© Rick Bowmer/Associated Press Hildale, Utah, sits at the base of the Red Rock Cliff mountains, with its sister city, Colorado City, Ariz., in the foreground.
Government alleges city leaders, law enforcement serve at bidding of church leadersA trial starting this week in Phoenix will pit a polygamous religious community against the U.S. government, which claims the community's public officers discriminate against people who don't share the sect's beliefs.
The Justice Department in 2012 sued Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, adjacent border towns populated by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or FLDS, which broke away from the mainstream Mormon Church after it rejected polygamy in 1890.
The government alleges that city leaders and law enforcement in the towns serve at the bidding of church leaders and routinely fail to protect the constitutional rights of all residents. Opening statements are slated to begin Wednesday in what is expected to be a five-week trial.
Testimony from current and former residents, police department members, public officials and outside experts is likely to offer a rare view into the inner workings of the roughly 10,000-person community, located about an hour's drive from mountainous Zion National Park.
The alleged discrimination, according to the Justice Department, includes refusing to arrest church members who committed crimes against nonmembers, destroying crops on nonmembers' farms and failing to fairly provide housing and utility services like water to nonmembers, in violation of federal laws.
Comment: While the the city adds insult to injury by demanding residents pay for their own poison.