Ron Hunter was repeatedly assaulted and sex-trafficked as a child. At 63, he’s telling his story – to protect others and heal himself
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Across 42nd Street on the opposite sidewalk is the place where the Boy Scout leader, Carlos Acevedo – Charlie, as everyone knew him – would stand watching and waiting for the 13-year-old to bring back the cash.
“Be prepared” is the institution’s motto, but as the lawsuit points out, the Boy Scouts of America itself was woefully unprepared, and until recently arguably unwilling, to address the rampant sexual abuse of children in its care by its own adult volunteers.
The lawsuit alleges that Acevedo sexually assaulted Ronnie on at least 15 overnight Boy Scouts camping trips, including at sites owned by the organization such as Ten Mile River and Alpine.
They included his own late brother Tommy, who Hunter learned much later had been told early on by neighbors that Acevedo “did bad things with little boys” but didn’t share the information with him.
Hunter’s lawsuit cites a 1935 New York Times interview with the institution’s chief executive, Dr James West, in which he admitted that adult men “seek to enter scouting” to “undertake to deal with sex matters”.
But as the New York Times has reported, files were frequently kept secret in order to spare the organization the discomfort of public disclosure, and there have been cases of volunteers ejected from one scout troop reappearing in another.
The original article contains 3,567 words, the summary contains 218 words. Saved 94%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Yup, location checks out. Ofc it’s that misery-ridden hellhole.
Child sexual abuse has to be the most horrible act done on a human by another human.
Manhattan?
God, I was lucky to get out of that young fascists club early. My scout masters were decent-enough people, thank Glob, but the whole experience made my skin crawl but I didn’t know why.
As an adult I retconn the experience to understand it as an aversion to the co-option of principles of basic decency in the service of nationalism. Turns out, the two aren’t deeply connected.
I’m not sure what troop you were in, but nobody I know had an experience like that in scouts. I loved scouts and highly suggest people get into it. Without scouting I would have never done many awesome things, and I straight up never would have gotten the chance to get into certain hobbies like snowboarding (my family does not ski), without taking merit badges like the snow sports merit badge. I learned how to scuba dive, I learned blacksmithing (awesome merit badge), it helped fuel my love of chemistry, and so SOOO much more. I’m not saying it’s all fine and dandy, there are bad people out there. However, painting scouts with a broad brush (or painting anything with a broad brush) is just wrong. It’s not representative of the entire group, nor of everyone’s experience with said group.
I would say scouting significantly built my leadership skills, I attended multiple leadership conferences and trainings, and my eagle scout award is a talking point in every interview. Along with many of the life long friends I made along the way, I highly recommend scouting to young children. You will be shocked the cool opportunities it can provide.
Finally, I’m not in any way sure what was fascist about anything we did in scouting? Outside of being respectful when performing flag ceremonies, very little national anything came up unless we took a trip to a military base to see refueling planes for example. I’d assume this highly depends on the troop and its leaders, but again this is not an across the board scouting thing. Every troop can be wildly different from the next as long as their bylaws fit within thr BSA rules
I loved scouts and highly suggest people get into it.
Even though they are involved in the largest sexual abuse scandals in US history? Why?
‘Scouts Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America’ - https://www.thedailybeast.com/scouts-honor-netflix-doc-exposes-boy-scouts-sex-abuse-scandal
The Boy Scouts of America are involved in one of the largest sexual abuse scandals in US history. - https://www.aljazeera.com/podcasts/2023/8/23/inside-the-boy-scouts-of-america-sex-abuse-scandal
Boy Scouts’ record $2.46 bln sex abuse settlement upheld by judge - https://www.reuters.com/legal/judge-affirms-boy-scouts-americas-246-bln-sex-abuse-settlement-2023-03-28/
Former Boys Scouts Director Blasts Org as “Still Not Safe For Boys and Girls,” in New Netflix Documentary About Sexual Abuse Scandal - https://decider.com/2023/08/30/scouts-honor-netflix-documentary-boys-scouts-not-safe-michael-johnson/
And i case, anyon thought child sexual abuse in Boy scuts is restricted to Boy Scouts America
Scouts: Millions paid out over UK abuse in last 10 years, say lawyers - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65881603
The extent of the child sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts’ will only be discovred when investigated by Congress and the states till then children at risk. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/08/boy-scouts-child-sexual-abuse-catholic-church-congress-investigate/
I hear there’s a lot of sex abuse in schools too. Do you think no one should go to public school or do you want to think about how logical your generalization is?
Any organization that congregates children together will attract predators, to think otherwise is naive. The solution isn’t to never let children do anything though.
As an Eagle Scout, the troop I was a part of took protocol very seriously when it came to adult-child interactions.
Unlike the Catholic Church they don’t shuffle around offenders because they aren’t that monolithic of an organization. Thus I find your depiction to by myopic, cripplingly cynical, and deceptively sensationalized.
whataboutism is not the answer to “Even though they (Boy Scouts) are involved in the largest sexual abuse scandals in US history? Why?”
Given the reports, the troop you went to sounds like an exception. But since you didn’t face sexual abuse, others should risk it, eh?
It’s not whataboutism. I’m taking issue with the logic you use and pointing out that extending the logic means you should feel similarly about public education. The entire argument is a fallacy so I was hoping that by showing your logic through another lens you’d see how ridiculous it is.
Are you so bad at reading comprehension that you thought I supported the logic towards school?
Your "I hear there’s a lot of sex abuse in schools too. " is pure whatabutism, and you’rejust trying to hide it.
Are you so bad at reading comprehension that you thought I supported the logic towards school?
“I hear there’s a lot of sex abuse in schools too. Do you think no one should go to public school or do you want to think about how logical your generalization is” are your words, that you are trying to backpedal away from because your support for an org rife with sexual abuse got called out.
Of course, you think being called out is despicable, but not everyone is willing to be an enabler like you and support an org. called ‘magnet for sexual predators’ .
https://www.npr.org/2020/11/13/934718112/magnet-for-sexual-predators-the-boy-scouts-face-allegations-of-sexual-assaultI won’t ask ‘What’s wrong with you?’ because you should be asking that of yourself.
I’m not backpedaling from anything you fucking idiot. Claiming public schools should be avoided due to sex abuse cases is just as fallacious as implying the same about Boy Scouts. Which is my point, you’re making a fallacious argument and instead of admitting that you’re talking out of your ass you keep insisting that you were right about the thoughts in my own mind.
You’re so in your own head that you literally can’t fathom my position. So brain dead that your only response is to paint me as an evil person because others you’d have to realize how vapid you are as a person.
Thanks for confirming that you’re not stupid, just so up your own ass that you insist upon my position after I’ve explained to you what I mean.
You haven’t called out shit. Just threw some disgusting accusations my way when I’ve already explained my position to not involve that shit.
You’re a close minded, cynical, and despicable person that thinks avoiding generalizations means you oppose legal action against crimes. Fuck you you empty headed clown.
Every victim that receives justice is a victory. Don’t ever accuse me of thinking otherwise you pathetic troll.
sounds like an exception
So it’s your estimation that the overwhelming majority of Boy Scout troops in America are hiding sexual predators?
82,000 former scouts filed sexual abuse claims against Boy Scouts of America in 2020. So my answer’s ‘Yes, quite likely, We wont know the extent for sure till the org is investigated by Congress and states’.
https://time.com/6188750/leave-no-trace-true-story-hulu/NPR called the Boy Scouts a magnet for sexual predators in ‘Magnet For Sexual Predators: The Boy Scouts Face Allegations Of Sexual Assault’ - https://www.npr.org/2020/11/13/934718112/magnet-for-sexual-predators-the-boy-scouts-face-allegations-of-sexual-assault.
Where are the reports and studies of vast amounts of sexual predators in schools? Do you have sources with an equivalent number of sexual predators reported in schools as that of the scouts? If they are comparable, what’s the numbers?
Here’s 14000 incidents in one year. https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/sexual-violence-schools#:~:text=According%20to%20recently%20released%20data,representing%20a%2055%20percent%20increase.
The point is that the stats are being used to create imperfect generalizations. The stats I’ve shared don’t condemn the idea of public school anymore than there’s discredits Boy Scouts as a whole.
With how hard conservatives have been using this strawman to defend the Catholic Church of course the data is out there. You very clearly are too lazy to enter a basic query on Google to find out
Nobody you know has that experience because those with a different moral compass left early. I’m pretty confident you haven’t done the work to follow up and find out why with anyone who found it distasteful. Your arguments-from-incredulity make this quite clear.
Anyone I know who left our troop, did so early after transitioning from cub scouts to boy scouts. Most had other commitments that required most of their time (sports mostly), or they didn’t find it “cool”. I didn’t care if it was “cool” at school or not so that point never bothered me. I managed playing 2 year round sports along with scouts and clubs, but totally understand not wanting to make that commitment and deciding to drop scouts. I loved the camping trips, cool merit badges, and high adventure opportunities it provided (like Philmont Ranch).
You seem to have a very different perception of scouting (which obviously could come from the way your troop functioned vs. how my troop did for example), but my point is that you shouldn’t paint things with a broad brush. Again, I don’t share any of these same sentiments with you, but you speak like it’s absolute fact or that you know all intricacies of the situation. You simply do not, nor do I. I am sorry you had a poor experience.
To your last point. I just texted 2 people who left my troop (we are still friends) and brought forward what you said. Only 1 has responded so far and said “LOL, it had nothing to do with “facism” wtf. I just didn’t really love it so I didn’t want to keep putting time into it.” So again to my point of not painting things with a broad brush…not everyone shares your experience of “the young fascists club”. In general, sweeping generalizations result in indefensible positions. It’s easy to find flaw in absolutist statements about large groups
I loved scouts and highly suggest people get into it.
Their comment encouraging people to send their children to an org on a thread discussing child sexual abuse inside the org is just so beyond the pale, even catholic church-goers don’t do that.
