Megan sent in this question:
Recently my husband who is the Scoutmaster had a father of a scout show up at our door and threaten my husbands safety. The father also went to the Boy Scout meeting looking for my husband who was not there and gave another threat to his safety to another leader. The local bsa council would prefer to remain quiet and not get involved in hopes it will blow over. We did call the police. I would like to understand where Boy Scouts of America stand on threats to their adult leaders.
Megan, I’m sorry to hear you are having this problem. In my experience these sort of problems are normally handled at the unit level. Your unit is not required to keep a Scout whose family is threatening others. In my opinion, your Chartered Organization Rep and Committee Chair should contact his parents and tell them it is time to find another unit.
You are correct to call the police if you feel unsafe. Hopefully a warning from them will be enough to keep this bully of a parent away from you.
I don’t know what the official BSA policy is, but in all of the cases like this that I’ve heard of, the Scout and family have been asked to stay away from the unit.
Readers, what is your experience? Any advice for Megan? Add your comments below.
How scary!
I can appreciate the frustration with the BSA’s response but, I agree, I would go first to my Charter Organization Representative and Committee Chair. We are very blessed in our Troop – we meet at our CO (an Elk’s Lodge,) and our representative is there just about every week to open for us so we have lots of contact with him. He has been very helpful with conflicts in the Troop.
The Key Three of any unit are the Committee Chair, the Charter Org Rep and the Scoutmaster. The Charter Org would be the “enforcer” in this situation. All of the leaders in the unit are approved by the COR. To me, the buck stops there. If you don’t have your Charter Org’s support, I’m not sure what the BSA can or should do.
If this situation happened beyond the unit – at a District meeting level or a Council level, then I would expect more response from the Council.
Megan
This is serious. I am the staff advisor to Risk Management in our Council and I would want to know about this.
I suggest that you contact Richard Bourlon, National BSA Health & Safety Service at Richard.Bourlon@scouting.org
Hey Megan!! The advice given here is right on target!
In addition to contacting Richard Bourlon at the BSA’s National Center, I would once again contact your Council’s Scout Executive (not a Field Director, District Executive nor anyone else but your *Council Scout Executive* (sometime he or she is called the CEO or the Council Executive) and place on paper exactly what went on, what was said, and who was present when he said those things.
If your Council is unwilling to work with local law enforcement on the matter, then I would send a copy of the statement/information to the National Center. I am sure however if you sat down with your Council’s Scout Executive and fully explain the situations, that your Scout Executive will respond in a positive manner and help you, your family and your Troop resolve this situation.
The official BSA policy is within the Guide to Safe Scouting:
“Allegations of abuse, violations of BSA policies or guidelines, or inappropriate behavior by a Scout, Scout leader, parent, or other person should be reported on this form. The information on this form is confidential, and the completed form should be forwarded to the council Scout executive as soon as practical.”
“Within 24 hours, do the following:
1. Get help for injured parties (e.g., call 911).
2. Notify the council Scout executive.
3. Complete an Incident Information Report, No. 680-016.
4. Forward the incident report to your local council enterprise risk management contact.
5. Ask the council contact to enter the incident into
the RiskConsole incident reporting system.”
Hope this helps out….
Definitely a bad situation for sure, however, in fairness, this is only one side of your story. I’m curious as to what your husband did to warrant this level of animosity from this irate parent?
wow,what folks do not say here is be care full BSA will not back you up period., They are stand off I have been scouting over thirty years but i ran into a situation here that i could not overcome. I was and my wife the committee chair, his wife were not only threaten by a family but were taken to court, This family had already sued another troop in an other council. Dad stood in my living room of my house to yelled at me and my 100% disabled wife he was going to make money on the BSA, the Charter organization, a church, and more i had just stepped down as Scoutmaster because i was attending a school and would be gone for 12 weeks, They were having a committee meeting at a restaurant downtown when two family members got into a dragout fight Police were called. One of the parents had a gun he had a permit, I was not there neither was my wife. I was the eagle advisor for their son. anyway the boy scout is home schooled and needed a lot of mentorship to get his project done, Mom and Dad got mad because we caught them doing this boys project. and Mom said i was stalking her son, by the way i was in the Police Academy at the time. They even filed a police report on me and my wife, The Mom attempted to run my wife down in a parking lot screaming at us at the same time. I was told by my DE to let it go. I contacted everyone at my council , They would not even return my calls. As a scout leader i asked for legal help. i had to go to BSA Legal in Texas National HQs, They refused to do anything to help me my wife , and my committee chair. It cost me $1500.00 in court costs to beat this total lie of a case .MY DE as well as the District folks were ordered not to talk to me or my wife. The Committee Chair was fired just after the court house meeting,but the folks that started it all were not thrown out of BSA. One of them was caught stealing money from the Cub Scout Pack, The other one always carried a Gun no matter where he was and he had screws loose. When i was scoutmaster i documented theses things but the DE nor Council would do anything. Never less because they threaten the council in a Lawsuit they gave this Kid his Eagle almost nothing was done on his so called project. To this day i do not know what we did to piss theses folks off. We went way out of our way to call his 4 previous Troops to get information on his Blue cards and ranks. One of the former scoutmasters told me good luck no one ever told us they were a bad family. When we needed help from BSA they ran, my family , my sons suffered because BSA and My council would not help us out. The Troop ( 60 Year old) folded 6 months later because all the good parents pulled there boys out and went to other Troops. All that was left was the 3 parents that gang up on the rest. I am still in scouting but my wife hates the words BSA.. since then i have had several folks ask me to start up another Troop but i have not done that because of the lack of any kind of support from our DE or Council. Trail Life has been also asking me to set up a troop for them and i am considering that program.