Polygamous Mormon Church Allowed to Keep Its Police Force

The Marshal’s Office was accused of discriminating against non-believers and ignoring church members’ marriages to underage girls.

Gaby Del Valle

04.21.17 5:00 AM ET

An inter-state police force that serves a polygamous fundamentalist Mormon community won’t be required to disband—despite alleged discrimination against nonbelievers, surveillance of dissidents, and facilitation of child abuse.

Instead, officers in the Colorado City Marshal’s Office will be required to attend annual training sessions to ensure they comply with federal laws and don’t discriminate against the community’s non-religious minority. The Marshal’s Office has been serving the adjoining towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona since 1985.

Together, the two towns make up Short Creek, a 7,500-person community that’s home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a polygamous offshoot of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that splintered from the Mormon church when the latter renounced plural marriage at the beginning of the 20th century.

The U.S. Department of Justice called for the disbanding of the CCMO as part of a lengthy anti-discrimination lawsuit against the twin towns that comprise Short Creek that began in 2012. According to the complaint, the community’s powerful FLDS leaders denied non-members access to housing, police protection, and public services including water and electricity.

In March 2016, a jury determined the community’s leadership had discriminated against non-FLDS members and awarded $2.2 million in damages to six Short Creek residents. The Justice Department then demanded the federal government disband Short Creek’s police force, which it claimed was enforcing the church’s discrimination against non-members.

Prosecutors claimed the Marshal’s Office was using its “state-granted law enforcement authority” to “carry out the will and dictates” of Warren Jeffs, the infamous FLDS leader who is currently serving a life sentence for sexually abusing two young girls whom he called his “spiritual wives.”

In October 2005, marshal Fred Barlow wrote a letter to Jeffs, a fugitive at the time. “I want to fill the position that you would have me fill and do the job the way you would like it done,” Barlow wrote. “We will continue to do that directive unless you would like us to do something different.”

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