I woke up this morning to the local (Denver Channel 2) news reporting that a Colorado Springs woman had been arrested for “false reporting” in connection with the Texas raid on the FLDS compound in Texas. I couldn’t find information on that channel’s website, but one of the TV stations down in Colorado Spring had this story on their website:

Colorado Springs Police say a woman arrested for false reporting in Colorado Springs has not been charged at this time in connection with the Texas case.

Springs Police confirm the Texas Rangers were in the city Wednesday as part of their investigation into the compound. A spokesperson for the Texas Rangers confirms they have had several calls about an out-of-state arrest, but they have no comment at this time.

Springs Police will only confirm that 33-year-old Rozita Swinton was arrested Wednesday evening for False Reporting in connection with a February incident in Colorado Springs.

There is no word on what her connection might have been in the Texas case, in which hundreds of children were seized from a polygamist compound.

This came after someone claiming to be a 16-year-old girl called an abuse hot line claiming her husband — a 50-year-old member of the sect — beat and raped her. The girl has yet to be identified by investigators.

As if this whole situation weren’t complicated and messy enough. ..bruce..

Like most Latter-day Saints in North America (and probably quite a few around the world), I have watched the events in Texas regarding the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS Church) unfold with a mixture of feelings. I believe there are some serious moral, legal, and Constitutional issues here, but I will leave that discussion in the hands of those better equipped to argue on both sides.

Even with my deep-rooted commitment to religious pluralism — which predates my own conversion to the LDS Church — I find myself wincing over the various details that keep coming forth in the aftermath of the raids on the FLDS compound. I worry both for those who have been caught up in this as well as for my own church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), since this will only serve to reinforce unfounded stereotype already prevalent about “Mormons” not just in the US but around the world

What has struck me, though, is that the FLDS Church, and particularly the Yearning For Zion (YFZ) group in Texas, reflects what I suspect many ‘liberal’ or ‘disaffected’ Mormons fear the LDS Church would become were it not for their valiant efforts. I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but only somewhat; many who grumble or rant about ’savage misogyny’ or ‘patriarchal abuse’ in the LDS Church likely feel that the FLDS Chuch is where we’re headed unless Church leaders pay attention to them.

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Please join us in welcoming our newest permablogger, bfwebster. This is his inaugural post at Mormon Mentality.

Millennium — A thousand years of genealogy, temple work, proselytizing, and filling out reports, a prospect that can make wickedness and destruction look downright enticing. — Orson Scott Card, Saintspeak: A Mormon Dictionary (Orion Books, 1981)

Let me start by clarifying my premises. I fully believe in the prophecies regarding the tribulations of the last days preceding the second coming of Jesus Christ, as well as Christ’s reign upon the earth during a thousand-year period (the “Millennium”), to be followed by a great war and the transformation of the earth itself. I also think that the Book of Mormon events recorded in Helaman and 3rd Nephi are an effective type and shadow of the last days (and that Mormon deliberately cast them as such).
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