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the shizzle => news => Topic started by: Wellsy on February 03, 2024, 12:14:41 pm
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https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/climbing/climber-charles-barrett-assault-trial/
The above is a link to the pretty horrific story of continued sexual abuse by Charles Barrett in the US over literally decades
It feels like this is something to discuss? I know it made me feel horrified and deeply uncomfortable and I have to say Kevin Jorgeson and Alex Honnold come off pretty poorly in it...
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A grim tale indeed! Not sure that I agree about Honnold and Jorgeson.
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Can I ask why? I feel like Jorgesen must have heard things by the time he was promoting Barrett's climbing and guidebooks on social media, and Honnold was told he knocked his ex out in a fight and basically said "damn, that's crazy" and just never... thought about it again? Seemingly?
This guy's behaviour was protected by the climbing community, I think it's fair to ask why and how and who knew and what they did about it.
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I kind-of agree with Wellsy.
Now, I do not look to climbers for moral leadership, nothing that I've experienced have lead me to think that is a good idea.
However, all of us should look out for other climbers and make climbing as safe as possible. That includes excluding climbers who are a menace to other climbers from the community. That is also what I've seen happen a few times. The climbers in question then start going after/hanging out with beginners and are often very helpful for them and teaching them stuff — and I find that just telling said beginners that the guy you're climbing with is a dangerous narcissist is rarely usefull.
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Can I ask why? I feel like Jorgesen must have heard things by the time he was promoting Barrett's climbing and guidebooks on social media, and Honnold was told he knocked his ex out in a fight and basically said "damn, that's crazy" and just never... thought about it again? Seemingly?
This guy's behaviour was protected by the climbing community, I think it's fair to ask why and how and who knew and what they did about it.
Yes of course, happy to give some reasons. I agree with most of your points that some people in the climbing community have clearly protected him and at the very least turned a blind eye to his extremely dark and clearly criminal side.
It’s just that I wouldn’t like to be judged on my acquaintance with a climber that I had hung around with at a crag, done a few routes with and then heard a few questionable things about. I also think that there are some people out there (and I suspect most of us have met someone like this) that are on first acquaintances very charismatic, easily likeable and on the surface someone that we would like to hang around with but when you get to know them better it turns out that they have a dark side. Clearly if you only ever meet this person in a social climbing situation it is hard to see this dark side to that person and you could be forgiven for being happy to say that you like them and think they are a good guy.
Also I don’t think the article really makes clear how well Honnold or Jorgeson actually knew him.
Anyway, he was clearly a very grim and disturbing person.
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I spent two years sleeping in the bunk above a serial killer, at a point when he’d been killing for at least ten years. We worked together and (to an extent, as much as we were in the same mess) socialised with him. I did not like him. He was surly and unpleasant. I knew he had a violent temper, but I could never have imagined what he really was. If I’d gone to my MEO and told him the guy gave me the creeps etc, I’d have been told to fuck off and grow up. I still trusted him in a professional capacity. Some of us from that crew (HMS Westminster) still discuss this to this day. How could we have not realised?
What do you really know about the people around you? How far would you go, to ostracise someone, simply based on “feelings “ or what someone else says they heard that this person might have done?
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Can I ask why? I feel like Jorgesen must have heard things by the time he was promoting Barrett's climbing and guidebooks on social media, and Honnold was told he knocked his ex out in a fight and basically said "damn, that's crazy" and just never... thought about it again? Seemingly?
This guy's behaviour was protected by the climbing community, I think it's fair to ask why and how and who knew and what they did about it.
Yes of course, happy to give some reasons. I agree with most of your points that some people in the climbing community have clearly protected him and at the very least turned a blind eye to his extremely dark and clearly criminal side.
It’s just that I wouldn’t like to be judged on my acquaintance with a climber that I had hung around with at a crag, done a few routes with and then heard a few questionable things about. I also think that there are some people out there (and I suspect most of us have met someone like this) that are on first acquaintances very charismatic, easily likeable and on the surface someone that we would like to hang around with but when you get to know them better it turns out that they have a dark side. Clearly if you only ever meet this person in a social climbing situation it is hard to see this dark side to that person and you could be forgiven for being happy to say that you like them and think they are a good guy.
Also I don’t think the article really makes clear how well Honnold or Jorgeson actually knew him.
Anyway, he was clearly a very grim and disturbing person.
That's fair. I suppose my feeling is that they did know at least something was up, and people like Kauk were making clear there was a problem, but Jorgesen in particular was happy to publicly support him... he's facing a lot of criticism from US climbers at the moment, made his Instagram private, I think in the very least he's not showered himself in glory...
I definitely see your point though. I'd like to know who was knowingly defending this guy though.
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Wow that is fucking mental. I have always found it odd how much slack talented climbers are given for very poor behaviour.
I guess the reason is that people want to associate with them due to their ability and are willing forgive bad behaviour as a result.
Couldn’t imagine being enough of a sycophant to turn a blind eye to any of that though it’s bonkers.
Thanks for sharing Wellsy, think it’s important to shine a light on these things and remind ourselves that climbers are just people and people are cunts.
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I spent two years sleeping in the bunk above a serial killer, at a point when he’d been killing for at least ten years. We worked together and (to an extent, as much as we were in the same mess) socialised with him. I did not like him. He was surly and unpleasant. I knew he had a violent temper, but I could never have imagined what he really was. If I’d gone to my MEO and told him the guy gave me the creeps etc, I’d have been told to fuck off and grow up. I still trusted him in a professional capacity. Some of us from that crew (HMS Westminster) still discuss this to this day. How could we have not realised?
What do you really know about the people around you? How far would you go, to ostracise someone, simply based on “feelings “ or what someone else says they heard that this person might have done?
In this case, though, you have someone who beat his ex unconscious in front of witnesses, and was convicted and jailed for it. You've got multiple restraining orders being taken out against him, and Barrett is telling multiple people (including well-known figures in the climbing community like Bill Ramsey) that he's going to kill Forté, borrowing other climbers' phones to threaten people, and posting about Forté all over his social media in a way which makes it pretty obvious even without knowing context that he has an extremely angry obsession with this one woman, etc. etc..
Clearly most people didn't know about all the rapes, but that's not a scenario where no-one could possibly have known anything was going on, or where people who were concerned couldn't have checked details like his conviction.
Matt Samet evidently knew enough to yank an article about Barrett in 2018 (though one unfortunate thing is that the "whisper network" that operates in these cases can mean that people who have the right social connections are very well-informed, but those who aren't -- e.g. people who are new to a given community -- get no warning).
Honnold acknowledges that he'd heard rumours about Barrett's violent behaviour but rationalized it away and had a "blind spot" about it.
That's not equivalent to feeling you should be able to spot a serial killer just because they give you the creeps, you know?
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https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/climbing/climber-charles-barrett-assault-trial/
The above is a link to the pretty horrific story of continued sexual abuse by Charles Barrett in the US over literally decades
It feels like this is something to discuss? I know it made me feel horrified and deeply uncomfortable and I have to say Kevin Jorgeson and Alex Honnold come off pretty poorly in it...
Agreed that they don't look great, but in some ways I would be wary of judging them too harshly, because that can potentially lead to being over-confident that you would never fuck up in the same way.
From what I've heard (and seen) in various communities: abusers are often very good at showing different behaviour to different people, cultivating positive relationships with socially-powerful people, and ensuring the abuse happens where other people don't see it.
Barrett broke that pattern by being abusive where someone with high status in the community like Lonnie Kauk could see it, but many abusers never do.
The problem is -- imagine someone who you've climbed with a fair amount, who's a friend, who you like and trust (if you want, for the purposes of this thought-experiment, you can imagine a specific real person; it will be upsetting).
They're a good friend; you've never ever seen them do anything violent or bad. Then you hear that there's this rumour that they punched their ex. Which seems totally out-of-character! But you know they've been having a really rough time with depression and drinking too much. And then someone else says "oh, I heard the ex's dog attacked them and they were really just trying to defend themselves against the dog" or "I heard they were both fighting, it wasn't one-sided, maybe they did take a swing but it was just the once."
Consider how strong the temptation is to decide that yeah, that sounds more plausible. Your friend's not some evil monster, after all! Maaaaaybe they did something stupid and lashed out once when they were having a really hard time, but they're not an actual abuser, right?
(And what are you going to do about it, anyway? Tell them "I'm not climbing with you again because I heard this rumour"? Try to to get them kicked out of the local climbing community, even? Then they'll be angry at you and it'll be a whole huge mess, over this thing which is just a rumour, and you weren't even there and can't say what really happened, so maybe it's better if you just stay out of it and don't take sides ... or so the thought process can go.)
Maybe they even admit it, they say they just snapped and threw a punch this one time when they were under so much stress and they don't know what came over them and they're so ashamed and guilty and suicidal and of course it'll never, ever happen again (except that it always does).
In some ways, the idea of abusers as terrible monsters can be counter-productive, because it leads people to think "Well, I know this person, they're not a terrible monster, so obviously they can't really be an abuser, right?"
I feel like if we want to make climbing (or any other community) safer, part of it has to be being aware of how these patterns operate and how abusers take advantage of them.
And recognizing that some day, someone may make an allegation against someone you like, and you'll have to be prepared to fight down that kneejerk reaction and try to ensure it gets a fair hearing.
This shit is messy and hard.
As I said in my previous comment, there was a whole lot that was public knowledge (or widely-spread rumours) about Barrett. But the social pressures and the temptation to rationalize and make excuses for people we like are also very strong.
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There has been a long running thread on Mountain Project about Barrett. It’s now locked after someone claiming to be a police officer seemed to think the answer to the Barretts of the world was to avoid sex outside marriage.
The thread revived after the publication of the Outside article and one of Barrett’s victims wrote a very articulate post about her experiences. It says many of the same things slab_happy has from a very personal perspective.
"Charlie is exceptionally charismatic, powerful, and endearing. He is funny, talented, and strong. He's a great guy-- until he isn't".
(https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/122976632/climber-charles-barrett-arrested-for-yosemite-sexual-assaults?page=28#ForumMessage-125642796)
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There has been a long running thread on Mountain Project about Barrett. It’s now locked after someone claiming to be a police officer seemed to think the answer to the Barretts of the world was to avoid sex outside marriage.
The thread revived after the publication of the Outside article and one of Barrett’s victims wrote a very articulate post about her experiences. It says many of the same things slab_happy has from a very personal perspective.
"Charlie is exceptionally charismatic, powerful, and endearing. He is funny, talented, and strong. He's a great guy-- until he isn't".
(https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/122976632/climber-charles-barrett-arrested-for-yosemite-sexual-assaults?page=28#ForumMessage-125642796)
Top-tip: read the post Duncan linked and nothing else in the thread. Your eyes will thank me for not bleeding.
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Wow this is an incredibly well researched, well written and truly disturbing article. Hit pretty close to home for me as not only have I climbed, shared a beer or met in passing (prior to these events) several of the people mentioned in this article (including Charlie and one of the women) I also had abusive family members that exhibited similar (if less extreme) behavior patterns.
A few random thoughts;
Abusers like this with narcissistic personalities and the ability to pathologically lie have an ability to convince people they are telling the truth in a way that is truly uncommon. They create a narrative that twists facts and blurs events so well that they appear to even convince themselves of these false truths. They go on the offensive as if they are the injured party and proactively spread the false narrative faster than the victim (who is usually less likely to want to share their version of events). Often people are convinced by detailed story accompanied by what appears to be genuine emotion and have made their mind up before hearing the victims side. It’s sadly only years later, when a large enough pattern of behavior is visible that they will change their minds and even then some never will, remaining under the spell (Donald Trump anyone?)
For those of you that haven’t spent much time in the US West Coast scene, the combination of the weather, space, free camping and ability to follow the seasons creates a transient community unlike what we have in Europe. People can follow migratory paths for months (if not years) on little money, leading to a very tight nit community that are essentially living together for long periods of time. This lifestyle is often a refuge for those with some problems in life and in some cases obvious mental health issues, so this community is somewhat desensitized to strange personalities and social drama.
It’s easy for those that create drama or whose personal issues bleed into the social space to still exist in this larger community by simply skipping on to another destination.
This all makes it very easy for somebody to spread a false narrative by just skipping ahead on the general path of those that might have witnessed the events and also take advantage of the welcoming nature of the climbing community and the speed at which you can form close bonds in these situations.
It’s truly sad that somebody has taken advantage of what in general is a unique and wonderful experience to create division in order to cover up their crimes.
I do think its also worth noting that the US scene in general has a sycophantic element to it not present to the same extent in Europe. I imagine this contributed to somebody with the talent and notoriety of Charlie to convince some members of the community.
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I find it uncomfortable that women in the article weren't being believed because the narrative had already been controlled. I guess a large party of that was word of mouth and social media. Social media can have a tendency to present a perfect world with little room for discussion. I also wonder about the role of more traditional forums. It is a worrying how male dominated the climbing forums are. It feels like it might be useful to understand why that is the case and whether it could be addressed.
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That is a very sobering read. I don't know the social media is that much to blame. Climbing culture (and specific climbing communities) have long celebrated and indulged the bad behaviour of some, particularly of so called "hard men" - fast, reckless driving, drink/drugs, various forms criminality, and even violence in some contexts - giving little thought to those that might suffer the consequences.
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I'm thinking again about how the climbing community (and any community really) can protect itself from dangerous individuals.
I'm aware of at least one well known climber in Europe where the standard advice is/was "don't climb with him, he is unstable and has anger issues and have had fist-fights with several of his climber partners". I am aware of at least two climbers/former climbers about whom I've been told they will try to scam or outright steal from any climbing partner (one was reasonably well known, the other is very well known).
I also know about one (former) coach for two national teams (first got kicked out from one, then got hired by the second) who had a repuation of being a creep around young female atheletes. Both times support staff flagged the behaviour and refused to work with him, but it quickly became "words against words" thing. Again, well connected climbers refused to have their kids in the national teams, or they took time of work and traveled with their kids.
As a long-standing member of the community I get a great measure of protection from being told these things, but this form of informal policing is maybe not the greatest as it doesn't exactly protect newcomers.
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I also wonder about the role of more traditional forums. It is a worrying how male dominated the climbing forums are. It feels like it might be useful to understand why that is the case and whether it could be addressed.
That is a very good point.
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Good article about a very nasty piece of work. Person with (seemingly) malignant personality disorder becomes a climber, goes on to abuses/terrorise/traumatise/hoodwink/leave trail of destruction around most of those he encounters in his world. Not a new tale. Perhaps slightly more unusual than average in climbing due to a more closed-knit scene?
Difficult to defend against people like that for similar reasons that clever liars are difficult to defend against. They don't walk around with a label on their forehead and can be talented charismatic people who know how to create deception/confusion/intimidation. The stupid ones or the ones on a totally extreme end of violence get locked up first, but the ones who mask it better have plenty of time to do their damage.
Easy in hindsight to see all the obvious failings and oversights by those in his scene but it's pretty rational for most people who encounter this type of character to not want to confront - they're predatory and few people are inclined to actively encourage a predator into their life. Confronting them often leads to bad outcomes on any number of levels. I think you could moralise all day about how upright you are and think you'd have spotted it or acted differently, but unless you end up in an encounter with a character like that you'll never know. The chances are fair that you'd feel somewhat inclined not to chase things up too forcefully and instead allow your conscience to give the benefit of doubt. Hence all the inadvertent enabling. Although in hindsight some of those examples of overt aggression seem so over the top obvious that it's surprising it took so long for him to be recognised as the threat he is.
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Great article. I thought Honnold came across quite well. Spoke to the author, was open and honest. Jorgeson less so.
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Yep, I thought Honnold sounded rational and honest, as usual!
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“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.
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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 acknowledged that he had a “blind spot” about him like many people did. Honnold’s knowledge of Barrett’s violent behavior primarily consisted of “rumors heard around the campfire,” he told me, and those rumors were often dismissed: “People cut him more slack because he is incredibly talented, and he wrote those guidebooks and established really hard climbs.”
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.”
I honestly don't think this comes across as irrational behaviour. For all the reasons slab_happy and pjh have outlined,abusers arent easy to spot. They don't have a big label on them. I think its totally plausible that I would have reacted as Honnold did. I found slabs thought experiment interesting in that regard, especially this bit:
'(And what are you going to do about it, anyway? Tell them "I'm not climbing with you again because I heard this rumour"? Try to to get them kicked out of the local climbing community, even? Then they'll be angry at you and it'll be a whole huge mess, over this thing which is just a rumour, and you weren't even there and can't say what really happened, so maybe it's better if you just stay out of it and don't take sides ... or so the thought process can go.)'
Obviously if I hear of something similar in my life I hope I would learn and act differently but thats the social change we're attempting to enact.
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Personally, I'd say his thinking at the time was pretty stupid. He admits he had a blind spot, as many did. I don't think that makes him culpable. But we are talking about a situation where it persisted for years because of thinking exactly like Honnold's there.
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Yeah absolutely, I was just interested in what 'holding someone accountable' means in that context. The story is fucking grim and I'd imagine is causing some serious introspection.
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I would say that I don't consider any one individual responsible for not "holding him to account" but rather that the community failed to do so, and the community is made up of people, and those people should consider why the community failed to do so and what the consequence of that was.
I'm not saying Honnold or Jorgesen could have saved the day individually, against the unwillingness of the community to deal with the problem. Lonnie Kauk appears to have tried and not met with success. But if Honnold, Jorgesen and so on had been willing to actually do something more than just turn a blind eye, then the community isn't against them, because the community is them. It is disturbing to read on an individual level, but imo it is disturbing to read on a social level; in that scene you can be a serial rapist and abuser, and be known to be that, be arrested several times, be jailed at times, and yet not face actual serious social consequences until you're facing life behind bars? That is... alarming.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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I think that kind of thinking can be both normal and stupid, personally.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Indeed; 'punished' as a (clumsy) proxy for the justice system actually engaging with him in full, including treatment, rather than cutting deals.
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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."
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“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.
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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..
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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 ).
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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.
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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".
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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!
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You'll get no argument from me that in that instance the way those people acted (or more accurately 'not acted') enabled the abuser and dismissed the abused.
But you've started this thread specifically talking about Honnold (and Jorgensen) 'coming out of this not looking good'. And you continued to press your point that Honnold was 'stupid' and should have 'held Barrett to account'. This is what I'm specifically countering - your assertions about Honnold's actions/thought process. Not anyone else you want to bring in to your point - those goalposts aren't the goalposts you started with. There are clearly loads of people who acted poorly/didn't act when they should have.
I don't get the impression from that Outside article that Honnold was one of them, as you assert.
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Well I honestly think they did gloss over it, my point in the post you responded to was "it's not going to be normal and acceptable for us to gloss over abuse any more?" Which I think would be a good thing
What are you arguing for anyway? What's your point here? That them ignoring it was understandable and.. what? My personal opinion is that the quotes speak poorly of those people. You might disagree. Fine. But what are you actually arguing for?
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But you've started this thread specifically talking about Honnold (and Jorgensen) 'coming out of this not looking good'. And you continued to press your point that Honnold was 'stupid' and should have 'held Barrett to account'. This is what I'm specifically countering - your assertions about Honnold's actions/thought process. Not anyone else you want to bring in to your point - those goalposts aren't the goalposts you started with. There are clearly loads of people who acted poorly/didn't act when they should have.
I don't get the impression from that Outside article that Honnold was one of them, as you assert.
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Folk
This has been flagged up to me.
You need to be a 100% sure of all your facts here when publicly publishing this stuff about named individuals as untrue statements of this nature are defamatory where you might potentially be held liable.
I don’t know anything at all about him other than vague recollection of routes that he claimed so am completely in the dark.
My instinct is to be on the safe side and take the relevant posts down but will discuss with the other mods.
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Is it defamatory to say that someone who has been convicted for sexually abusing children is a serial sex offender and child abuser?
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The concern, and it might be unfounded, is whether the person who was found guilty is definitely the same person as the one being discussed.
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I’m on a cragging day in Spain with average reception and a low battery.
I don’t the named person or who the UKB poster is so in the circumstances I’ve removed the relevant posts at least for the time being.
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Is it defamatory to say that someone who has been convicted for sexually abusing children is a serial sex offender and child abuser?
No, making a “fair and accurate” report of a court case has qualified privilege so is generally not defamatory. But, as Ru says, it needs to be clear who is being identified. Usually in the media that’s covered by age and a rough address but even that sometimes has not been enough, and obviously with a common name that’s an issue.
But there have been several posts on this thread which I think are either defamatory or close to it, although you’d have to get a libel lawyer to check it out to be sure the statements pose a risk. It’s worth saying that defamatory statement doesn’t need to name an individual for that individual to make a claim, merely that they can be identified. I am not up to speed on how far the definition of “reasonable person” goes and how much that is domain specific, but given that I and many other UKB readers certainly understood who was being discussed it would seem to me prudent to remove those posts.
Full disclosure I’m obviously not a lawyer but I worked as a journalist many years ago and had a working knowledge of defamation law. I’m super rusty these days though and there was a new act in 2013, so I could easily be wrong. I would also tend towards a conservative approach!
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I ran into somebody the other day who knew charlie barrett directly. He was totally shocked when I told him about the article and associated allegations. I guess it goes to show how little we can know about people we climb with or run into at the crag on a regular basis.
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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'.
This.
I also think it's best to be very careful about repeating rumours as, libel aside, if they are not based on something you have good evidence for/ very strong reason to believe to be true, they might be damaging an individual innocent of those allegations.
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I'm Joe Brown Shark. Ru and many others know me.
This 100% the same person.
The BBC piece I cited is accurate, but I accept that it makes no link between the offender and his work as an outdoor instructor; therefore mentioning him in that context is unfair. I'd rather leave it to the cops to investigate what, if any, link there was between what he was convicted for and his chosen line of work.
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Thanks Joe
I’ll make some enquiries. Like you say it could be that offences weren’t related to his instruction work.
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Sorry to be a pain!
Agree completely - there may well be no link between the two. Yes, best leave this sort of thing to the police.
Feel free to zap any posts you like.
I first heard about this case a few months ago. Very few of my climbing/instructing mates seemed aware of it, which made me uncomfortable given the guys background. I thought it justified a conversation and, if nothing else, served as a reminder why safeguarding/DBS checks remain important.
Hope you're well and Spain is good. Still using your famous mid-crux battle cry, "10% power!!!"? Ha ha!
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Sorry to be a pain!
Agree completely - there may well be no link between the two. Yes, best leave this sort of thing to the police.
Feel free to zap any posts you like.
I first heard about this case a few months ago. Very few of my climbing/instructing mates seemed aware of it, which made me uncomfortable given the guys background. I thought it justified a conversation and, if nothing else, served as a reminder why safeguarding/DBS checks remain important.
Hope you're well and Spain is good. Still using your famous mid-crux battle cry, "10% power!!!"? Ha ha!
Think you are confusing me with Simon Reed !
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Of course - sorry!
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Barrett found guilty (https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/professional-rock-climber-convicted-sexual-assaults-yosemite-national-park)
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Good, of course.
'“This defendant used his renown and physical presence as a rock climber to lure and intimidate victims who were part of the rock-climbing community. His violent sexual assaults were devastating to the victims, whom he later threatened in the lead-up to trial,” said U.S. Attorney Talbert.' The prosecuting attorney clearly believed some community effects were at work in these events (which is not to say such effects are unique or specific to the climbing community).
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A useful concept to drop into the discussion, in case people aren't already familiar with it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair