Question About Investigation Procedures

[scoutlaw74]

26 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

People lie to the police all the time.  Continually.  All the time. ...  Heck, every soccer mom could be arrested for the weight on their driver's license.

Is it a crime?  ... Yes, lying to law enforcement is a crime.  ... then consider ... misinterpretation, misremembering, emotional distortion, point-of-view, judging, interpretation...  It's just not always that clear.  It's rarely worth pursuing.  

... A young lady made a false accusation ... if she is anything like I am, she will periodically for the rest of her life be tortured by the mistakes she made.  This would be one of them.  ...  

IMHO.  Protect your son.  Get your son to protect himself.  ... Find a way to move on.

 

With all due respect, my son is not going to just move on, he is an applicant to the US Naval Academy and US Air Force Academy. He is a recipient of the NROTC scholarship. He is not moving on, he has also earned multiple accolades in Civil Air Patrol, including Spaatz, which is harder than Eagle (and rarer) and has additional awards that I cannot state here as a quick internet search would reveal his identity. He was selected this year to represent CAP for a second time in Washington DC to meet with all three branches including the President. He has a future ahead of him that he considers the traffic warning he received for forgetting to turn on his lights a blemish. He has never touched alcohol or drugs, never done anything remotely inappropriate and values his reputation and his future. This is a kid with 13 palms, he loves scouting and he and I both believe that the truth will come out. Being an obedient scout, he is not letting go of this in a respectful way, and his rightful pursuit of the truth is the correct thing to do otherwise false accusations are a stain on scouting and the truth for when it does happen. There’s a reason trustworthy is the first scout law. 
 

[malraux]

For good or ill, there's not much to do beyond move on if the BSA says to move on. Its a private group and they can more or less arbitrarily ask anyone to move on and go somewhere else whenever they want.

[scoutlaw74]

20 minutes ago, malraux said:

For good or ill, there's not much to do beyond move on if the BSA says to move on. Its a private group and they can more or less arbitrarily ask anyone to move on and go somewhere else whenever they want.

While I agree with you, we do believe the truth will come out. And even though it is a private organization, my son is entering the military where his Eagle rank will impact his pay. Midshipmen and Cadets at the Service Academies receive full enlisted pay and Eagle rank boosts his rank and pay. We are confident the truth will come out, unfortunately we are hearing from others speaking to us in support, false accusations are a rampant problem right now. 

[malraux]

Assuming he has already earned eagle, that won’t go away so it would not impact his future in the military. 

[Navybone]

25 minutes ago, scoutlaw74 said:

And even though it is a private organization, my son is entering the military where his Eagle rank will impact his pay. Midshipmen and Cadets at the Service Academies receive full enlisted pay and Eagle rank boosts his rank and pay.

I think that you need to check this.  If your son were to enlist, then yes, he would automatically advance to E2 because he earned Eagle Scout.   But for ROTC or the service academies, the pay is the same for all midshipman/cadets and their midshipman/cadet rank does not change due to Eagle Scout.  And they all commission at the same rank O-1 (Ensign/2nd Lt).  I will caveat with my back ground is on the Navy side, but the service are usually aligned on these types of things.

Also, the military will not care about the investigation unless there are legal issues.  Otherwise it is considered an internal to the organization matter. 

Edited June 30, 2022 by Navybone

[fred8033]

4 hours ago, scoutlaw74 said:

... Being an obedient scout, he is not letting go of this in a respectful way, and his rightful pursuit of the truth is the correct thing to do otherwise false accusations are a stain on scouting and the truth for when it does happen. ...

Well ... I really do hope you get your son's reputation cleared.  He sounds like a good kid.  ... I also hope the accuser learns something form this process.  ... Everyone make mistakes and even some bad mistakes.  I hope she has a path toward healing and digging herself out of this mess too.  

To be real honest, there is not much to gain by pursuing this too far.  In fact, you do risk escalating issues.  ...  Sometimes the best choice is to left time pass to deescalate feelings and tensions.  If no one is pushing this, I would consider letting it go.  

[fred8033]

18 hours ago, fred8033 said:

...

I really hate reading my own typos.

[Tron]

@scoutlaw74 After reading more of this I wonder if your son is being targeted because of his faith? The reality of Scouting is that there are varying levels of "reverence" and we do have some people who have a declared faith but are in reality not religious at all, and some even claim to have a faith but lash out at those who truly do. Something to consider. 

To the comments about the military and the Eagle Scout status. The official document says E2 these days due to a higher priority towards valuing college education; however, that is not the end all be all. 

When I was in the Army and on recruiting detail we enlisted Eagle Scouts at E4 (Specialist), some people didn't like it, but it was within the discretion of our recruiting command. There are a lot of ways to gain extra rank when you enlist and being an Eagle Scout normally encompasses all of them. We valued the outdoors experience (regardless of quality) because we could safely assume that the enlistee was at least mentally prepared to face the BCT experience. 

Going to an academy as an Eagle Scout will not matter as much (it helps you get in, but what you do while you are there matters more); ranks at the academies have more to with school year, performance, and popularity. Assuming that a person is offered a commission and accepts it post academy, then at that time being an Eagle Scout will matter again when being reviewed for promotion; those extras as a high school and college student (Eagle Scout, CAP, Sports, Volunteering) can help get a person promoted on their first look because it helps fill in the picture of the quality and character of that junior officer. Those things will be in their career jacket and will become tie breakers.

[Navybone]

44 minutes ago, Tron said:

Assuming that a person is offered a commission and accepts it post academy, then at that time being an Eagle Scout will matter again when being reviewed for promotion; those extras as a high school and college student (Eagle Scout, CAP, Sports, Volunteering) can help get a person promoted on their first look because it helps fill in the picture of the quality and character of that junior officer. Those things will be in their career jacket and will become tie breakers.

Clarification - For an Naval Officer perspective, promotion to O2 and O3 is automatic (so long as you qualify).  O4 is the first promotion determined by a board and it is 100% what is in your record and based on your time in the Naval service.  In short, Eagle scout in and of itself will help you get into an academy, or ROTC, or OCS.  That is it. What you learned from earning Eagle (leadership, time management, project management, etc) are essential life skills in the military and can very much help you get promoted and be a successful officer.   But not because you earned Eagle. 

[ThenNow]

Several things from both a personal and professional perspective.

1. Envy (often misidentified as jealousy) is a huge driver of false accusations, especially when the accused is accomplished and, per your telling, above reproach. In today’s world, add to that being a politically conservative person of faith (politically incorrect in the minds of too many) and you become an easy target from many angles. 

2. Be wary of “protesting too much.” Answer questions and provide the requested information. He will not serve his cause by getting out in front of the questions. Because this is not being played out in public, there is no “getting ahead of the narrative” and you never want to answer questions that were not asked. 

3. As awful as this may sound, you can’t really fix this. It happened and if he did not do it, which I assume based on your posts, it’s a terrible thing. This is a ‘manage and mitigate damage’ scenario and not a restore to pristine condition. The latter is not in your hands because it is going on behind closed doors. 

4. Be wary of what I would call the “scrub out the stain at all cost” syndrome. Many people become obsessed with clearing their name, which I completely understand. If it’s not fully possible and he is doing all he can, rest in that. God knows. He sees. “All the weights of the bag are His concern.” (Prov. 16:11b)

Hang in there…

[Tron]

On 7/1/2022 at 12:40 PM, Navybone said:

Clarification - For an Naval Officer perspective, promotion to O2 and O3 is automatic (so long as you qualify).  O4 is the first promotion determined by a board and it is 100% what is in your record and based on your time in the Naval service.  In short, Eagle scout in and of itself will help you get into an academy, or ROTC, or OCS.  That is it. What you learned from earning Eagle (leadership, time management, project management, etc) are essential life skills in the military and can very much help you get promoted and be a successful officer.   But not because you earned Eagle. 

Navy must be far less competitive than the Army. There are many branches in the Army where if you do not get picked up on your first look you will get kicked out of the Army. For example the infantry, you need to get promoted on first look at O2 or you will get kicked out for lack of career advancement by O3. 

[scoutlaw74]

Thank you, and I understand. My son is also a cadet colonel and Spaatz award recipient. We are confident that the truth of what happened will be determined. My son is handling this with patience, integrity and tremendous grace given all that is happening to him, and this is what we expect from our Eagle scouts and Spaatz cadets. He will be okay, but as a parent I hope for the sooner the better. 

[Navybone]

24 minutes ago, Tron said:

Navy must be far less competitive than the Army. There are many branches in the Army where if you do not get picked up on your first look you will get kicked out of the Army. For example the infantry, you need to get promoted on first look at O2 or you will get kicked out for lack of career advancement by O3. 

I would not say that -  it s just that the Navy is more technical than the army.  Pretty much all of the officer communities has a about a year + pipeline before you get into an operational command.  As such, there is no real opportunity (other than failing to pass the different schools in the pipeline) to assess an officers capabilities.  There is no Infantry equivalent for the Navy - even surface warfare takes time.

[Cburkhardt]

I just spent the week at summer camp and read this only today.  I am familiar with the BSA process.

As a technical matter, national has an 800 number originally intended for persons to report misbehavior of employees.  The service is operated by an outside HR contractor.  Complaints can include any HR-related matters as well as abuse situations.  People became aware of the 800 number and began phoning-in complaints about volunteers and even youth.  Rather than ignore these reports, national's contractor makes local councils aware of the volunteer/youth complaints and follow-up is largely the responsibility of local councils.  I believe this might be why you were told this is a "national investigation".  One case I am familiar with involving Troop adult volunteers was dealt with locally in a manner that did not require law enforcement involvement, because the local council concluded the accusation did not fall within a mandatory reporting category.  The national contractor simply closed its file when the local council reported that the matter had been successfully resolved (the accusation was proved to be unfounded).

If you are contacted to provide your son's side of the story, my suggestion is to cooperate and put in writing the exonerating facts as confirmed by your Troop's eye witnesses and submit this to the local council executive handling the matter.  Do not overstate or slant anything.  When this matter is ultimately dismissed for want of any behavioral rule violations, this written statement, along with a written indication the the investigation was closed, will be the only documents to memorialize that "nothing happened". 

The BSA contractor and local council is not in the position to affirm that "nothing happened" and will merely discontinue the investigation for want of evidence of a violation.

Serious violations end up being adjudicated by the Scout Executive, who determines whether the person should be placed on the ineligible volunteer list.  If that happens, there is a two-level appeal process to the Territory (used to be the region) and then to national.  Those appeals are all done via paper and should involve an attorney on behalf of the ineligible volunteer to get things right.  Generally, these appeals are conducted cautiously to avoid re-admitting potentially abusing individuals.  Once on the list, it is difficult to be dropped from it.

[fred8033]

@Cburkhardt ... THANK YOU !!!!!

 

51 minutes ago, Cburkhardt said:

...  People became aware of the 800 number and began phoning-in complaints about volunteers and even youth. Rather than ignore these reports, national's contractor makes local councils aware of the volunteer/youth complaints and follow-up is largely the responsibility of local councils.

I suspect I've seen this path happen a few times in the recent years.  The triaging was probably the reason the original YP policy said to call the SE first.