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The old men are powerful. On Thursday, overriding tenuous objections of the Boy Scouts of America, about 20,000 pages of incidents of child sexual abuse between 1965 and 1985 were released to public view under a judge’s order.
The pages bare the evidence of how the children cried in the dark, while the old men were busy concealing and covering up incidents from getting out.
The Boy Scouts of America fought tooth and nail to keep the records of more than a thousand reported incidents of pedophiles lurking within its ranks being released to the public. They challenged in court before an Oregon circuit judge ordered the release of the documents, they appealed to prevent the documents being laid bare before the public, but Oregon’s highest court overrode the objections of the old men and released the documents, for the public has the right to know, and the judiciary stands by its obligations.
The ultimate release of the documents kept shrouded in secrecy by the Boy Scouts proved that the loyalties of the judges were towards the Constitution, the public, and the victims, and by continuously objecting to the release of the documents, the BOA also proved where its loyalties were – with the victims, or with other interests. In a similar case in Texas, the BOA continues to fight to keep the records of its pedophiles ranging from 1985 to 2010, from being released to the public.
Boy Scout officials and attorneys are into damage control and asserting that the released files represent only a tiny fraction of the 1.1 million adult volunteers and leaders who mentor more than 3 million boys annually. However, it is more likely that the documents show only that fraction of incidents where a miniscule number of boys and their parents were courageous enough to stand up against the old men and report the incidents. The rest remains unnoticed and lost in the dark.
Wayne Perry, the Boy Scouts of America President said, “We failed some of our kids and we have to say we’re sorry.” In a similarly detached fashion, he told Reuters in an interview, “There are cases where we failed to live up to our standards, failed to properly document cases, and fell short in other ways.”
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The released files record pages and pages of horrible exploitation of children and how the faiths of parents were broken by the BOA. The pages record the exploits of Colorado Boy Scout leader Floyd Slusher, whose favorite strategy was to ply boys with alcohol, then abuse them and then threaten to kill anyone who talked. Even though there were many complaints against Slusher, things were hushed up and Slusher placed under ‘probation.’ Four years later from that ‘probation,’ he was caught molesting children in a Scouts camp in Germany.
Slusher is only one of the more than a thousand pedophiles the records of whose activities were kept secret. At least in one-third of the reported cases, local police were never even involved.
The pages released mention three brothers being molested in Colorado, and though their father went to the police, and the man arrested and charged with sex abuse – within months he was out on bail and back into the Boy Scouts of America. The old men are powerful.
The pages released show an Indiana Scout leader admitting to molesting boys under his care, then rejoining the Boy Scouts of America, after his psychiatrist and minister claimed he was “cured.” Within years, two more molestations were caught and admitted before he left. Nobody knows of the boys molested in between, who never reported from shame, felt lost and kept crying in the dark.
