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Fort Concho in San Angelo, Texas, was established along the banks of the Concho River in 1867 as a military post to protect the frontier settlements and was last used by troops in 1889. It is today a National Historic Landmark and museum, spreading over about forty acres and including seventeen restored buildings. To visit the fort on a school outing would be a holiday for any group of children, but to be crowded into the old barracks buildings and stables and guarded like prisoners of war made the FLDS families who were removed from their homes following the raid of April 3, 2008, feel as though they were in a concentration camp.

 

Girls between the ages of seven and seventeen were removed from the Ranch for questioning on the morning of April 4. The girls and their mothers were told that they would be back shortly, possibly within a couple of hours. Many of them already had been interrogated most of the previous night at the schoolhouse. After spending part of a day at the Civic Center in Eldorado and the following day at the Baptist Church, the girls were taken to Fort Concho on April 6 and placed in what were designated as Shelters 1 and 2. All of the children and their mothers were removed from the Ranch in the next few days after the girls were taken. The first of these were housed briefly at the Civic Center and then transferred to the fort. At the time they were moved, they were told that they were being transferred to a nicer facility where they could all be together. Some of the mothers had not yet seen their daughters since the girls were taken to the Civic Center on April 4. Later groups of women and children were bused from the ranch directly to the fort. 

 

When the first of the mothers and children arrived at Fort Concho, some of the motherless girls in Shelter 2 received permission to come over and greet their mothers and siblings. But as more and more people rushed out of each shelter and daughters ran to the open arms of their mothers, six or eight policemen surrounded the mothers and told everyone to return to their own shelters. In spite of the promises previously made to both groups, most of the mothers and daughters were not reunited as long as they remained in the shelters. At shift change that night, a CPS worker arranged for two of the girls to be brought over to join the families in Shelter 3. As would be the case with most of the workers who showed kindness or sympathy toward the FLDS captives, this worker was transferred elsewhere or fired the next morning. At first CPS and the police were careful to make sure that there was no additional contact between the shelters. If anyone even tried to wave, police immediately came over and ordered everyone back into their own shelter. After a few days these restrictions were relaxed somewhat, however, and families were allowed to wave at the girls and blow them hugs and kisses if they did not step off the porch of their shelter. Later those in different shelters sang songs back and forth to each other or shouted “We love you” in unison so that their voices would carry to those standing outside the other shelter.

 

One of the difficulties faced by those confined at the fort was the lack of restroom facilities for the large number of people in each shelter. There were about 200 people in one of the shelters, but the ladies’ restroom had only three regular stalls and one large stall set up to change babies. With a single three-foot mirror over the sink, there was only room for two people to comb hair at once. One mother said that she spent about three hours each morning combing her own hair and others’ hair because of the lack of mirrors and bathrooms. Mothers brought both their girls and their little boys into this restroom to change clothes, not feeling it safe to send their boys alone into the men’s restroom. There were often as many as seventeen people lined up to use the restroom, and little children often had an accident before they could get in. There was no place to bathe a baby in private. One young mother found a baby tub, asked for a pitcher or something to fill the tub from the bathroom sink, and was handed an eight-ounce cup. Because the shower trailer was always full with a long line waiting, this mother didn’t get a shower herself for five days.  

 

The limited restroom facilities were not the only hardship faced by the women and children at Fort Concho. Several mothers mentioned the filthy conditions into which they had been moved. Shelter 4 was the old stables. The concrete floors were covered with straw and dirt. Anything that fell on them came up dirty, and crawling babies had black hands and knees. Fortunately, this was one condition the people could do something about, and mothers and girls set to work immediately with brooms and mops while older boys cleaned graffiti off the walls. They had less control over the cold nights. Each person was furnished a cot, a plastic pillow with no pillowcase, and two thin blankets that were more like sheets. Families who had just arrived at the fort spent the first night tossing, turning, and shivering. Those housed in the stables were especially exposed to the cold because the large overhead door was left open most of the night. By the end of two days, children who were in perfect health when they arrived had runny noses and were starting to cough. By the time the families left the fort, almost every child was sick. Obtaining medicine also was a challenge. Mothers had to walk a quarter of a mile down the road to the nurses’ station and then were given only a single dose and would have to repeat the process every four hours.

 

The general sickness among the people was caused in part by the unfamiliar food. Children accustomed to wholesome, natural foods without preservatives and processing were fed on corn dogs and soda pop, causing many of them to have upset stomachs and diarrhea. One boy vomited three times in a single day because his system couldn’t tolerate the processed food. Fortunately, the food situation did improve shortly as a sincere effort was made to provide more natural foods. Processed snacks were replaced by apples and oranges, and the cooks even came to the mothers to learn how to make bread and cook eggs and oatmeal cereal the way the children were used to.

 

Mothers and children supposedly had been victims in need of rescuing, but ironically the most disturbing condition at Fort Concho as well as at the later shelters was the restrictive prison-camp environment these so-called “victims” endured at the hands of their deliverers. Families were subjected to constant supervision as CPS workers continually walked through the sleeping areas at night. Mothers were hesitant to leave their sleeping children to go to the restroom; and when they did, they were always accompanied by a CPS worker, who waited by the stall and then escorted the mother back to her cot. Mothers didn’t trust the CPS guards and organized their own night watch. One mother said she didn’t even take her shoes off for five days. She was not sure what CPS was planning to do and whether they might take the children at night. The fear of having their children taken unexpectedly was more than an unfounded paranoia. Another mother went to the restroom, leaving three children just outside the door. When she came out, they were gone, and no one would give her any details of what had happened. She did not find her children again for two hours. A CPS worker had taken them for questioning.

 

The mothers had limited communication with their families outside their immediate shelter and with their attorneys because their cell phones were confiscated on April 7, shortly after their arrival at the fort. Although the phones were returned briefly on April 10, they were confiscated again on the 13^th on the excuse that all of the people were potential witnesses and the authorities could not have them being contaminated by outside sources. The mothers were suspicious that the order to confiscate their phones had more to do with their efforts to tell their side of the story to the media. Several mothers had talked to reporters from the Deseret News and shared pictures taken with their cell phones. A special media presentation aired at 9:00 a.m. on April 13, featuring phone conversations with three of the mothers. At 9:20 a.m. an order came to confiscate the phones. At one shelter some of the young ladies hid a phone in a box with a pair of tights and put it in the refrigerator. When the officers were confiscating the phones and searching for hidden phones, one young lady got uneasy and told the officer they had a hidden phone in the room but that she would like to see him find it. “Just give it to me,” he said. “This isn’t a game.” She laughed at him and replied, “But I would like to see you find it.”  He repeated his request, and she finally gave in and handed him the phone. 

 

An ominous foreshadowing of later separations of families occurred on April 10 when the boys between ages twelve and seventeen were removed from their mothers and siblings just at bedtime and placed in a separate location designated as Shelter 7. Both the mothers and the boys pleaded to be left together, but one CPS worker insisted that it was not proper for teenage boys to be sleeping in the same room as the ladies of whatever age. During the entire time they were in the shelters, however, the mothers were concerned about the numerous male CPS workers who wandered through the sleeping areas every night. Most every person was weeping at the separation as mothers hugged their sons and said goodbye. The following day a CPS worker asked the boys at their new shelter what sports or games they wanted him to bring them. The boys responded that they enjoyed working in the garden and were grateful when he brought them some rakes.

 

Interrogations of the mothers and children were frequent while they were at the fort. One young lady had to undergo several pregnancy tests to prove that she was not pregnant or sexually abused. CPS was always looking for signs of abuse, and mothers were questioned about every scratch or red spot on their children. One little boy rolled off his cot at night and crushed his ear against the concrete floor, causing a bad bruise and swelling. The mother showed her son to a CPS worker and told her how unsafe it was for the children to sleep on the narrow cots when they were used to larger beds and carpeted floors. The worker’s only response was, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” In recounting the experience, the mother observed, “It was not considered abuse after she knew that it had happened since we were at the fort.”

 

CPS treatment of one young mother named Sarah goes a long way towards refuting the assertion that CPS was really interested in rescuing women and children. Because of her name and apparent age, she was considered a prime suspect for being the “Sarah” who had triggered the raid. CPS took her from her baby and questioned her for four hours, threatening to isolate her and not let her have her baby if she wouldn’t talk. When she still would not say what her interrogators wanted to hear, they called the court for an attorney to represent her and tell her to talk. Andrea Sloan, an attorney specializing in domestic violence cases, recognized at once that something was wrong because instead of being treated with kindness and understanding, the supposed “victim” was being treated like a criminal and placed in isolation. Andrea persuaded CPS to return Sarah’s baby and had her own interview. Sarah, by this point, was mistrustful of everyone, and was kept in isolation until the women and younger children were moved to the Coliseum. When she learned that the others were being transferred to another facility, she managed to call Andrea, who worked until 10:00 p.m. arranging to have her moved also. CPS had falsely claimed to Andrea that this young mother had confessed that she really was the “Sarah” they were looking for.

 

Many of the experiences to which the families were subjected tested to the core their ability to follow the teachings they had been given by their religious leaders to love and forgive even those who mistreated them. Marie Musser expressed the concept very beautifully in her journal:

 

 

As we look back at these experiences a year later, we gratefully acknowledge the hand of our Father in Heaven in delivering practically all of the mothers and children; and we trust in faith that the one girl still in captivity will soon be restored to her family. The memories remain, and many women and children have been scarred for life by the abuses they endured at the hands of their so-called “deliverers.”  But at least the healing process has begun.