[stone]

When I lived in Leeds in the mid 1990s, there was a prominent older climber who always had vague rumours swirling around him of being predatory towards young/very_young men.  I never asked him about that. It never seemed clear to me quite what the rumoured behaviour had amounted to. Much later, someone told me they had been groped by the guy at an age when it would be a criminal matter (perhaps that would be sexual assault even with an adult, I'm clueless about this).

Thinking back to how I just swept it under the carpet in my own mind, I can totally understand how people did the same with Charlie Barrett.

[petejh]

Where I 100% agree is this:
 

You have to analyse what a person did in a given situation and hold them accountable for it.

Totally agree. You have to look at the specifics of how somebody acts or reacts in a specific situation. And judge them on that, apart from anything else you may know about them.
For e.g. if you were present and witnessed someone you knew punching somebody else to the ground in an unprovoked assault, then you have all the evidence you'll ever need about who and what that person is in that situation. Any other good attributes about them don't matter to make a judgement about them in that moment.

But life is rarely that straightforward. Honnold says he barely knew this person: 
Honnold discussed that period with me at length in the summer of 2023. He mentioned that his friendship with Barrett was sporadic—“I would see Charlie once every few years for like a day or two,” he said..

And he was hearing second-hand rumours:
Honnold’s knowledge of Barrett’s violent behavior primarily consisted of “rumors heard around the campfire,”

Which were contested:
''and those rumors were often dismissed''

And there was a halo effect:
“People cut him more slack because he is incredibly talented, and he wrote those guidebooks and established really hard climbs.”

And there were some mental health issues (which can often mitigate some bad behaviour especially for people who naturally want to see the good side of people, and want to believe someone might not be as malign as it appeared he could be):
Honnold said that he tries to see the best in people and always hoped that Barrett would turn his life around. “[The violence] was a step beyond what I could imagine,” he says. “Which I guess is why I had a blind spot around it. And the depressed-alcoholic thing is an easy way to mask some of the actual violence.”

It's all totally rational behaviour imo.
Nobody wants to live in a social structure where your constant mindset is 'If I hear a rumour then I will not trust this person / this person is malign'. That's exhausting and unnatural. People enjoy getting to know other people, especially people who they think are cool, and Barrett was clearly seemingly a cool person to get to know. It's as old as time that abusers/predators hide inside a seemingly good person, a powerful person, a person with some admirable qualities, or a combination of those. That describes most people who aren't obviously dangerous. 

There's also a point about who gets to be the law with 'rumours' - rumours come from truth, rumours also originate maliciously. There's nothing stopping malign actors - who are often respected - creating rumours to damage reputations (which is what Barrett did). We invented justice systems to avoid mob rule and witch hunts by well-intentioned people who are poorly-equipped to objectively judge others based on 'rumours'. There's a good comment somewhere about Barrett's rumours spreading faster than his victim's stories. Admittedly it looks like the justice system completely failed here to see the pattern and threat

I think most of us are poorly-equipped to do much more than listen to our gut and keep a self-defensive emotional distance from people like Barrett.

Add to this that anything more than keeping your distance from characters like Barrett would invite predatory/aggressive attention into your life, which you'd then need to defend yourself against at the expense of energy and happiness, and it all adds up to create a social system that is wide open to be manipulated by abusive/predatory people.

All that said it looks like there were ample opportunities for the law to recognise and stop Barrett years earlier based on the evidence they had. 

Personally, I'd say his thinking at the time was pretty stupid. He admits he had a blind spot, as many did.

If you allow men being drunk as an excuse for committing violence against women then you are a fucking idiot.

What what we’re seeing here is honnold being given slack for turning a blind eye to violence commited against a female. He didn’t ask her about it and get her side of the story directly?

I think both of these comments show an ignorance about the context, and a naivety about how people work in reality compared to how we'd like to think we work. Worth re-reading Ferret's and Slack's insightful posts upthread and definitely read Duncan's post which links to a statement by a doctor, a victim of Barrett, describing what a great guy he was(n't).

I think this naivety (about our own good judgement) leads to a false self-confidence that 'I would spot this sort of person/thing' and 'I would never allow that sort of thing/person to get away with that sort of thing' because 'I'd hold them to account'.
You'd have to be honest with yourself about what would you specifically do, in that exact same circumstance (as Honnold), to 'hold them to account':
- talk to them privately? (why would you be listened to, are you their close trusted friend?)
- try to gather evidence by talking to the other person? (do you know the other person well enough that they'd want to talk to you about this? Do you know the other person well enough to know they're being truthful?)
- publicly accuse them? (do you have enough evidence to prove there aren't other interpretations? Are you prepared for a battle? A lawsuit?)
- report them to police (as above do you have evidence?)
- threaten them? (go vigilante, really want to go there?)


Personal anecdote, not entirely relevant, I once briefly employed someone who went on to be convicted/jailed for 14yrs for murdering a stranger in a pub brawl. I had no clue when employing him of his capacity for that but there were some warnings about his character. After he started working I began to hear rumours about him being an aggressive person, also some of my supervisors told me they deeply disliked working/hanging out with him, but no real specifics. That was enough to raise the red flags for me and he didn't work for me after that contract ended.
Later he went on to kill. Stuff came out about his aggressive past and how he'd threatened co-workers while with a previous employer, and how he'd told co-workers about deliberately getting into fights. The world contains loads of flawed people some who are 'potentially' malign, some obviously malign, some who are mostly harmless. Hard to spot them all, hard to accurately categorise them all, harder still to forecast the future.

[Wellsy]

I never said I'd spot it. I said Honnold had a blind spot, which he himself said in his own words! That is a problem!

[petejh]

It might be a problem but it isn't 'stupid'. it's completely normal. Calling it stupid is unhelpful and can lead people to believe they aren't also stupid.

[Wellsy]

I think that kind of thinking can be both normal and stupid, personally.

[Johnny Brown]

Having read this thread before the piece, what stood out is the mental illness. The first instance described:

“When he stood up and looked at me, it was like he was a different person,” she says. “His eyes were glazed over and he started walking toward me, chanting gibberish." According to Hedlund, Barrett said over and over: “You are the prosecution and I am the defense.”

And then the last, where he hands himself in because he knows he intends to kill. Both seem pretty clear statements of psychosis not simply being a nasty rapist.

So the failure here would seem mostly in the hands of public health, not the climbing community. Attempts to support someone with mental illness make it a bit more complicated than sheltering a criminal. While I appreciate for the victims how or why he is detained is perhaps less of a concern than whether or when, it also raises obvious questions about euro-style public health care vs US-style private (which I know little about other than the usual cliches e.g. I can't imagine there's much profit in helping such people). The police advice for the victims to arm themselves certainly spoke volumes from a euro perspective.

[spidermonkey09]

I think that kind of thinking can be both normal and stupid, personally.

Even if you're right its not especially helpful/ constructive if we're trying to create a society where people change their behaviour when faced with circumstances like this.

Honnold is a useful proxy for this discussion because it allows us to look at the specific circumstances of his relationship with Barrett and knowledge of his abuses and see what missteps were made. If people think his reaction was broadly in line with how they might react can it reasonably be described as stupid? Thats a rhetorical q, I don't know the answer.

I also agree with JB's last paragraph in particular; the mental health issues of Barrett complicate the issue enormously. Incidences of threatening to commit suicide crop up throughout that article. Not hard to see how allegations/rumours of abuse would swiftly have been subsumed by concerns over his mental health among people who knew him well. (doesnt make it right obviously, but thats the reality.).

The US judicial practice of cutting deals rather than taking stuff to trial would seem to be a key driver in allowing the abuses to continue over such a long period, because he was never actually properly punished for any of them.

[Johnny Brown]

because he was never actually properly punished for any of them

Or even sectioned, properly diagnosed and entered into a long-term program of secure treatment.

[spidermonkey09]

Indeed; 'punished' as a (clumsy) proxy for the justice system actually engaging with him in full, including treatment, rather than cutting deals.

[slab_happy]

Having read this thread before the piece, what stood out is the mental illness. The first instance described:

“When he stood up and looked at me, it was like he was a different person,” she says. “His eyes were glazed over and he started walking toward me, chanting gibberish." According to Hedlund, Barrett said over and over: “You are the prosecution and I am the defense.”

And then the last, where he hands himself in because he knows he intends to kill. Both seem pretty clear statements of psychosis not simply being a nasty rapist.

So the failure here would seem mostly in the hands of public health, not the climbing community. Attempts to support someone with mental illness make it a bit more complicated than sheltering a criminal. While I appreciate for the victims how or why he is detained is perhaps less of a concern than whether or when, it also raises obvious questions about euro-style public health care vs US-style private (which I know little about other than the usual cliches e.g. I can't imagine there's much profit in helping such people). The police advice for the victims to arm themselves certainly spoke volumes from a euro perspective.

People can be mentally ill and also nasty rapists; they're not mutually exclusive.

Apart from that one description of the first incident, there's nothing to suggest hallucinations or delusions, or that he was unaware of what he was doing.

Instead you've got a lot of pretty calculated attempts to threaten people who he'd harmed or who tried to speak out against him.

He wasn't trying to hurt people because, you know, the voices in his TV told him that God wanted him to hurt them in order to save the world from demons; he was trying to hurt them because they'd crossed him in some way.

Also, to be cynical: dramatic suicide threats and proclamations that you can't help yourself (he handed himself in to the hospital at a point where he knew he was likely to be arrested for sexual assault) are not exactly uncommon with abusers, including ones who don't have any mental illness at all.

They may have been sincere, or semi-sincere; they may not have been.

It sounds like Barrett probably does have genuine issues with bipolar disorder and with alcohol abuse, but that doesn't mean he has no responsibility for his actions.

And even if he did have the degree of psychosis which would really make him not responsible for his actions -- that doesn't alter the fact that he was a danger to others and the climbing community largely chose to turn a blind eye to that, pretend that wasn't happening, keep supporting and promoting him, and shut out the people he harmed.

So the failure here would seem mostly in the hands of public health, not the climbing community.

I don't see why. Public health certainly didn't solve this problem, but there are very complicated issues with treating someone who refuses to be treated, unless you can prove they're an immediate threat to himself or others (or unless they get convicted -- or deemed not guilty by reason of insanity -- of something serious enough to get them sent to a secure hospital).

And going "Oh, public health should have solved it" doesn't let the climbing community off the hook for continuing to treat someone as a pillar of that community even after there was considerable evidence that he was dangerous.

Because the guy who wrote all these popular guidebooks, the guy who's being praised by Jorgeson, who's climbing with Honnold, who has all of these climbers lining up to provide character references for him now -- people will tend to assume that this very popular person is probably an okay guy who's valued by his community, and that will lead people to willingly be around him when that's a very, very bad idea.

And the community not only centred him, it froze out people who made allegations against him.

To me, this is one of the most devastating passages:

One day in November 2008, after Barrett had been charged with domestic violence, but before he was sent to jail, Hedlund decided to follow the advice of a court-appointed victim’s advocate and her friends. She walked up to Barrett at the Buttermilks and told him he needed to leave. He was violating the protective order.

“He looked at me and laughed,” she says. “And his friends just stood there. That was when I realized they all believed the lies about me that Charlie had told them. It was devastating.”

Hedlund’s longtime friend Jake Dayley points out that she suffered two traumas during this period: the assault by Barrett, and alienation from the climbing community. Close friends like Dayley stuck by her, but many others distanced themselves. Barrett had convinced them that he was the real victim.

That's a whole lot of people who went "yeah, she does have a protective order from a court requiring him to stay away from her, but we're not going to tell him he has to follow it, in fact we'll make it clear that she's the one who's unwelcome and unsafe and has to leave the crag."

[slab_happy]

“Honnold said that he’d heard stories about a female professional climber he knew who’d been in a relationship with Barrett and got “punched in the face.”
“I thought: That’s crazy,” Honnold said. “But then I immediately thought: Maybe he was really drunk and they were fighting and that’s how he ended up punching her in the face. And she is a very strong person who holds her own.” (The climber, who Honnold named, did not respond to interview requests.)”

Honest yes, but rational, maybe not so much. If you allow men being drunk as an excuse for committing violence against women then you are a fucking idiot.

What what we’re seeing here is honnold being given slack for turning a blind eye to violence commited against a female. He didn’t ask her about it and get her side of the story directly?

That’s the way this sycophantic behaviour works. You have to analyse what a person did in a given situation and hold them accountable for it.

I don't really get the sense here that people are endorsing Honnold's behavour, just appreciating that at least he's being open about the issue and honest about what his thought process was.

If we look at the thought processes that lead to people having a "blind spot" -- even when so much of Barrett's behaviour seems to have been public knowledge -- then maybe we can try to immunize ourselves against them.

[SA Chris]

When I lived in Leeds in the mid 1990s, there was a prominent older climber who always had vague rumours swirling around him of being predatory towards young/very_young men.  I never asked him about that. It never seemed clear to me quite what the rumoured behaviour had amounted to. Much later, someone told me they had been groped by the guy at an age when it would be a criminal matter (perhaps that would be sexual assault even with an adult, I'm clueless about this).

If it's the same guy, he was at El Chorro when I was on my first European climbing trip, with a much younger climber in tow. A couple of British climbers mentioned it and referred to him as "dodgy....". There were implications of inappropriate behaviour but they seemed half-joking..

[Moo]

Perhaps I should explain my line of thinking here regarding honnold.

Honnold has spent a shit load of time in Yosemite and as such he surely knows many of the people active in that climbing community. Lonnie Kauk has also spent a shit load of time in Yosemite and surely must know honnold to some degree.

Lonnie kauk witnessed a mutual acquaintance ( Barret ) physically punching a woman in the head while she was lying on the ground. Honnold heard of said acquaintance punching a different woman in the head.

You’re telling me that these two big names in a niche community never chanced upon a conversation together where this came up 

That’s why I think honnold has been pretty honest but not entirely rational in his thinking. I believe that he hasn’t taken the issue seriously enough given the information I’m presuming he had.

I can promise you that I’m far from naive when it comes to how people act in difficult situations. I do however think the Halo effect is a terrible excuse for people’s actions ( real as it may be ).

[thomas røllins]

When I lived in Leeds in the mid 1990s, there was a prominent older climber who always had vague rumours swirling around him of being predatory towards young/very_young men.  I never asked him about that. It never seemed clear to me quite what the rumoured behaviour had amounted to. Much later, someone told me they had been groped by the guy at an age when it would be a criminal matter (perhaps that would be sexual assault even with an adult, I'm clueless about this).

If it's the same guy, he was at El Chorro when I was on my first European climbing trip, with a much younger climber in tow. A couple of British climbers mentioned it and referred to him as "dodgy....". There were implications of inappropriate behaviour but they seemed half-joking..

If we are talking about the same person, the rumours and stories were circulating as far back as the mid-80s.

[stone]

If we are talking about the same person, the rumours and stories were circulating as far back as the mid-80s.

So perhaps me, Chris, and you (and many many other people) reacted (or rather didn't react) much as "the climbing community" in California has with Bennett.

It's much easier to think "what if it's all relatively innocuous" rather than  "what if it's awful".

[webbo]

If we are talking about the same person, the rumours and stories were circulating as far back as the mid-80s.

So perhaps me, Chris, and you (and many many other people) reacted (or rather didn't react) much as "the climbing community" in California has with Bennett.

It's much easier to think "what if it's all relatively innocuous" rather than  "what if it's awful".

I also was aware of an older guy who was part of the climbing establishment  apparently grooming young climbers in the Leeds area. However it was always being said by others that Mr X had sexuality assaulted Y  and others. I knew and still know some of the alleged victims however not once have they ever said they were abused by Mr X.
I am of the belief that these assaults did take place but it is impossible to alert the authorities or make allegations without evidence.
In Barrett’s case there clearly was evidence and victims willing speak out but this was ignored.

[stone]

I suppose I was thinking that I should have directly asked the Leeds MrX about it.

If people here are saying that as a society we should put a stop to such behaviour, then presumably at the very least, that would entail us sticking our nose in to that extent and more.

I'm happy to be corrected on this. I'm extremely unsure about it myself.

In the Barrett case, I'm supposing that people were thinking along the lines that Barrett had "tumultuous relationships with unhinged women" or some such. It seemed a horrid mess that they wanted to steer clear of. I'm not excusing their lack of support and solidarity with the victims. I'm just saying I can easily see how that is by far the easiest path for people to take.

[webbo]

I used to know Mr X well if it’s the same one. By the time I was aware of the allegations I no longer saw him or didn’t live in Leeds. As to the victims not speaking out I guess the 80’s climbing scene was very male dominated and to come out and say you had been sexually abused by a so called pillar of the climbing community and the possibility of being shunned by your peers. Seems to have stopped people speaking out.
I know of a couple of people who worked with Mr X and when they challenged him at work, they didn’t have their contracts renewed.

[stone]

So the failure here would seem mostly in the hands of public health, not the climbing community. Attempts to support someone with mental illness make it a bit more complicated than sheltering a criminal. While I appreciate for the victims how or why he is detained is perhaps less of a concern than whether or when, it also raises obvious questions about euro-style public health care vs US-style private (which I know little about other than the usual cliches e.g. I can't imagine there's much profit in helping such people).

I'm very unsure about this.

I'm sure there are many Americans who would benefit greatly from NHS type access to mental health care. I remember seeing homeless people in rags in San Francisco shuffling about talking gibberish to themselves. I thought of that after having benefitted myself from daily home visits from an NHS mental health crisis team.

I may be totally wrong but I wonder whether Barrett would have been very hard to sort out even if he had had full access to good health care. I'm supposing that sorting out the drinking would be key. By the sound of it he didn't have severe mental health crises. Briefly having glazed over eyes sounds utterly different from someone having a crisis as I'd understand it (I'm happy to be corrected). I wonder what treatment he would be offered in an ideal world and whether he would comply with that. To lock him up as dangerously mad, you'd need similar conviction as to lock him up as just dangerously nasty.

To me Barrett comes across far more as being someone who was very nasty and a drunk (and I realise some alcoholics are lovely people).

[webbo]

As you say Stone I have my doubts re him being mentally ill. I know what has reported is second hand but being suicidal every time he gets threatened by the consequences of his own behaviour strikes me as being more personality disorder than psychosis.
I maybe should mention I did work in mental health for 30 years  and I am old school and rather cynical.

[Wellsy]

Is this not exactly what is meant by "rape culture" when discussed in feminist literature? A culture in which sexual assault, predatory behaviour, abuse etc is normalised due to a social unwillingness to challenge it?

I definitely understand when people say "well of course they didn't challenge it, that's normal" and I can understand why people might say me calling that thinking stupid is not helpful. But at the same time, shouldn't we actually be responding by saying okay, it's not going to be normal and acceptable for us to gloss over abuse any more?

[petejh]

Is this not exactly what is meant by "rape culture" when discussed in feminist literature? A culture in which sexual assault, predatory behaviour, abuse etc is normalised due to a social unwillingness to challenge it?

I definitely understand when people say "well of course they didn't challenge it, that's normal" and I can understand why people might say me calling that thinking stupid is not helpful. But at the same time, shouldn't we actually be responding by saying okay, it's not going to be normal and acceptable for us to gloss over abuse any more?

You're making the error of starting your position from an assumption that person A 'knew there was abuse'. That hardly ever is the case. It's more normal for there to be rumours, people unwilling to talk, intimidation, consequences. Over time a pattern. But until there's an obvious pattern you're going off rumours, problem with that is that's the landscape of collateral damage, so it becomes a balance of risk: on one side, innocent people being assumed guilty and their lives/reputations ruined for something they didn't do, versus ruining someone's life by not believing the rumours about them being a victim. Do you feel confident of making that call, based off rumours, when you don't know the full details?

To 'gloss over abuse' you have to know for certain or believe without any significant doubt that there indeed has been abuse. That's the gap in which abuse operates.

At least that's how it looks to me?

[petejh]

It's more normal for there to be rumours, people unwilling to talk, intimidation, consequences. Over time a pattern. But until there's an obvious pattern you're going off rumours,

Good use case for AI/data analysis here. The Outside article mentioned Katie Ives (ex Alpinist editor) and others set up a site to collate reports of assaults/abuse in the outdoors, analysis suggested a single predator at work in N.California, which led to police convicting Barrett. Still took ages though.


Safe Outside—a collaboration among data scientist Charlie Lieu, University of Colorado Denver criminology researcher Callie Rennison, and former Alpinist editor Katie Ives—was founded in 2018 in response to the #MeToo movement. Its main goal was to conduct an extensive online survey that could assess sexual assault and harassment in the climbing world, whether it occurred at an urban gym or in the mountains. The initiative was supported by more than 30 major players in the outdoor industry, including the Access Fund, REI, and Outside magazine.

While Barrett’s buddies managed to gloss over his threatening behavior, the Safe Outside survey made that more difficult. A court document describes how a data analyst for the project, who sifted through thousands of responses from climbers around the world, noticed similarities in various descriptions of incidents said to have occurred in Northern California. It appeared to the analyst that a serial assaulter might be on the loose. Safe Outside facilitated connections among the victims, who confirmed that it was Barrett who had assaulted them. Soon law enforcement got involved and began following a trail of clues that eventually led to Barrett’s arrest.

[Wellsy]

Is this not exactly what is meant by "rape culture" when discussed in feminist literature? A culture in which sexual assault, predatory behaviour, abuse etc is normalised due to a social unwillingness to challenge it?

I definitely understand when people say "well of course they didn't challenge it, that's normal" and I can understand why people might say me calling that thinking stupid is not helpful. But at the same time, shouldn't we actually be responding by saying okay, it's not going to be normal and acceptable for us to gloss over abuse any more?

You're making the error of starting your position from an assumption that person A 'knew there was abuse'. That hardly ever is the case. It's more normal for there to be rumours, people unwilling to talk, intimidation, consequences. Over time a pattern. But until there's an obvious pattern you're going off rumours, problem with that is that's the landscape of collateral damage, so it becomes a balance of risk: on one side, innocent people being assumed guilty and their lives/reputations ruined for something they didn't do, versus ruining someone's life by not believing the rumours about them being a victim. Do you feel confident of making that call, based off rumours, when you don't know the full details?

To 'gloss over abuse' you have to know for certain or believe without any significant doubt that there indeed has been abuse. That's the gap in which abuse operates.

At least that's how it looks to me?

In this case I don't think we can say people didn't know. They did know, they knew because the person that Barrett abused came up and said "I have a restraining order against you and you can't be here" and the people around instead basically backed him and she had to leave. There were numerous people who knew. I can get rumours being hard to act on but that was not a rumour, that was pretty direct.

[Wellsy]

As for glossing over;

"In the coming days, Forté told several people—including the friend who’d hosted her in Bishop—about what had happened. According to her account to police, the friend encouraged her to brush off the assault and consider it flattering that a guy 14 years younger was attracted to her."

And then;

"She [Hedlund] walked up to Barrett at the Buttermilks and told him he needed to leave. He was violating the protective order.

“He looked at me and laughed,” she says. “And his friends just stood there. That was when I realized they all believed the lies about me that Charlie had told them. It was devastating.” "

How is this not glossing over? People were told about abuse directly and brushed it off. They were told she had a restraining order and brushed it off. The article directly accuses the community of "glossing over" what he did, and with strong evidence. I don't think one can argue that didn't happen repeatedly! These people cannot say they didn't have any reason to know. They did. They just didn't want to know.

I would admit I don't know how I'd react if I heard some rumours. I'd like to think if someone came to me and said "this guy just raped me" I wouldn't literally just ignore them!