Climber Charles Barrett Arrested for Yosemite Sexual Assaults

EMFR Iwrote:

Fixed it for you. Although in this case it was, it is most definitely not just men that get away with violence/anger/stalking/tantrums. 

#notallmen, there you go. or was it #alllivesmatter?

Becca Joy S wrote:

Would be neat if we did more than a slap on the wrist for these violent crimes. Why are we so tolerant of male anger and tantrums?

While what you are saying is profiling men. What Mr Barrett has been found guilty of is bad. Why do you accuse all men? Are you another victim of abuse from men? Sorry. We are not all bad.

Todd Berlier wrote:

^^^^this is the real question moving forward.

how can the climbing community support the victims healing? personally that's what i would like to see happen. maybe something good can come of this thread now that the trial is over.

The tone-deafness is astounding in this thread.

There’s nothing some random cis white males on the internet can do to help the victims heal.

What you can do is if you see bad behavior such as Charlie’s in the future put down the phone and do something about it instead of pontificating on the internet afterwards.

Raven Swrote:

What is the best way to help victims of Charlie at this point?

 Believe victims. Advocate for people who don't have the strength or resources you might have. Hold people accountable. Be a compassionate listener when people share their trauma. Donate money to rape treatment centers and domestic violence shelters.

EMFR Iwrote:

I think you're making a false correlation here. While that is true, the fatalities tend to be prosecuted/convicted, thus the "tolerance" you mentioned isn't correlated. Before the fatality stage (ie stalking, violence, etc), both sexes get away with a lot more than should be tolerated, not just men. In fact, a lot of women are given the benefit of the doubt as to whether or not they're actually a "threat" to a male (or female) partner, by virtue of them being a woman. 

Edited to add: this is not a statement of "women are just as bad as men." I'm merely pointing out that it's not solely a male on female abuse issue - this certainly goes both ways, and is tolerated far too often, regardless of the sex of the violator. 

Are you really in here saying "not all men?"  JFC, what is wrong with you?

jake joneswrote:

While what you are saying is profiling men. What Mr Barrett has been found guilty of is bad. Why do you accuse all men? Are you another victim of abuse from men? Sorry. We are not all bad.

Another fucking "not all men" post on a thread about a guy who got away with violence against women for at least 15 years and was very enabled by bro culture. 

You're part of the fucking problem.  Read the goddamn room

C Hwrote:

Another fucking "not all men" post on a thread about a guy who got away with violence against women for at least 15 years and was very enabled by bro culture. 

You're part of the fucking problem.  Read the goddamn room

Right on, I wish people like that would STFU (unfortunately, they won’t). The thread, this horrible story, is literally about this shit living in plain sight because the troubled “I have problems” dude was out fucking raping, stalking, threatening, and terrorizing people and getting away with it because nobody wanted to believe the truth. But they’re the victim because they have to hear something that makes them squirm.

I climbed with Charlie once in August 2020.  

A talented mutual friend put me in contact because he wanted to do the E Face Crack on the Monkey and I had done the first pitch.  I was desperate for a partner and couldn't have asked for more skilled partner to try it with.  I'd known of Charlie for over 10 years as a talented climber but not a single word about his behavior.

On the day of, he changed plans from the Monkey Face to Northern Point, He had put a day into the E Face Crack and decided it was too hard in the August heat.  I gotta say, one of the lamest changes of plans ever: instead of climbing on one of the worlds best climbing formations we were headed to a 40 ft basalt rimrock cliff because Charlie wanted to get some quick 5.13 ticks.  

I wanted to bail and stick clip up the Monkey instead, but i felt like I couldn't turn down the opportunity and his short text responses made it seem like I was pissing him off.  I was still happy to pick is brain, he told me he was a "professional guidebook author"; at the time he was working on a Red River Gorge book, which surprised me because it was so out of his circuit.  Its clear to me now that he was going out of his way to terrorize one of his victims who had moved out there to hide from him.  

The more I learned about his life, the more he came off as being jaded and bitter, maybe even angry.  We started talking about crack climbing and finger sizes, and his hands were massive.  I remember telling him that he should put his mitts to good use, go to Indian Creek and climb all the ringlock climbs without breaking a sweat.  Now I look back and realizing what he was using them for: striking and strangling defenseless women until they were unconscious.  I was 29, broad shouldered, and worked in the hospital so I grappled violent people frequently and still, Charlie  kinda scared me.  I can't even begin to imagine what it would have been like to be in the dark with no one to call for help.

We walked back to the parking lot and looked at the smoke coming from South of Mount Jefferson, Charlie left town.  In a few days 80 mile an hour hot winds would whip up the flames and a million acres of pristine Oregon beauty were turned to ash.  No one saw the sun for weeks, you couldn't climb, even inside the hospital my throat would burn and eyes with goggles and N95 on.  After a while you realized it wasn't just the ash that stung, you were breathing in peoples lives, their family cabins, livelihoods, and old growth forest that had thived for hundreds of years.  

The fires and Charlie are closely linked in my memory.  How many beautiful lives did he burn?  How many people saw him smoldering and gave him the benefit of the doubt or even worse supported him?  How do you protect the community from another bad actor hiding in plain sight?  

This thread and Charlie’s behavior truly saddens me,  There are some bad people out there for sure.

If anyone else broke the law on Charlie’s behalf, I hope the feds prosecute them for witness / victim intimidation.

Jon Rhoderickwrote:

I climbed with Charlie once in August 2020.  

A talented mutual friend put me in contact because he wanted to do the E Face Crack on the Monkey and I had done the first pitch.  I was desperate for a partner and couldn't have asked for more skilled partner to try it with.  I'd known of Charlie for over 10 years as a talented climber but not a single word about his behavior.

On the day of, he changed plans from the Monkey Face to Northern Point, He had put a day into the E Face Crack and decided it was too hard in the August heat.  I gotta say, one of the lamest changes of plans ever: instead of climbing on one of the worlds best climbing formations we were headed to a 40 ft basalt rimrock cliff because Charlie wanted to get some quick 5.13 ticks.  

I wanted to bail and stick clip up the Monkey instead, but i felt like I couldn't turn down the opportunity and his short text responses made it seem like I was pissing him off.  I was still happy to pick is brain, he told me he was a "professional guidebook author"; at the time he was working on a Red River Gorge book, which surprised me because it was so out of his circuit.  Its clear to me now that he was going out of his way to terrorize one of his victims who had moved out there to hide from him.  

The more I learned about his life, the more he came off as being jaded and bitter, maybe even angry.  We started talking about crack climbing and finger sizes, and his hands were massive.  I remember telling him that he should put his mitts to good use, go to Indian Creek and climb all the ringlock climbs without breaking a sweat.  Now I look back and realizing what he was using them for: striking and strangling defenseless women until they were unconscious.  I was 29, broad shouldered, and worked in the hospital so I grappled violent people frequently and still, Charlie  kinda scared me.  I can't even begin to imagine what it would have been like to be in the dark with no one to call for help.

We walked back to the parking lot and looked at the smoke coming from South of Mount Jefferson, Charlie left town.  In a few days 80 mile an hour hot winds would whip up the flames and a million acres of pristine Oregon beauty were turned to ash.  No one saw the sun for weeks, you couldn't climb, even inside the hospital my throat would burn and eyes with goggles and N95 on.  After a while you realized it wasn't just the ash that stung, you were breathing in peoples lives, their family cabins, livelihoods, and old growth forest that had thived for hundreds of years.  

The fires and Charlie are closely linked in my memory.  How many beautiful lives did he burn?  How many people saw him smoldering and gave him the benefit of the doubt or even worse supported him?  How do you protect the community from another bad actor hiding in plain sight?  

That’s a beautiful metaphor Jon.

Glad the victims are seeing some small amount of justice here. I, too, was a public defender, so I have some of the same gut reactions as Alan, but cases involving criminals who use existing power structures to victimize women and other marginalized people don’t warrant the same skepticism of the criminal justice system that I usually have.

As for the climbing angle here, I, like many of you, am still waiting for EVEN ONE PRO CLIMBER who knew him to come out and say “I should have known he was a predator because it was common knowledge, and I fucked up and ignored it, and I was wrong and I’m sorry.” Instead, everyone who protected this guy offers some sort of “I didn’t know! He seemed like a great guy!” (Including at least one IN THIS VERY THREAD.) Dude had been to prison, and there were rumors swirling around him for years. Lonnie comes out of this as basically the only male climber of any notoriety that did the right thing here. Shameful. 

Setting aside what commercialism asks of “pro” athletes, it takes an uncommon willingness to be vulnerable by saying, “I’m sorry. I saw the signs and somehow didn’t respond.”

And, yes, it is our evolutionary background that compounds this: there is only one alpha male and being vulnerable risks that status.

That’s not an excuse. Just something of which my gender should be mindful..

Mark Pilatewrote:

What you’re “saying” is ignorant in this and similar cases (I think your point has sailed over a few heads).

You  seem to have both a misplaced faith in the legal system, an unfounded fear of false accusations.  

When it comes to sexual assault and rape, it’s not even close the numbers who get away or are not even prosecuted compared to false accusations.  On the scale of worries, false accusations is right there with killer bees and jellyfish stings.  Meaning they fret me not.  

Mark, I think that your comment was responding to me, not Ryan, so I will respond.

After 50 years working within the legal system I am very well aware that our legal system is far from perfect, though significantly better than any other that I am aware of. What would you prefer in it's place--vigilante 'Justice', 'The Inquisition or Court of Star Chamber, maybe 'Trial by Ordeal' . You seem to feel that, at least in allegations of sexual assault, an accusation alone is sufficient, without any further 'filter'---as long as YOU believe it is true.

I am very well aware that there are many sexual assaults that are not prosecuted or even reported and agree that is a very unfortunate situation. I am also aware that some who committed such offenses ( though probably not as many as you believe) are found not guilty after trial. However, my concern about false accusations is far from "unfounded". Over my career I have been involved in several cases ( more than I assumed before I started my job) that did involve what turned out to clearly be false allegations. In several of these cases my clients spent months in jail before being 'cleared' and all had their lives seriously disrupted. I understand this latter is also very true for victims---both circumstances are wrong and extremely unfortunate. But we do need a fair process to attempt to resolve such cases, and, while always subject to improvement, our legal system is the best way currently available to do so---much better than any other known alternative.

It is worth noting that, as reported in the Outside article, until the current case, the prior actual charges against Mr. Barrett involved domestic violence ( another area of great concern within our legal system) or various forms of harassment and intimidation not sexual abuse. While there are very understandable reasons why the victims of those assaults chose not to go to the police or to proceed with pursuing them in court, it is still incorrect to say that it was the legal system that didn't properly pursue the sexual assault charges or properly punish him for committing them.

I'm saying this, I want emphasize, as I have tried to do in my earlier posts on this topic, that, while I do believe that our legal system is the best way to resolve such cases--as imperfect as it is, that this is not an excuse for those with knowledge of such assaults ( sexual or domestic) to turn their backs and do nothing. Individually, there is much that we can do to support victims within the system and to not enable perpetrators while at the same time not succumbing to the temptation to resort to 'street justice'--it is a difficult balance, but not an impossible one. One more thing. Of the many very disturbing things described in the Outside article, one that particularly stood out to me was the incident where one of Barrett's victims reported the sexual assault to her hostess at the home where the assault had occurred. The 'hostess' (a climber herself) responded by saying that the victim should be pleased that Barrett ( younger than the victim) was sexually attracted to her!!!! There is plenty of blame to go around here---not just 'bro culture' and the legal system.

Jon Rhoderickwrote:

I climbed with Charlie once in August 2020.  

A talented mutual friend put me in contact because he wanted to do the E Face Crack on the Monkey and I had done the first pitch.  I was desperate for a partner and couldn't have asked for more skilled partner to try it with.  I'd known of Charlie for over 10 years as a talented climber but not a single word about his behavior.

On the day of, he changed plans from the Monkey Face to Northern Point, He had put a day into the E Face Crack and decided it was too hard in the August heat.  I gotta say, one of the lamest changes of plans ever: instead of climbing on one of the worlds best climbing formations we were headed to a 40 ft basalt rimrock cliff because Charlie wanted to get some quick 5.13 ticks.  

I wanted to bail and stick clip up the Monkey instead, but i felt like I couldn't turn down the opportunity and his short text responses made it seem like I was pissing him off.  I was still happy to pick is brain, he told me he was a "professional guidebook author"; at the time he was working on a Red River Gorge book, which surprised me because it was so out of his circuit.  Its clear to me now that he was going out of his way to terrorize one of his victims who had moved out there to hide from him.  

The more I learned about his life, the more he came off as being jaded and bitter, maybe even angry.  We started talking about crack climbing and finger sizes, and his hands were massive.  I remember telling him that he should put his mitts to good use, go to Indian Creek and climb all the ringlock climbs without breaking a sweat.  Now I look back and realizing what he was using them for: striking and strangling defenseless women until they were unconscious.  I was 29, broad shouldered, and worked in the hospital so I grappled violent people frequently and still, Charlie  kinda scared me.  I can't even begin to imagine what it would have been like to be in the dark with no one to call for help.

We walked back to the parking lot and looked at the smoke coming from South of Mount Jefferson, Charlie left town.  In a few days 80 mile an hour hot winds would whip up the flames and a million acres of pristine Oregon beauty were turned to ash.  No one saw the sun for weeks, you couldn't climb, even inside the hospital my throat would burn and eyes with goggles and N95 on.  After a while you realized it wasn't just the ash that stung, you were breathing in peoples lives, their family cabins, livelihoods, and old growth forest that had thived for hundreds of years.  

The fires and Charlie are closely linked in my memory.  How many beautiful lives did he burn?  How many people saw him smoldering and gave him the benefit of the doubt or even worse supported him?  How do you protect the community from another bad actor hiding in plain sight?  

I am really glad to hear that CB was found guilty on all charges. There are so many predators out there who are never held accountable until it's too late and it's clear that CB's behavior was escalating. I think his victims may have very narrowly avoided being murdered. I've encountered not a small number of men (and it seems like it's always men - sorry) in the climbing community who use their anger to control and manipulate situations. They respond inappropriately to frustrations or mild criticism from the people around them. They use the expression of anger to avoid accountability for all kinds of things. 

In this case, I think we are also failing to recognize that part of the lack of response from the climbing community and perhaps even some of the "pro" climbers could well have been an underlying sense of fear of CB's behavior. What I see in Jon's post is documentation of a man who discomfited people with his inappropriate and excessive responses to people expressing doubt or discomfort with CB's actions or choices. He used his anger and his celebrity to actively avoid scrutiny. Most people end up tiptoeing around abusers in some way even if it's unconscious. They don't feel safe and so we avoid rocking the boat. If you call them out, will you be backed up by others or will you face that person's lurking rage?

The people who did call him out like Lonnie Kauk, faced pretty extreme consequences.

I'm not sure if this has already been posted in this thread but if you are someone who has faced violence from a partner/friend/family member or seen violence committed against a family member or friend that you can't understand, you may want to read this book: Why Does He Do That? Inside the minds of angry and controlling men. It's a free pdf and often an uncomfortable read. And yes, it is specifically about male violence although the author points out other relationship dynamics where similar patterns of abuse occur. There are always exceptions to the norm but the norm still exists.

If we're going to talk about victim shaming in this thread or what people should do to avoid becoming a victim, it's really important to understand the mindset of an abuser and to see that it doesn't matter what the victim does or how they behave - the abuser will find a reason within their mind to justify their actions. 

Edit: Just wanted to share some quotes from the book that I think echo this situation.

“THE ABUSER’S PROBLEM IS NOT THAT HE RESPONDS INAPPROPRIATELY TO CONFLICT. HIS ABUSIVENESS IS OPERATING PRIOR TO THE CONFLICT: IT USUALLY CREATES THE CONFLICT, AND IT DETERMINES THE SHAPE THE CONFLICT TAKES.”

"I have almost never worked with an abused woman who overlooked her partner's humanity. The problem sits in reverse: He forgets her humanity. Acknowledging his abusiveness and speaking forcefully and honestly about how he has hurt her is indispensable to her recovery. It is the abuser's perspective that she is being mean to him by speaking bluntly about the damage he has done. To suggest to her that his need for compassion should come before her right to live free from abuse is consistent with the abuser's outlook. I have repeatedly seen the tendency among friends and acquaintances of an abused woman to feel that it is their responsibility to make sure that she realizes what a good person he really is inside - in other words, to stay focused on his needs rather than on her own, which is a mistake. People who wish to help an abused woman should instead be telling her what a good person she is." ~Lundy Bancroft

Alan, I was responding to what I perceived to be Ryan’s smug facetiousness.  Reread his posts from that angle.  Not anything you said.

That said, I am not blaming “the legal system” nor proposing alternatives to it, merely acknowledging it’s unfortunate ineffectiveness in particular to cases like this.   The legal system is US, so it’s a pretty broad indictment (no pun intended) not much more removed from “the climbing community”.    We are largely in agreement on the legal side.  

My point is that sexual predators love it if everyone sticks to the slow moving, “let the legal process work”, stay silent or uninvolved for as long as possible, “he’s innocent until proven guilty” , yadda yadda.     That’s all true and will happen regardless—legally.  

But don’t confuse “legally” (or use it as a cop out) with opening your own eyes and making personal choices of who to support or to believe.   

I despise cancel culture and most “woke” crusades.  This is not the same.  Sure there are rare examples of crazy vengeful exes who may make unfounded accusations of this nature and those are usually easily identifiable.  

The probability of multiple independent women colluding to falsely accuse a guy of sexual misconduct or rape is simply a non-factor, and I am statistically and mathematically (and morally) sound in making my own well considered judgments prior to the legal system working its magic.  

FWIW women can have internalized misogyny and perpetuate a poor value system, the issue isn’t “men” it’s a culture. Far better than it was 50 years ago!! Let’s keep improving it

This stood out to me:

Mel wrote:

"I've encountered not a small number of men (and it seems like it's always men - sorry) in the climbing community who use their anger to control and manipulate situations....They use the expression of anger to avoid accountability for all kinds of things."

As several people have emphasized, we can probably all agree that this applies to life in general--there's nothing special about the climbing community in this regard. 

For example...who remembers Brett Kavanaugh's red-faced tirade during his confirmation hearings?  If that wasn't an example of a man in power using his anger to bend the world to his will, I don't know what is!

Now, I don't want to make this political, but we have been talking about how the justice system and society turn a blind eye at men's sexual violence toward women.  And on the supreme court we have two men, Brett Kananaugh and Clarence Thomas, who had credible allegations made against them, and managed to not only escape accountability, but were elevated to one of the most powerful positions in the country!

I mean, if we see this sort of conduct in the supreme court, why should we be surprised when women fail to have their voices heard?

Does anybody beleive that Brett Kavanaugh did not assault Christine Blasey Ford?  

Does anybody dounbt that Clarence Thomas sexually harrassed Anita Hill?  

Last, Alan, I really respect your contributions, and I generally agree with what you write, but there is one small point that does not sit well with me: 

You wrote: 

"I am very well aware that our legal system is far from perfect, though significantly better than any other that I am aware of."  

This seems overly partiotic and myopic in a particularly American way.  Are we really to beleive that the American legal system is superior to that in, say, the Northern European social democracies?  Or in Switzerland, the country where I hapen to live now?  Or, really, in any number of other places?  

I think it would be easy to identify areas where the US legal system is woefully lacking compared to other countries. 

@ Bruno

You are totally right. The issue is much greater than the climbing community. The use of anger and "outrage" in order to gain power is endemic in our society and unfortunately, frequently rewarded as we've seen with Kavanaugh, Trump, Weinstein, etc. They have all used outrage and blustering anger to control situations and deny accountability. I don't know the truths of all those situations but I do know that people who respond to criticism with anger tend to get away without much actual criticism or self-reflection. It tends to serve them well as they move up ladders of influence.

I'm a little too young to know much about Thomas's rebuttals to Anita Hill's accusations but I can imagine if I researched that story in more detail, I would see the pattern repeat itself.

It's a hard issue too. I'm a big believer that people are capable of being wonderful and being awful. I believe that most people deserve a second chance and we have the capacity to learn and grow. But, I think too often we give grace to those who intimidate us and magnify the ills of those who don't. For example, looking back in people's twitter threads to 2010 to find something to condemn them with seems ridiculous but we seem unable to tackle those who are unrepentant offenders (see Trump). 

Mark Pilatewrote:

What you’re “saying” is ignorant in this and similar cases (I think your point has sailed over a few heads).

You  seem to have both a misplaced faith in the legal system, an unfounded fear of false accusations.  

When it comes to sexual assault and rape, it’s not even close the numbers who get away or are not even prosecuted compared to false accusations.  On the scale of worries, false accusations is right there with killer bees and jellyfish stings.  Meaning they fret me not.  

That's the opposite of what I said. Weird. 

Here is how I see it. We know there are more guys out there doing this. There is more than one Charles Barrett and some of them have not been arrested or never will be. We need to call them out now. There should be more conversations on this discussion board like the one Andrew started here. Name names. Don't wait until they are arrested because that may never happen. We can protect future victims now but only if people speak up.

To all the dudes crying out "not all men," and complaining about "profiling," really, can we just give it a rest? Take it from this old geezer, "men" are going to continue doing just fine as a demographic without you rushing in to defend our gender every time someone points out some of the awful shit done, yes, primarily by men.