Dear friends and supporters of the AAAP's efforts to shine the light on the abuses inherent in the practice of polygamy, both here and around the globe, we need your help!
Late last week, Mohave County Supervisor Buster Johnson released a press release with Flora Jessop, American Polygamy Survivor and founder and executive director of the Child Protection Project. This press release revealed that a Mohave County judge, in tandem with Arizona CPS has sent a boy from Lake Havasu City, Arizona to be fostered, and possibly adopted by a single man, formerly a member of the FLDS, in Colorado City, AZ.
For this judge or CPS to send a child into such a community, one under investigation and indictment of the U.S. Department of Justice, and with a long history of abuse and neglect of children is, we believe, unconscionable. If after reading the letter below, you agree that Colorado City is not a place the government should be sending any child, please ACT!
Please consider adding your endorsement to a letter we are sending to this judge. Please share this appeal with your friends by email or on your social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter, My Space, Tumbler, whatever you use.
This is urgent and we do not have much time to help prevent this boy and others from being sent to Colorado City.
Dear Presiding Judge Charles Gurtler,
It has come to the attention of Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy (AAAP) and other organizations and individuals involved in the long battle against the worldwide human rights abuse of polygamy, that you have recently approved the transfer of at least one male child, and possibly more, into the care of an individual by the name of Dan Wayman in Colorado City, for the purposes of foster care and possibly permanent adoption.
Members of the AAAP wish to express our objection to sending any child to the community of Colorado City, Arizona, infamous for flaunting the felony crime and human rights abuse of polygamy. Colorado City is comprised of a population virtually 100% loyal to the cult leader and convicted child predator, Warren Steed Jeffs.
The AAAP and other concerned individuals and organizations, both domestic and international, would like to know to what extent your Honor is aware of the following situations:
1. Colorado City law enforcement is currently the subject of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for blatant civil rights violations of its citizens. The complaint alleges discrimination based on religion in violation of the Fair Housing Act, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
2. In the last 15 year period, even though the population of Colorado City is well over 5,000 people, Mohave County prosecutors have failed to prosecute a single solitary case of domestic violence in the city. This means, your Honor, either domestic violence is literally nonexistent in Colorado City or community members leaders, including elected officials and law enforcement, have successfully conspired to conceal all incidences of domestic violence in Colorado City for almost two decades.
3. There are documented, multiple, unmarked children's graves in the Short Creek polygamous community, and the Mohave County Medical Examiner has never conducted an autopsy on any child's body, even when unusual circumstances, such as poisoning, were present or when presented the highly irregular accident statistics for children in the community. For instance, in a community of less than 6,000 people, the same number of toddlers who died in "back over" car accidents in the state of Connecticut with a population of more than 3 million people, was achieved by the Short Creek community in the same time period. However, in Short Creek, local law enforcement "signed off" on the accidental deaths, and no further investigation was ever performed. For many years in Colorado City, town leaders were provided stacks of pre-signed death certificates, which were never independently investigated by the county, the state or anyone else. The community's cemetery, as it turns out, is comprised of 50% children's bodies. In over seven years of research, activists have never been able to document the same phenomenon in any other cemetery in America.
4. The law enforcement of the community regularly enforces, not the law of the land, but the dictates of Warren Jeffs, who is currently serving a life sentence for the sexual assault of female children in Texas.
5. The entire community of Colorado City is comprised of adults openly practicing a felony crime, and raising children to believe they will suffer Hell for eternity unless they also grow up to commit the felony crime.
6. The community is notorious for the exploitation of child labor and child abandonment, especially of male children.
7. Current evidence in the hands of the Canadian authorities including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as well as the Texas Rangers and the Texas Attorney General, indicates the Colorado City community has been repeatedly utilized as a hub for the international human trafficking of children for the purpose of their sexual exploitation.
8. Dan Wayman, to whom you are sending children in Colorado City, has been the subject of more than one court order of protection involving his own children in the past.
9. Boys who have been sent by Arizona CPS to Mr. Wayman's custody for foster care say they were locked, by outside key, into their room. Children sent to Mr. Wayman have described him as "creepy."
10. Court Appointed Special Advocates for these boys have recommended that their best interests would not be served by warehousing them inside such a dysfunctional and remote community as Colorado City.
Members of Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy, as well as numerous other human rights organizations, ministries, survivors of polygamy and concerned individuals, respectfully ask you to revisit and reverse your decision to send already at-risk children into another potentially dangerous situation of neglect and abuse. Those children are effectively being banished to a community infamous for unchecked and egregious crimes against children.
Sincerely,
K. Dee Ignatin
Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy
Executive Director
Please add your voice today, to let this judge know that the world is watching what he does with vulnerable children. To lend your endorsement to this letter, and stand with the AAAP, please send an email to polygamyisacrime@aol.com with your e-endorsement. An example follows:
Jane K. Doe
American Polygamy Survivor [Any title or credential you want to include]
2933 W. Lydius St.
New York, NY 12345-6789
(555) 512-0000
janedoe@me.com
A brief statement can be included below such as
“I wholeheartedly
endorse the opposing stance of the group Americans Against the Abuses of Polygamy
regarding sending foster children to this enclave of polygamy, child sexual and
physical abuse, and forced labor of minors.”
