Utah authorities are targeting the police force in a small town known for polygamy, where one polygamist officer has already been convicted and his police certification revoked.
The decision Thursday by the Peace Officer Standards and Training council to strip police certification from officers who practice polygamy followed complaints from state officials who said police in Hildale, a town of about 2,000 near the Arizona line, were hampering investigations into underage marriages.
"They are sworn officers, and they are sworn to uphold the law, but they are openly committing third-degree felony bigamy," Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, a member of the council, said in Friday editions of The Salt Lake Tribune.
Prosecutors have been going after members of the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, and other polygamist sects who take child brides, particularly in Hildale and its sister city Colorado City, Ariz., where many residents are FLDS members.
Former Hildale police officer Rodney Holm was convicted this year of bigamy and unlawful sex with a girl he took as a third wife when she was 16. He was sentenced last week to a year in jail, and his police certification was revoked.
Shurtleff said Thursday that investigators would be given the names of other Hildale officers believed to have multiple wives.
The attorney general said the state has the right to stop polygamist police officers from being in law enforcement.
He cited the 1980s case of Murray police officer Royston Potter, who was fired after he went public about his polygamous lifestyle. Potter sued to get his job back, but the courts held that his right to free exercise of religion did not allow him to violate Utah's bigamy law. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the case.
Calls to Hildale officials seeking comment Friday were not immediately returned.
Shurtleff said police in Hildale had been uncooperative with investigations into polygamy.
Last year, he said, the Hildale police chief stalled when ordered to issue subpoenas for church leadership to turn over documents in an investigation into whether FLDS leader Warren Jeffs had performed ceremonies involving child brides. The delay allowed Jeffs to leave Utah.
If Utah certification is revoked for all or most of the Hildale police force, the county sheriff will take over law enforcement responsibilities.
Polygamy was part of the early beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but was abandoned more than a century ago. The Mormon church excommunicates those who advocate it.