The Daily - ‘Something Terrible Has Happened’

This episode contains descriptions of sexual assault. When the Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy this year, it created a final window for claims of sexual abuse against the organization’s leaders. Within nine months, nearly 100,000 victims filed suits — that far eclipses the number of sexual-abuse allegations that the Roman Catholic Church faced in the early 2000s. Today, we hear from one of the victims, Dave Henson, a 40-year-old naval officer who was sexually abused for five years by one of his scout troop’s leaders. Alcoholism and emotional trauma followed. Now, he has joined the ranks of thousands of people seeking redress. Guest: Mike Baker, Seattle bureau chief for The New York Times. We want to hear from you. Fill out our survey about The Daily and other shows at: nytimes.com/thedailysurvey For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Read the latest edition here Background reading: The bankruptcy proceedings allowed the Boy Scouts organization to keep operating while it grapples with questions about the future of the century-old movement.The deluge of sex-abuse claims documents a decades-long accumulation of assaults at the hands of scout leaders across the nation who had been trusted as role models. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily

Duration: 36m
Broadcast on: 03 Dec 2020
Audio Format: other

This episode contains descriptions of sexual assault.

When the Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy this year, it created a final window for claims of sexual abuse against the organization’s leaders.

Within nine months, nearly 100,000 victims filed suits — that far eclipses the number of sexual-abuse allegations that the Roman Catholic Church faced in the early 2000s.

Today, we hear from one of the victims, Dave Henson, a 40-year-old naval officer who was sexually abused for five years by one of his scout troop’s leaders. Alcoholism and emotional trauma followed. Now, he has joined the ranks of thousands of people seeking redress.

Guest: Mike Baker, Seattle bureau chief for The New York Times.

We want to hear from you. Fill out our survey about The Daily and other shows at: nytimes.com/thedailysurvey

For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Read the latest edition here

Background reading:

The bankruptcy proceedings allowed the Boy Scouts organization to keep operating while it grapples with questions about the future of the century-old movement.
The deluge of sex-abuse claims documents a decades-long accumulation of assaults at the hands of scout leaders across the nation who had been trusted as role models.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

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this podcast is supported by TikTok. Sometimes the most interesting discoveries are the ones you weren't looking for. That happens every day on TikTok. A science experiment can spark a whole new interest. A recipe you stumble upon can become a meal you make for the people you love. And a restaurant you've never heard of might become your new favorite spot. That's the thing about TikTok. Follow your curiosity and see where it leads. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. So I see myself as, you know, there's kind of, there's two people. There's the man who goes to work, who loves his wife, who loves his children, who tries to do the right thing. But inside is a, I call it a tent, but I think sometimes when I used to dream about it, it looked more like a cage. And inside the cage is a small, terrified, hurting child. And he's lonely, he's in despair, he's suffering. But oh my God, is he angry? From New York Times, I'm Michael Wabaro. This is a Daily. When the Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy this year, it created a final window for claims of sexual abuse against its leaders. There are now more than 92,000 of those claims. Far more than against the Catholic Church. Today, my colleague Mike Baker with the story of one former scout. It's Thursday, December 3rd. How's your day going? Pretty good. It's kind of early in the day. So it's only nine o'clock here in the morning. Yeah, you're in Hawaii. You wear abouts? Oahu. So I'm in Honolulu right now. Dave Henson is 40 years old. He's a big guy, six foot three, 240 pounds. He works in the Navy and lives in Hawaii. He grew up in a mobile home in Denton, Texas, where his mom and dad worked all the time. And you know, when my dad came home from work, he was tired. And we did stuff, but we didn't do a lot of, you know, like throwing the ball back and forth or, you know, most of it was, you know, entertain yourself. And my brother and I, we watched He-Man.

We watched Ninja Turtles. Like master splinters sense, a ninja is always prepared. If you watch G.I. Joe. And he told me collected toys or anything like that. You know, he always collected the bad guys. I always collected the good guys. Typically, I would categorize myself as the good guy. I always wanted to be the hero. My grandparents on my father's side, my man-mom, Peppa, they were always watching gun smoke, gun smoke, John Wayne. I lived most of my life in the wild country. And he set a code of laws to live by. I wanted to be John Wayne. I liked how cool and composed he was. I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. He was the hero. And he did it without hurting innocent people. And it was, it was a good role model. I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people. I require the same from them. It was just what I watched all the time. But my brother and I, I guess we're spending too much time around the house with nothing to do. And so my parents kind of mentioned boy scouts. Do you remember your first impressions of sort of what the boy scouts were and what you were going to be doing there? Yeah. I mean, I thought we were going to be doing a bunch of camping and not tying. And I was super excited to chop wood and to use my pocket knife and climb trees. And that's kind of what I was looking to do. And, you know, there was a lot of new people and the uniform was cool at the time. And I was excited about it. I'm curious, just even at that age, you know, are you thinking that this is kind of an extension of your sort of good guy personality at that point? Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, their, their core values, boys of every height and weight and lung power, every age and creed and color. All of that, you know, trustworthy, kind, obedient, you know, those all things I could connect with. And from every county in the USA, they share only a driving zest for fun and an active quest for challenge and their great adventure of growing up. I remember when I first got there, they were

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