Black Helicopter Time In The Arizona Strip?

This is bound to put the communities there on edge:

Colorado City, Ariz.» Utah and Arizona law enforcement officers served search warrants Tuesday on the fire department serving a polygamous community that straddles the two states' borders.

Approximately 25 officers and investigators arrived in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., around 7:30 a.m. MST and served six warrants on the Colorado City Fire Department station, three substations and homes of the department's fire chief and town manager.

A majority of the towns' 8,000 or so residents are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which has been under intense government scrutiny for the past eight years.

A press release issued by the Mohave County Sheriff's Office said the investigation was for "obtaining evidence of misuse of public funds as well as fraudulent schemes in connection with the city government and the fire departments."

..."They will not let the volunteers into the stations or the offices where they are taking information," said Barlow, reached by telephone. "This is over the top for anything they have the right to do. They are interfering with the public safety of thousands of people. I'm trusting that the staff and battalion chief have it under control."

However, investigators had fire personnel move their equipment outside the buildings so they could respond to any calls that may come in.

...Police dispatchers in the town fielded dozens of calls from panicked residents as word about the investigation spread through the community.

"People are freaking out that officers are there to take kids," said a town deputy who declined to give his name.

The investigation comes also two years to the day after Texas authorities raided the sect's Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, and removed over 400 children. Those children were later returned to their parents.

...Attorneys general in Utah and Arizona backed a court takeover of the community's United Effort Plan Trust in 2005. The trust holds virtually all property in the two towns.

Arizona authorities have suggested in recent court filings that it needs access to records to understand what has gone on with the property trust. In 2005, Arizona seized records and then took over the Colorado City Unified School District based on allegations of financial mismanagement, though no charges were ever brought against FLDS members who then oversaw the district. The district is now again under local control, though no FLDS members serve in its administration.