everyone in a theater because you got a tip that someone in there may have committed a crime.
This smelled bad from the start and even if that woman in Colorado isn’t guilty of initiating the whole shameful thing with a fake call, in my book it’s a stunning abuse of power.
And if she isn’t the “complainant” who is? We don’t know - and neither, apparently do Texas authorities at this time.
