San Antonio, USA - As a district judge heard the state's case for keeping children from a polygamous sect in custody, hundreds of electronic and telephone messages were pouring into Texas Gov. Rick Perry's office.
They came from around the country - including Utah - and most made the same point: Send the children home to their mothers.
By April 17, three days after separating mothers from their children, the office had received 449 messages opposed to the removal of the children and just 32 from people who supported it.
"If you do nothing to protect these rights, you can be assured that you will not have my vote now or ever in the future," one Texan wrote.
"Do something!!!" said another.
Yet, Perry kept his distance from events unfolding in west Texas. Through his staff, Perry said only that he was in full support of the Department of Family and Protective Services - a position he reiterated last week in an interview with a Texas newspaper.
The public response to the removal of about 450 children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado is included in nearly 3,000 pages of documents acquired by the sect through a records request and provided to The Salt Lake Tribune.
The documents show that in late March, Texas Rangers and Child Protective Services were independently contacted about an abused girl at the YFZ Ranch and had begun separate investigations.
As CPS prepared to visit the ranch, Texas Rangers asked the agency to hold off until it readied its own response. That helps explain why four days lapsed between the call - now known to be a hoax - and the raid, initiated on April 3.
The documents show high-level state officials received hourly updates as law officers entered the ranch and began removing children, taking them first to Eldorado and then to a fort in San Angelo.
The inadequate shelter conditions at Fort Concho were quickly apparent. An April 7 e-mail states: "We have reached the saturation point in San Angelo and some of the buildings do not have air conditioning, which is a problem."
That led the state to look for another shelter and within a day it had settled on a Salvation Army facility in Midlothian. As part of the move, it planned to separate adult mothers from children. But there was a snag, according to an April 8 e-mail: The Salvation Army wanted no part of the conflict and asked that the separation occur elsewhere.
But the move to another county was nixed and the state devised a new plan, relocation to the San Angelo Coliseum - a move that again included the "highly complicated and risky operation" of separating out adult women.
The women were to be told only that they were moving to the coliseum, the e-mails show.
Officials feared that some women were planning to escape, so they increased the number of staff and law officers. They also took steps to remove three "first" wives - older women, apparently - who seemed to hold sway over other women.
State officials kept tabs on media reports from across the country and circulated talking points to ensure public comments stayed consistent and on target.
Kathy Walt, Perry's deputy chief of staff, said in an April 18 e-mail that if media were "overlooking" testimony about alleged abuse, the staff should give reporters court documents and "talk the issues over with them."