theintercept--2020-12-20--Hospital CEOs Have Gotten Rich Cutting Staff and Supplies. Now They’re Not Ready for the Next Wave.

Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx had healthier patients , just enough nursing staff to take care of them , and a CEO who was earning $ 2 million a year , a senior nurse and union leader told The Intercept .
Fifteen years later , its patients are sicker than ever before , its staffing levels are inadequate , and , as of 2018 , its new CEO is earning $ 13 million per year .
The nonprofit hospital , like hundreds of others across the nation , has been cutting costs , progressively going leaner on staffing and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ approach has meant that the pandemic has hit the hospital , especially health care workers , doubly hard .
The nurse , Karine Raymond , has provided care at the facility for 27 years .
In the second wave of Covid-19 , as in the first , she and her colleagues are taking care of double the patients that they typically do .
“ It ’ s untenable and unmanageable and left us feeling very concerned that perhaps we might have done better if circumstances were different , ” said Raymond .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million .
How many nurses would his salary pay for ?
I do have a problem with seeing the suffering of the community I ’ m supposed to serve while others are collecting funds that have been provided by state and federal governments just because they can.
” Nurses were overworked before , but since March , many nurses have left the industry entirely , retiring early or seeking other work .
While personal protective equipment supplies are more abundant now than in the spring , nurses are more burnt out than ever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for another wave of Covid-19 patients .
The executives who typically make the decisions at the United States ’ s hospitals , whether for-profit or ostensibly nonprofit , are uniquely unprepared for the coming deluge , experts say .
A decadeslong failure to recruit and retain health care workers like nurses , technicians , and nurse ’ s aides has made U.S. hospitals less able to manage the scope of a pandemic , and makes it much more likely that hospitals will break down , as they did in the spring in Wuhan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Even before the pandemic hit us so hard hospitals were using a policy called ‘ Lean , ’ which is just-in-time staffing and supplies , ” said Linda Aiken , a professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania who has long studied the relationship between nurse staffing and patient care .
The concept of lean hospitals was developed by management consultant Mark Graban in 2009 , but business practices imported from manufacturing based on lean staffing began to be introduced in health care starting in the early ’ 90s .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ policies were a failure well before Covid and now they are a disaster during this national emergency , ” said Aiken .
Bonnie Castillo , executive director of National Nurses United , the largest union of registered nurses in the U.S. , lambasted “ Lean ” in a statement at the beginning of December , saying , “ Lean industry practices slashed preparedness .
They treat safe staffing and needed supplies as a drag on budget goals and profit margins , rather than the prerequisite for a humane , fully prepared patient-oriented health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concrete results on the ground .
“ During the current surge , nurses are seeing patients die who could have been saved , if they had the proper staffing and supplies , ” National Nurses United said in a recent statement .
Staffing shortages at hospitals have been reported in California , New York , Pennsylvania , Kansas , Maryland , Texas , Alabama , Idaho , Massachusetts , Arizona , Louisiana , Oregon , and Nevada in just the past two weeks .
While the staffing crisis at this point is similar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be a once-in-a-lifetime event , and now it ’ s happening again .
The result , Raymond says , is that “ the older nurses are retiring out and the younger nurses aren ’ t staying ” at a pace more rapid than pre-pandemic .
A majority of U.S. health care goes through hospitals that have been set up as nonprofit , which means that they are exempted from federal , state , and nearly always local taxes , and are obligated by their charter to operate in the public interest .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t get in the way of handsome executive compensation packages . )
Fifty-eight percent of hospitals are nonprofit , 20 percent are public , and 21 percent are for-profit , dominated by big chains like HCA Healthcare , Tenet Healthcare , and LifePoint Health .
“ Nominally nonprofit community-spirited institutions have actually come to operate as profit-maximizing monopolies , ” with the excess going to executive compensation instead of dividends , said Phil Longman , the policy director at the Open Markets Institute .
“ That has consequences here because a huge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lot of hospitals are closed , so we don ’ t have the surge capacity that we need for this pandemic.
” Longman has highlighted in particular the role of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center , or UPMC , the dominant hospital monopoly in western Pennsylvania .
When crafting the organization ’ s future in 1995 , its president , Jeffrey Romoff , said , “ At the heart of the matter is the conversion of health care from social good to a commodity.
” Suzanne Gordon , an independent health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thinking has affected hospitals ’ ability to manage the pandemic .
“ If you have an economic view of health care as opposed to a patient care view of health care you ’ re going to define effectiveness and efficiency not as patient outcomes , but as how few staff can you have to produce this widget which is some version of patient care , ” said Gordon .
“ If you have a workforce that is overloaded before a pandemic and demoralized and too old , you ’ re going to have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the only hospital that has seen significant escalations in executive compensation .
The CEO of Banner Health in Phoenix , which has 28 hospitals in six states , made $ 21 million in 2018 , while the CEO of Ascension Health , a Catholic health system with 145 hospitals in 19 states and Washington , D.C. , also made $ 13 million .
The rising executive compensation is a reflection of the financialization of health care , by which hospitals , regardless of their tax status , become not community-focused institutions but entities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be to enrich their executives .
A 2018 study from Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research found that hospital executive salaries increased by 9.3 percent annually from 2005 to 2015 .
An August study from the BMJ Quality & Safety Journal confirmed Gordon ’ s thesis .
It found that , in Chicago and New York City , “ Hospital nurses were burned out and working in understaffed conditions in the weeks prior to the first wave of COVID-19 cases , posing risks to the public ’ s health .
Such risks could be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under consideration , ” referring to legislation that would mandate nurse-to-patient ratios .
Only California has limits on how many patients can be assigned a nurse .
“ Over half the nurses in both states experienced high burnout , ” the study additionally reported .
“ Half gave their hospitals unfavourable safety grades and two-thirds would not definitely recommend their hospitals.
” “ What the research shows is that professional nursing care is the primary service provided by hospitals , but there are many decision makers who are not clinicians .
And so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ science , ” said Aiken , the study ’ s co-author .
“ They think it is technology , or the quality of the food , or having more marble in the lobby .
But there ’ s so much research that shows that ’ s absolutely not the case .
The primary service on the inpatient side is nursing.
” “ So many hospital decision makers don ’ t read the scientific literature because many of them come out of manufacturing and other business sectors .
Nurses are the alarm bells , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that replaces the hands-on , eyes-on-the-patient professional assessment that nurses do that allows everybody else to intervene in a timely way , ” said Aiken .
Nurse short-staffing has been found to lead to higher levels of patient infections and mortality overall .
Nursing turnover in 2018 was 17 percent , which nursing unions and numerous studies have attributed to chronic short-staffing and poor working conditions .
“ Hospitals are being operated for the purposes of maximizing not literally profit , as they ’ re technically nonprofits , but you can see the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deduce what ’ s going on , ” said Longman .
Hospitals have consistently opposed efforts to expand the California model to other states .
In 2018 , the Massachusetts Hospital Association spent $ 25 million campaigning against a ballot initiative that would have guaranteed nurse-to-patient ratios .
Other state-based hospital associations around the country have consistently lobbied against ratio laws as well .
“ Taxpayers pay around 70 percent of the cost of hospitals [ through Medicaid and Medicare ] , so we ’ re paying for people to act against us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ These hospital executives think there ’ s a faucet of nurses that you can turn on and off and nurses will come out .
It doesn ’ t work that way ; it takes two , four , six , eight years to produce nurses .
You don ’ t just want bodies , you want experienced bodies .
You want the appropriate skill mix so you have to have enough nurses there to be able to fill the pipeline of retirement , ” Gordon concluded .
“ I just think this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Do we learn from this or do we go back to the same old , same old ?
” While safe staffing legislation faces an uphill battle in the Senate no matter the outcome of the Georgia runoffs in January , Democrats in the states could take action , following California ’ s lead .
Besides California , there are 14 states where Democrats have control of both houses of the legislature and the governorship , including New York , Illinois , Virginia , New Jersey , and Colorado .
“ If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ level of care that we need to keep our patients healthy and safe and out of the hospitals or home quicker , we have to have safe staffing , ” said Raymond , the nurse .

In 2006, Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx had healthier patients, just enough nursing staff to take care of them, and a CEO who was earning $2 million a year, a senior nurse and union leader told The Intercept. Fifteen years later, its patients are sicker than ever before, its staffing levels are inadequate, and, as of 2018, its new CEO is earning $13 million per year.
The nonprofit hospital, like hundreds of others across the nation, has been cutting costs, progressively going leaner on staffing and supplies over the years. This accelerated approach has meant that the pandemic has hit the hospital, especially health care workers, doubly hard. The nurse, Karine Raymond, has provided care at the facility for 27 years. In the second wave of Covid-19, as in the first, she and her colleagues are taking care of double the patients that they typically do.
“It’s untenable and unmanageable and left us feeling very concerned that perhaps we might have done better if circumstances were different,” said Raymond. “[Our CEO] makes $13 million. How many nurses would his salary pay for? I do have a problem with seeing the suffering of the community I’m supposed to serve while others are collecting funds that have been provided by state and federal governments just because they can.”
Nurses were overworked before, but since March, many nurses have left the industry entirely, retiring early or seeking other work. While personal protective equipment supplies are more abundant now than in the spring, nurses are more burnt out than ever — just as hospitals are getting ready for another wave of Covid-19 patients.
The executives who typically make the decisions at the United States’s hospitals, whether for-profit or ostensibly nonprofit, are uniquely unprepared for the coming deluge, experts say. A decadeslong failure to recruit and retain health care workers like nurses, technicians, and nurse’s aides has made U.S. hospitals less able to manage the scope of a pandemic, and makes it much more likely that hospitals will break down, as they did in the spring in Wuhan, Italy, and New York City.
“Even before the pandemic hit us so hard hospitals were using a policy called ‘Lean,’ which is just-in-time staffing and supplies,” said Linda Aiken, a professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania who has long studied the relationship between nurse staffing and patient care. The concept of lean hospitals was developed by management consultant Mark Graban in 2009, but business practices imported from manufacturing based on lean staffing began to be introduced in health care starting in the early ’90s. “All of our research shows those policies were a failure well before Covid and now they are a disaster during this national emergency,” said Aiken.
Graban said that some executives have drawn the wrong lessons from the management practice. “It’s unfortunate, if not harmful, when hospital executives misunderstand Lean to mean cost cutting, working harder, or not having enough supplies,” he said. “Lean, with its origins at Toyota, provides a management system and improvement method that focuses on first improving safety, quality, and access to care — and there are many published journal articles that document this. Lean aims to reduce the overburden on workers by improving the way work is done. A true ‘just in time’ system is designed to have the right number of people and supplies and medications. Lean organizations don’t boost the bottom line at the expense of employees, with UMass Memorial Health as a noteworthy example of a system that had a ‘no furloughs, no layoffs’ commitment even during this pandemic.”
Bonnie Castillo, executive director of National Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the U.S., lambasted “Lean” in a statement at the beginning of December, saying, “Lean industry practices slashed preparedness. They treat safe staffing and needed supplies as a drag on budget goals and profit margins, rather than the prerequisite for a humane, fully prepared patient-oriented health care system.”
Nurses from Montefiore New Rochelle Hospital protest working conditions, staffing shortages, and lack of contract amid a resurgence of Covid-19 infections outside the hospital in New Rochelle, N.Y., on Dec. 1, 2020. Photo: Anthony Behar/Sipa USA/AP
Lean policy has had concrete results on the ground. “During the current surge, nurses are seeing patients die who could have been saved, if they had the proper staffing and supplies,” National Nurses United said in a recent statement. Staffing shortages at hospitals have been reported in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Maryland, Texas, Alabama, Idaho, Massachusetts, Arizona, Louisiana, Oregon, and Nevada in just the past two weeks. While the staffing crisis at this point is similar to the spring, it was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime event, and now it’s happening again. The result, Raymond says, is that “the older nurses are retiring out and the younger nurses aren’t staying” at a pace more rapid than pre-pandemic.
A majority of U.S. health care goes through hospitals that have been set up as nonprofit, which means that they are exempted from federal, state, and nearly always local taxes, and are obligated by their charter to operate in the public interest. (Those charters, however, don’t get in the way of handsome executive compensation packages.) Fifty-eight percent of hospitals are nonprofit, 20 percent are public, and 21 percent are for-profit, dominated by big chains like HCA Healthcare, Tenet Healthcare, and LifePoint Health.
“Nominally nonprofit community-spirited institutions have actually come to operate as profit-maximizing monopolies,” with the excess going to executive compensation instead of dividends, said Phil Longman, the policy director at the Open Markets Institute. “That has consequences here because a huge part of what happens with consolidation is a lot of hospitals are closed, so we don’t have the surge capacity that we need for this pandemic.”
Longman has highlighted in particular the role of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, or UPMC, the dominant hospital monopoly in western Pennsylvania. When crafting the organization’s future in 1995, its president, Jeffrey Romoff, said, “At the heart of the matter is the conversion of health care from social good to a commodity.”
Suzanne Gordon, an independent health care scholar, said that type of thinking has affected hospitals’ ability to manage the pandemic.
“If you have an economic view of health care as opposed to a patient care view of health care you’re going to define effectiveness and efficiency not as patient outcomes, but as how few staff can you have to produce this widget which is some version of patient care,” said Gordon. “If you have a workforce that is overloaded before a pandemic and demoralized and too old, you’re going to have problems with staffing.”
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Montefiore is not the only hospital that has seen significant escalations in executive compensation. The CEO of Banner Health in Phoenix, which has 28 hospitals in six states, made $21 million in 2018, while the CEO of Ascension Health, a Catholic health system with 145 hospitals in 19 states and Washington, D.C., also made $13 million. The rising executive compensation is a reflection of the financialization of health care, by which hospitals, regardless of their tax status, become not community-focused institutions but entities whose raison d’être seems to be to enrich their executives. A 2018 study from Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research found that hospital executive salaries increased by 9.3 percent annually from 2005 to 2015.
An August study from the BMJ Quality & Safety Journal confirmed Gordon’s thesis. It found that, in Chicago and New York City, “Hospital nurses were burned out and working in understaffed conditions in the weeks prior to the first wave of COVID-19 cases, posing risks to the public’s health. Such risks could be addressed by safe nurse staffing policies currently under consideration,” referring to legislation that would mandate nurse-to-patient ratios. Only California has limits on how many patients can be assigned a nurse. “Over half the nurses in both states experienced high burnout,” the study additionally reported. “Half gave their hospitals unfavourable safety grades and two-thirds would not definitely recommend their hospitals.”
“What the research shows is that professional nursing care is the primary service provided by hospitals, but there are many decision makers who are not clinicians. And so they don’t naturally gravitate to science,” said Aiken, the study’s co-author. “They think it is technology, or the quality of the food, or having more marble in the lobby. But there’s so much research that shows that’s absolutely not the case. The primary service on the inpatient side is nursing.”
“So many hospital decision makers don’t read the scientific literature because many of them come out of manufacturing and other business sectors. Nurses are the alarm bells, and we have never figured out anything that replaces the hands-on, eyes-on-the-patient professional assessment that nurses do that allows everybody else to intervene in a timely way,” said Aiken.
Nurse short-staffing has been found to lead to higher levels of patient infections and mortality overall. Nursing turnover in 2018 was 17 percent, which nursing unions and numerous studies have attributed to chronic short-staffing and poor working conditions.
“Hospitals are being operated for the purposes of maximizing not literally profit, as they’re technically nonprofits, but you can see the luxury cars in the parking lot and deduce what’s going on,” said Longman.
Hospitals have consistently opposed efforts to expand the California model to other states. In 2018, the Massachusetts Hospital Association spent $25 million campaigning against a ballot initiative that would have guaranteed nurse-to-patient ratios. Other state-based hospital associations around the country have consistently lobbied against ratio laws as well. “Taxpayers pay around 70 percent of the cost of hospitals [through Medicaid and Medicare], so we’re paying for people to act against us as patients,” said Gordon.
“These hospital executives think there’s a faucet of nurses that you can turn on and off and nurses will come out. It doesn’t work that way; it takes two, four, six, eight years to produce nurses. You don’t just want bodies, you want experienced bodies. You want the appropriate skill mix so you have to have enough nurses there to be able to fill the pipeline of retirement,” Gordon concluded. “I just think this is a completely predictable and avoidable crisis. Do we learn from this or do we go back to the same old, same old?”
While safe staffing legislation faces an uphill battle in the Senate no matter the outcome of the Georgia runoffs in January, Democrats in the states could take action, following California’s lead. Besides California, there are 14 states where Democrats have control of both houses of the legislature and the governorship, including New York, Illinois, Virginia, New Jersey, and Colorado.
“If we’re going to provide the level of care that we need to keep our patients healthy and safe and out of the hospitals or home quicker, we have to have safe staffing,” said Raymond, the nurse.
Update: December 21, 2020
This story was updated to include comment from Mark Graban.


theintercept--2020-12-21--Detroit is Suing Black Lives Matter Protesters for “Civil Conspiracy”

of August , activists in Detroit , like those in dozens of U.S. cities , sued their local government for its police department ’ s reaction to this year ’ s Black Lives Matter mobilization .
Their complaint alleges that Detroit cops “ repeatedly responded with violence ” when they took to the streets and includes photos and descriptions of some of the gruesome resulting injuries : bruised and broken ribs , concussions , a collapsed lung , a fractured pelvis .
In light of this brutality , the protesters asked a federal judge to bar the police from using @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like chemical weapons , sound cannons , and rubber bullets , against them .
Less than a month later , after the court issued temporary orders restricting the cops ’ use of force , the city filed its official response .
It includes a line-by-line denial of every brutality accusation — and a countersuit .
Detroit ’ s demonstrators are part of a “ civil conspiracy , ” the city ’ s countersuit alleges , “ to disturb the peace , engage in disorderly conduct , incite riots , destroy public property , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other “ illegal acts.
” The countercomplaint asks the court to issue judgments declaring that the protesters engaged in this conspiracy and “ defamed ” the mayor and police , and to award the city damages .
The countersuit against Black Lives Matter protesters is a novel move in the post-George Floyd moment , and it has lit a fire under already boiling local tensions .
The city has tried to portray it as a routine legal tactic , but many see the counterattack as an effort to suppress the right to protest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the police department ’ s violence .
Rep. Rashida Tlaib , D-Mich. , whose congressional district includes much of Detroit , has lambasted it as “ an unthinkable assault on constitutional rights.
” The protesters are fighting back on two separate tracks : one in court , with the backing of national legal groups , and another in the city council , which has the power to cut off funding for the city ’ s litigation .
One council member has already vocalized her opposition to the countersuit , and the activists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a vote early next year .
The situation highlights how officials across the country have weaponized the legal system to suppress the Black Lives Matter movement — like with the overuse of felony charges against protesters , something the Detroit activists have also experienced .
When activists gathered in a suburb in October to march in defiance of racist policing , local cops in riot gear attacked them minutes after they took the street and eventually charged five with felonies .
The prosecutor has not dropped the charges , despite pressure from community @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Congress .
“ These attacks against us are a way of attempting to minimize our ability to go on the offensive and call for transparency and accountability , ” said Tristan Taylor , a protest leader and plaintiff in the demonstrators ’ original lawsuit .
“ This is just a way of saying to people , ‘ This is not a place where you can raise your voice.
’ ” the reckoning over policing that swept the nation after the cop killing of George Floyd in May has been a struggle between two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the city ’ s protest movement and its umbrella collective , Detroit Will Breathe , the lead plaintiff in the original suit .
On the other is the Detroit Police Department and its head , Chief James Craig .
Craig has been clear about his strategy in dealing with Detroit Will Breathe : “ We don ’ t retreat , ” he told host Tucker Carlson on Fox News , where he has appeared several times since this year ’ s movement began .
While rarely offering specifics about the group ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Breathe a group of “ criminals ” and “ misguided radicals ” who “ incite violence.
” “ I absolutely am not going to allow them to take over our city streets , ” he told another Fox News host .
He has also lobbed conspiratorial accusations at the Black Lives Matter movement at large , telling “ Fox and Friends ” that it is “ coordinated , ” “ planned , ” and “ financed ” by “ a Marxist ideology ” trying to “ undermine our government as we know it.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ News , he has the support of Detroit ’ s Democratic mayor , Mike Duggan , who has called Craig ’ s protest policing “ beautiful ” and “ outstanding.
” According to protesters , the city ’ s countersuit is an extension of Craig ’ s pugnacious response to their activism .
“ It ’ s just another blatant attempt to silence and intimidate us , ” said Lauren Rosen , an organizer with Detroit Will Breathe and a plaintiff .
“ Except now … they want to do it through the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The city ’ s countersuit claims that Detroit Will Breathe activists made false statements about cops — evidence , the city says , of a “ civil conspiracy ” and that protesters “ defamed ” Detroit police ( though the city clarified in a recent filing that it isn ’ t suing outright for defamation ) .
But many of the assertions to which the city points seem to be political statements rather than factual inaccuracies .
In one instance , the city claims that Nakia Wallace , a Detroit Will Breathe leader @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] officers ” by posting on Twitter about the “ murderous and brutal nature of the Detroit Police Department.
” In another , it claims that a Detroit Will Breathe member “ falsely ” described the “ ‘ mentality ’ ” of Detroit police as one of “ ‘ the wild , wild West.
’ ” The countercomplaint also accuses Detroit Will Breathe of peddling a “ false narrative to rile the public ” about the fatal police shooting of 20-year-old Hakim Littleton in July , noting that body and dashcam footage released @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the man fire a gun at an officer before police shot him.
” Missing from the city ’ s account is the key reason people are still protesting the incident : Video suggests that police landed most of their shots on Littleton , including one apparently to the head , after tackling him to the ground and kicking his gun away .
The city ’ s lawsuit also nitpicks Detroit Will Breathe members ’ characterization of the police violence they ’ ve endured .
In particular , in the countercomplaint and an earlier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wallace ’ s accusation that a cop placed her in a “ chokehold ” during a protest on the day of Littleton ’ s killing .
Despite a photo showing a helmeted officer with her flexed arm wrapped tightly around Wallace ’ s throat , the city claims that , while arresting Wallace , the officer “ lost her hold , which caused her arms to momentarily touch Wallace ’ s neck.
” The amount of time the officer ’ s arm was around Wallace ’ s neck “ was far too brief @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s definition of a chokehold , the city asserts , and Detroit Will Breathe ’ s “ improper use of this incendiary term demonstrates their desire to falsely alarm the public and the Court.
” “ She took me down with very clear intentions — I couldn ’ t breathe , ” Wallace told The Intercept .
The chokehold denial is just one of many “ ridiculous arguments you would not expect somebody who works for city government to make.
” An organization called the National Police Association has filed the only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s arguments .
Despite its official-sounding name , the National Police Association is a small “ Blue Lives Matter ” ideological group with no apparent law enforcement connections .
( Association President Ed Hutchison told The Intercept he was unaware that “ law enforcement backgrounds are required to operate ” a nonprofit . )
According to the association ’ s website , it aims to “ fight back against cop-haters , ” implement “ ‘ Broken Windows ’ policing policy for all state and local agencies , ” and authorize “ local @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law enforcement functions.
” The Bopp Law Firm , a Terre Haute , Indiana-based practice “ dedicated to the advancement of conservative Republican principles , ” assisted with the brief .
“ civil conspiracy , ” the city ’ s countersuit also alleges that “ the protests in Detroit have repeatedly turned violent , endangering the lives of police and the public ” — and because of this , Detroit Will Breathe ’ s demonstrations shouldn ’ t be considered First Amendment-protected activities .
The city claims that , during four protests , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ objects at them and resisting arrest ; an earlier court filing claims that the injuries include “ cracked vertebrae , lacerations , and concussions.
” But the documents provide no details on how each injury occurred , and whom among the protesters caused the injuries .
The filings also repeatedly claim that protesters were “ destroying and defacing public property , ” but give only two examples : a police car window shattered on an unspecified date and a statue of a slave owner spray-painted in September .
The countersuit ’ s most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s “ unlawful ” behavior center on activists repeatedly ignoring police orders to disperse .
Detroit Will Breathe ’ s complaint , by contrast , includes extensive details on the violent actions of Detroit police officers .
One protester named in the suit claims that she was shot in the chest with a rubber bullet , which pierced her skin and tissue , after being tear-gassed and beaten with a riot shield without provocation ; she experienced panic attacks for months after .
Another protester claims that she suffered a head injury after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; she experienced migraines for weeks .
Another had her pelvis fractured when a cop hit her with a baton ; a doctor advised her not to walk for several months .
Another suffered a broken rib and collapsed lung when an officer beat him over the back .
Two got concussions when an officer hit them over the head with their baton .
Others describe being tackled , beaten , pepper-sprayed , and tear-gassed on multiple occasions .
Rosen , the Detroit Will Breathe organizer , suffered ear damage after police blasted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or LRAD , also known as a sound cannon .
“ I experienced vertigo , dizziness , nausea , tinnitus , ” she told The Intercept .
For days she had difficulty sleeping and eating , “ and because of not being able to really eat and the stress , I lost a significant amount of weight.
” Based on the disparity between the city ’ s open-ended allegations of unlawfulness and the protesters ’ detailed complaints of police brutality , Detroit Will Breathe filed a motion to dismiss the city ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That motion is still being litigated .
“ The law is very well settled that when you ’ re going to bring a claim , you need to be able to back it up , and you need to be able to back it up on its face , ” said Amanda Ghannam , another lawyer representing Detroit Will Breathe on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild .
“ They ’ re just going with these really broad brush strokes trying to paint the entire movement as lawless and violent.
” the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ City Council ’ s internal operations committee , which oversees and issues recommendations on city funding decisions .
In order to continue work on the Detroit Will Breathe lawsuit , Garcia , the city ’ s attorney , has asked the council and the committee to approve an extension and expansion of a contract with the private law firm , Clark Hill , assisting his office with the litigation .
The proposal would add the Detroit Will Breathe case , an additional year , and an added $ 200,000 to a preexisting five-case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a memo from the city council ’ s legislative policy division obtained by The Intercept .
During a November 18 internal operations committee meeting , nearly 20 people , many organized by Detroit Will Breathe , called in to denounce the city ’ s countersuit and oppose the contract .
“ This is an attack on racial justice movements , and it ’ s a really egregious thing to spend public money on , ” said one of the callers .
Garcia responded to the concerns by portraying the counterclaim as a routine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ types of countersuits when it ’ s legally advisable to do so , ” he said .
Council Member Raquel Castañeda-López then asked Garcia whether the city had ever countersued activists protesting against police brutality , prompting him to admit that he believed this was a first .
But he maintained that the protest movement is also an unprecedented situation .
“ I ’ m not aware of another occasion where there ’ s been a concerted effort to block city streets and assault police officers , ” he said .
To this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out that Detroit is famously known for its history of insurrections , riots , and civil rights demonstrations .
“ The claims in the countersuit are ludicrous , ” Castañeda-López told The Intercept .
“ If we as a city begin countersuing residents for protesting , it ’ s setting the first stone on the path of making it even more legally permissible to violate people ’ s First Amendment rights.
” Several of the callers during the committee meeting brought up the civil rights movement and painted the countersuit as a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made by Detroit Will Breathe leaders .
“ That ’ s what King went to jail for , right ?
” said Taylor .
“ Because [ Birmingham ] wouldn ’ t give him permits for doing civil rights demonstrations.
” Legal advocates agree with the analysis .
Detroit ’ s “ counterclaim is dangerous and it is chilling , ” the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a brief .
“ The theory behind it could have been used to justify imposing ruinous liability on generations of civil rights protesters.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , against Garcia ’ s objections , with a decision to revisit the contract proposal at a closed session in late January , an idea suggested by Council Member James Tate , before it ’ s reconsidered by the committee and sent to the full council .
A spokesperson for Tate , a former second deputy chief at the Detroit Police Department , said that he will “ reserve his opinion on the contract ” until after the closed session and that he is “ troubled by the allegations levied ” by both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remaining members of the Detroit City Council did not respond to The Intercept ’ s inquiry about their position on the contract proposal and the city ’ s countersuit .
“ They ’ re trying to send a message to the Black Lives Matter movement , to anybody standing up against state power and trying to hold them accountable , ” said Wallace .
But the movement has an “ opportunity , ” she said , “ to bring forth meaningful change , and the responsibility to not allow ourselves to be co-opted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
”

At the end of August, activists in Detroit, like those in dozens of U.S. cities, sued their local government for its police department’s reaction to this year’s Black Lives Matter mobilization. Their complaint alleges that Detroit cops “repeatedly responded with violence” when they took to the streets and includes photos and descriptions of some of the gruesome resulting injuries: bruised and broken ribs, concussions, a collapsed lung, a fractured pelvis. In light of this brutality, the protesters asked a federal judge to bar the police from using “tools of excessive force,” like chemical weapons, sound cannons, and rubber bullets, against them.
Less than a month later, after the court issued temporary orders restricting the cops’ use of force, the city filed its official response. It includes a line-by-line denial of every brutality accusation — and a countersuit.
Detroit’s demonstrators are part of a “civil conspiracy,” the city’s countersuit alleges, “to disturb the peace, engage in disorderly conduct, incite riots, destroy public property,” and resist police orders, among other “illegal acts.” The countercomplaint asks the court to issue judgments declaring that the protesters engaged in this conspiracy and “defamed” the mayor and police, and to award the city damages.
The countersuit against Black Lives Matter protesters is a novel move in the post-George Floyd moment, and it has lit a fire under already boiling local tensions. The city has tried to portray it as a routine legal tactic, but many see the counterattack as an effort to suppress the right to protest and to shift the public narrative away from the police department’s violence. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., whose congressional district includes much of Detroit, has lambasted it as “an unthinkable assault on constitutional rights.”
The protesters are fighting back on two separate tracks: one in court, with the backing of national legal groups, and another in the city council, which has the power to cut off funding for the city’s litigation. One council member has already vocalized her opposition to the countersuit, and the activists are working to lobby others ahead of a vote early next year.
The situation highlights how officials across the country have weaponized the legal system to suppress the Black Lives Matter movement — like with the overuse of felony charges against protesters, something the Detroit activists have also experienced. When activists gathered in a suburb in October to march in defiance of racist policing, local cops in riot gear attacked them minutes after they took the street and eventually charged five with felonies. The prosecutor has not dropped the charges, despite pressure from community members, activists, and members of Congress.
“These attacks against us are a way of attempting to minimize our ability to go on the offensive and call for transparency and accountability,” said Tristan Taylor, a protest leader and plaintiff in the demonstrators’ original lawsuit. “This is just a way of saying to people, ‘This is not a place where you can raise your voice.’”
Detroit Will Breathe organizers are detained during a nonviolent protest in Detroit on July 10, 2020. Photo: Seth Herald/AFP/Getty Images
In Detroit, the reckoning over policing that swept the nation after the cop killing of George Floyd in May has been a struggle between two deeply entrenched sides. On one is the city’s protest movement and its umbrella collective, Detroit Will Breathe, the lead plaintiff in the original suit. On the other is the Detroit Police Department and its head, Chief James Craig.
Craig has been clear about his strategy in dealing with Detroit Will Breathe: “We don’t retreat,” he told host Tucker Carlson on Fox News, where he has appeared several times since this year’s movement began. While rarely offering specifics about the group’s wrongdoing, Craig has labeled Detroit Will Breathe a group of “criminals” and “misguided radicals” who “incite violence.” “I absolutely am not going to allow them to take over our city streets,” he told another Fox News host. He has also lobbed conspiratorial accusations at the Black Lives Matter movement at large, telling “Fox and Friends” that it is “coordinated,” “planned,” and “financed” by “a Marxist ideology” trying to “undermine our government as we know it.”
As Craig has bragged on Fox News, he has the support of Detroit’s Democratic mayor, Mike Duggan, who has called Craig’s protest policing “beautiful” and “outstanding.” According to protesters, the city’s countersuit is an extension of Craig’s pugnacious response to their activism.
“It’s just another blatant attempt to silence and intimidate us,” said Lauren Rosen, an organizer with Detroit Will Breathe and a plaintiff. “Except now … they want to do it through the courts instead of in the streets.”
The city’s countersuit claims that Detroit Will Breathe activists made false statements about cops — evidence, the city says, of a “civil conspiracy” and that protesters “defamed” Detroit police (though the city clarified in a recent filing that it isn’t suing outright for defamation). But many of the assertions to which the city points seem to be political statements rather than factual inaccuracies. In one instance, the city claims that Nakia Wallace, a Detroit Will Breathe leader, “falsely characterized [Detroit police] officers” by posting on Twitter about the “murderous and brutal nature of the Detroit Police Department.” In another, it claims that a Detroit Will Breathe member “falsely” described the “‘mentality’” of Detroit police as one of “‘the wild, wild West.’”
Tristan Taylor of Detroit Will Breathe leads a march of protesters over the death of George Floyd on Woodward Avenue in Detroit on June 3, 2020. Photo: Paul Sancya/AP
The countercomplaint also accuses Detroit Will Breathe of peddling a “false narrative to rile the public” about the fatal police shooting of 20-year-old Hakim Littleton in July, noting that body and dashcam footage released the day of the killing “shows the man fire a gun at an officer before police shot him.” Missing from the city’s account is the key reason people are still protesting the incident: Video suggests that police landed most of their shots on Littleton, including one apparently to the head, after tackling him to the ground and kicking his gun away.
The city’s lawsuit also nitpicks Detroit Will Breathe members’ characterization of the police violence they’ve endured, like when an officer placed Wallace in a chokehold during a protest on the day of Littleton’s killing. Despite a photo showing a helmeted officer with her flexed arm wrapped tightly around Wallace’s throat, the countercomplaint and an earlier filing take issue with the use of the word “chokehold.” The city claims that, while arresting Wallace, the officer “lost her hold, which caused her arms to momentarily touch Wallace’s neck.” The amount of time the officer’s arm was around Wallace’s neck “was far too brief” to fit the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of a chokehold, the city asserts, and Detroit Will Breathe’s “improper use of this incendiary term demonstrates their desire to falsely alarm the public and the Court.”
“She took me down with very clear intentions — I couldn’t breathe,” Wallace told The Intercept. The chokehold denial is just one of many “ridiculous arguments you would not expect somebody who works for city government to make.”
An organization called the National Police Association has filed the only friend-of-the-court brief in support of the city’s arguments. Despite its official-sounding name, the National Police Association is a small “Blue Lives Matter” ideological group with no apparent law enforcement connections. (Association President Ed Hutchison told The Intercept he was unaware that “law enforcement backgrounds are required to operate” a nonprofit.) According to the association’s website, it aims to “fight back against cop-haters,” implement “‘Broken Windows’ policing policy for all state and local agencies,” and authorize “local law enforcement officers to perform federal immigration law enforcement functions.” The Bopp Law Firm, a Terre Haute, Indiana-based practice “dedicated to the advancement of conservative Republican principles,” assisted with the brief.
“I think [the countersuit] is much more political than legal,” said Julie Hurwitz, an attorney representing Detroit Will Breathe on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild. “The city is seeking to do whatever it can to discredit the extremely effective organizing that’s been going on in the city of Detroit.”
In response to a list of questions about the countersuit, the city of Detroit’s principal attorney, Corporation Counsel Lawrence Garcia, told The Intercept, “We prefer not to comment on active litigation.”
Left/Top: Protester Caylee Arnold is pepper-sprayed in the face by a Detroit police officer after being detained during the occupation of Woodward Avenue in Detroit on Aug. 23, 2020. Right/Bottom: Volunteer street medic Alex Anest sustained multiple injuries from an officer who broke his rip and collapsed his lung with a baton during a protest on Aug. 22, 2020. Photo: Adam J. Dewey; Emma Garrett
In asserting a “civil conspiracy,” the city’s countersuit also alleges that “the protests in Detroit have repeatedly turned violent, endangering the lives of police and the public” — and because of this, Detroit Will Breathe’s demonstrations shouldn’t be considered First Amendment-protected activities.
The city claims that, during four protests, activists injured Detroit police officers by throwing objects at them and resisting arrest; an earlier court filing claims that the injuries include “cracked vertebrae, lacerations, and concussions.” But the documents provide no details on how each injury occurred, and whom among the protesters caused the injuries. The filings also repeatedly claim that protesters were “destroying and defacing public property,” but give only two examples: a police car window shattered on an unspecified date and a statue of a slave owner spray-painted in September. The countersuit’s most detailed accusations of Detroit Will Breathe’s “unlawful” behavior center on activists repeatedly ignoring police orders to disperse.
Detroit Will Breathe’s complaint, by contrast, includes extensive details on the violent actions of Detroit police officers. One protester named in the suit claims that she was shot in the chest with a rubber bullet, which pierced her skin and tissue, after being tear-gassed and beaten with a riot shield without provocation; she experienced panic attacks for months after. Another protester claims that she suffered a head injury after being pushed to the pavement and trampled; she experienced migraines for weeks. Another had her pelvis fractured when a cop hit her with a baton; a doctor advised her not to walk for several months. Another suffered a broken rib and collapsed lung when an officer beat him over the back. Two got concussions when an officer hit them over the head with their baton. Others describe being tackled, beaten, pepper-sprayed, and tear-gassed on multiple occasions.
Rosen, the Detroit Will Breathe organizer, suffered ear damage after police blasted her with a Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, also known as a sound cannon. “I experienced vertigo, dizziness, nausea, tinnitus,” she told The Intercept. For days she had difficulty sleeping and eating, “and because of not being able to really eat and the stress, I lost a significant amount of weight.”
Based on the disparity between the city’s open-ended allegations of unlawfulness and the protesters’ detailed complaints of police brutality, Detroit Will Breathe filed a motion to dismiss the city’s countersuit at the end of October. That motion is still being litigated.
“The law is very well settled that when you’re going to bring a claim, you need to be able to back it up, and you need to be able to back it up on its face,” said Amanda Ghannam, another lawyer representing Detroit Will Breathe on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild. “They’re just going with these really broad brush strokes trying to paint the entire movement as lawless and violent.”
Protesters gather to protest the recent killing of George Floyd in Detroit on May 29, 2020. Photo: Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images
A fight over the countersuit is currently brewing in the Detroit City Council’s internal operations committee, which oversees and issues recommendations on city funding decisions.
In order to continue work on the Detroit Will Breathe lawsuit, Garcia, the city’s attorney, has asked the council and the committee to approve an extension and expansion of a contract with the private law firm, Clark Hill, assisting his office with the litigation. The proposal would add the Detroit Will Breathe case, an additional year, and an added $200,000 to a preexisting five-case, $150,000 contract, according to a memo from the city council’s legislative policy division obtained by The Intercept.
During a November 18 internal operations committee meeting, nearly 20 people, many organized by Detroit Will Breathe, called in to denounce the city’s countersuit and oppose the contract.
“This is an attack on racial justice movements, and it’s a really egregious thing to spend public money on,” said one of the callers. Garcia responded to the concerns by portraying the counterclaim as a routine move. “The city files these types of countersuits when it’s legally advisable to do so,” he said.
Council Member Raquel Castañeda-López then asked Garcia whether the city had ever countersued activists protesting against police brutality, prompting him to admit that he believed this was a first. But he maintained that the protest movement is also an unprecedented situation. “I’m not aware of another occasion where there’s been a concerted effort to block city streets and assault police officers,” he said. To this, Castañeda-López called his bluff, pointing out that Detroit is famously known for its history of insurrections, riots, and civil rights demonstrations.
“The claims in the countersuit are ludicrous,” Castañeda-López told The Intercept. “If we as a city begin countersuing residents for protesting, it’s setting the first stone on the path of making it even more legally permissible to violate people’s First Amendment rights.”
Several of the callers during the committee meeting brought up the civil rights movement and painted the countersuit as a “segregationist” tactic, echoing an argument made by Detroit Will Breathe leaders.
“That’s what King went to jail for, right?” said Taylor. “Because [Birmingham] wouldn’t give him permits for doing civil rights demonstrations.”
Legal advocates agree with the analysis. Detroit’s “counterclaim is dangerous and it is chilling,” the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a brief. “The theory behind it could have been used to justify imposing ruinous liability on generations of civil rights protesters.”
The internal operations committee adjourned the November meeting, against Garcia’s objections, with a decision to revisit the contract proposal at a closed session in late January, an idea suggested by Council Member James Tate, before it’s reconsidered by the committee and sent to the full council. A spokesperson for Tate, a former second deputy chief at the Detroit Police Department, said that he will “reserve his opinion on the contract” until after the closed session and that he is “troubled by the allegations levied” by both sides of the lawsuit. The seven remaining members of the Detroit City Council did not respond to The Intercept’s inquiry about their position on the contract proposal and the city’s countersuit.
“They’re trying to send a message to the Black Lives Matter movement, to anybody standing up against state power and trying to hold them accountable,” said Wallace. But the movement has an “opportunity,” she said, “to bring forth meaningful change, and the responsibility to not allow ourselves to be co-opted or silenced or bullied off the streets.”
Update: Dec. 21, 2020, 3:25 p.m. ET
This article has been updated to clarify the lawsuit’s claims about the police chokehold of Wallace.


theintercept--2020-12-21--Covid-19 Relief Bill Doubles Health Care Budget — for Congress

of last-minute legislating over coronavirus relief , congressional leaders abandoned hazard pay for essential workers and emergency funding for local governments that may be on the brink of municipal bankruptcy .
But lawmakers did find funding to dramatically increase the budget for the exclusive government-run health clinic that serves Congress .
The Office of Attending Physician , which provides medical services to lawmakers , received a special boost of $ 5 million , more than doubling its annual budget , which is currently around $ 4.27 million .
The increase in funding to the OAP , if passed , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to its own health clinic over the last year .
The 2019 omnibus provided an increase in funding to the OAP , along with the CARES Act , which passed this past March .
The OAP , described as “ some of the country ’ s best and most efficient government-run health care , ” employs several physicians and nurses to provide on-call treatment to legislators on Capitol Hill .
The new funding is justified by new services required for confronting the pandemic , though the office also provides lawmakers with the services @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , radiology , routine examinations , and a pharmacist .
The office , led by Dr. Brian Monahan , has been in the news in recent days for administering the Covid-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer to congressional leaders .
The office has treated lawmakers who have been infected by the virus and provided guidance for reopening Congress after the initial surge of infections earlier this year .
The significant increase in funding for congressional health services comes as some provisions for working-class Americans were sharply curtailed or eliminated entirely .
Earlier versions of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 200 billion to pay front-line essential workers an additional $ 13 per hour .
The special funding would have provided a special boost to nurses and other front-line medical workers .
That provision did not make it to the final bill released on Monday .
The proposed $ 1,200 stimulus checks were also reduced to $ 600 .
The coronavirus relief legislation also contains dozens of provisions that benefit business owners and investors , including tax benefits for owners of racehorses , the full expansion of the “ three-martini lunch ” tax @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so-called double dip tax deduction for recipients of Paycheck Protection Program stimulus money to use tax-free grants from the federal government to reduce taxable income .
The $ 900 billion bill , reached after last-minute negotiations over the weekend , includes supplemental funding for unemployment benefits and money to streamline vaccine distribution .
The legislation also provides $ 284 billion to replenish and expand the PPP forgivable loan program to businesses .
The bill extends the federal eviction moratorium through January 31 , along with $ 25 billion for rental assistance programs .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ for education , including money for personal protective equipment for teachers and K-12 schools .

In a flurry of last-minute legislating over coronavirus relief, congressional leaders abandoned hazard pay for essential workers and emergency funding for local governments that may be on the brink of municipal bankruptcy.
But lawmakers did find funding to dramatically increase the budget for the exclusive government-run health clinic that serves Congress.
The Office of Attending Physician, which provides medical services to lawmakers, received a special boost of $5 million, more than doubling its annual budget, which is currently around $4.27 million.
The increase in funding to the OAP, if passed, is the third budget hike Congress has provided to its own health clinic over the last year. The 2019 omnibus provided an increase in funding to the OAP, along with the CARES Act, which passed this past March.
The OAP, described as “some of the country’s best and most efficient government-run health care,” employs several physicians and nurses to provide on-call treatment to legislators on Capitol Hill. The new funding is justified by new services required for confronting the pandemic, though the office also provides lawmakers with the services of a chiropractor, on-site physical therapy, radiology, routine examinations, and a pharmacist.
The office, led by Dr. Brian Monahan, has been in the news in recent days for administering the Covid-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer to congressional leaders. The office has treated lawmakers who have been infected by the virus and provided guidance for reopening Congress after the initial surge of infections earlier this year.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
The significant increase in funding for congressional health services comes as some provisions for working-class Americans were sharply curtailed or eliminated entirely. Earlier versions of the second round of stimulus legislation included $200 billion to pay front-line essential workers an additional $13 per hour. The special funding would have provided a special boost to nurses and other front-line medical workers.
That provision did not make it to the final bill released on Monday. The proposed $1,200 stimulus checks were also reduced to $600.
The coronavirus relief legislation also contains dozens of provisions that benefit business owners and investors, including tax benefits for owners of racehorses, the full expansion of the “three-martini lunch” tax deduction for business meals, and the so-called double dip tax deduction for recipients of Paycheck Protection Program stimulus money to use tax-free grants from the federal government to reduce taxable income.
The $900 billion bill, reached after last-minute negotiations over the weekend, includes supplemental funding for unemployment benefits and money to streamline vaccine distribution.
The legislation also provides $284 billion to replenish and expand the PPP forgivable loan program to businesses. The bill extends the federal eviction moratorium through January 31, along with $25 billion for rental assistance programs. The funding measure provides $84 billion for education, including money for personal protective equipment for teachers and K-12 schools.


theintercept--2020-12-21--Exposing Boy Scouts Sex Abuse Turned Into Battle of Press Freedom Against Powerful Interests

the U.S. passed a milestone : the end of a window of less than nine months in which nearly 92,700 people came forward with shocking sexual abuse claims against the Boy Scouts of America .
By way of comparison , in the last 15 years there have been some 15,000 credible child sex abuse allegations reported against the Catholic Church .
The allegations of sexual abuse against the Boy Scouts include highly violent attacks .
More than half of the claimants , according to Tim Kosnoff , an attorney who has spent years representing victims of child sexual abuse , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A felony — “ the most serious child sex offenses , ” Kosnoff said .
Cover-ups by Scout officials were frequent .
Instead of informing authorities , the officials told the subjects of the allegations to quietly leave the organization .
Many went on to join other troops , only to face more allegations of child abuse .
The young people targeted by abuse were often told by Scouting officials not to tell their parents .
There are few historical comparisons to the large-scale moral and ethical failure of the Boy Scouts organization @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which in some ways has begun a process of healing — has not been easy .
Take the case of Adam Steed , a young man I met while directing the short film “ Church and the Fourth Estate , ” and the journalist Peter Zuckerman .
Theirs is a tale of a long struggle for accountability , a protracted battle against the massively influential forces of the Boy Scouts , the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and monied interests that went to great lengths to defend those institutions .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ grave abuses , a story about getting a public hearing about those abuses , and about the freedom of the press to report on a massive string of alleged crimes against powerful interests .
at a Boy Scout camp in Idaho , Steed was sexually abused by a Scout leader and Latter-day Saints mentor named Brad Stowell .
( The Boy Scouts have historically been closely connected to the Church of Latter-day Saints , often known as the Mormon church . )
When Steed sought to report the abuse , leadership at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then-14-year-old boy took it on himself to call the police , who descended on the camp and arrested Stowell .
“ That should be the end of the story , ” Steed told me when I interviewed him , “ where the good guys come in and fix it .
But unfortunately , that was just the beginning.
” Steed was shunned by people in his community and targeted by people in his school and church .
Worse , Stowell , who confessed to molesting 24 boys and pleaded guilty to molesting two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sentence — roughly one week for every boy he abused .
Compounding things , the filings for a civil case relating to Stowell were erased from the public-access court docket — meaning that people could not get a full view into the events .
The full story would only come to light because of the work of Zuckerman , a reporter with the Idaho Falls Post Register .
Acting on a tip , the paper sued for access to the court file and then published the story of Stowell and the Idaho camp @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Scout ’ s Honor.
” The community of Idaho Falls was rattled — but some people saw the stories as an attack on cherished institutions .
Billionaire Frank VanderSloot , one of the richest people in the state , funded a series of full-page ads in the Post Register .
Taking aim at the “ Scout ’ s Honor ” series , the first VanderSloot ad was headlined “ Responsible Journalism or Misleading Propaganda ?
” The attacks in the ad kept coming .
He called attention to Zuckerman ’ s sexual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the public that he is homosexual.
” While saying it was “ unfair to conclude ” that Zuckerman was biased because he was gay , the ad raised the possibility that Zuckerman ’ s reporting was biased because of the Boy Scout ’ s opposition to gay Scout leaders and the Latter-day Saints ’ opposition to gay marriage .
( In court proceedings , VanderSloot adamantly denied that he ever intended to question Zuckerman ’ s reporting on the basis of his sexual orientation . )
The harassment against Zuckerman before and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ad was enormous .
He said someone left notes at his house and that an anonymous caller threatened to “ rape me with his handgun.
” In a sworn deposition , Zuckerman said it was “ one of the darkest periods of my life.
” In the end , life in small-town Idaho Falls became untenable , and Zuckerman moved away .
And yet VanderSloot followed : Later , after Zuckerman suggested on cable news that Vandersloot “ outed ” him in the series of adverts , the billionaire sued the reporter .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Zuckerman conceding in an affidavit that he had discussed his sexual orientation in public before VanderSloot ’ s ads ; that he had been the subject of attacks before and after those ads ran ; and that VanderSloot did not intend to cause people to harass Zuckerman .
VanderSloot ’ s attacks on the press did not end with Zuckerman .
Mother Jones magazine reported about donations from VanderSloot ’ s company to Sen. Mitt Romney ’ s 2012 presidential campaign , noting that VanderSloot was one of Romney ’ s national @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the author of the article , and the magazine ’ s then-co-editor-in-chief for saying that he “ outed ” Zuckerman , as well as a magazine employee for describing VanderSloot in a tweet as “ gay bashing.
” Eventually , a judge granted a summary judgment in favor of Mother Jones , but the suit cost the magazine and its insurers $ 2.5 million in legal fees .
( The Press Defense Fund , now known as the Press Freedom Defense Fund — which is part of First Look Media , The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cover Mother Jones ’ s legal fees . )
Zuckerman , in the affidavit that was part of his settlement , disclaimed the label : “ Taking out ads critical of someone ’ s reporting is not gay bashing in my mind.
” It was an all-out attack on the press : using a deep wallet and the court system to go after journalists who dared to cover the Boy Scout scandal and VanderSloot ’ s intervention in it .
soften his tune on the Boy Scout scandal , including conceding that there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ several of the abused , he published another ad that said , “ We never intended to cause additional pain to the victims .
For that we are truly sorry.
” But the effects of his efforts still matter and could continue to cause harm .
Publicly questioning accounts of cover-ups of sexual abuse — especially in widely distributed media , something that the powerful have greater access to — can make survivors more scared to come forward .
Meanwhile , Zuckerman and the team at the Post Register never received any requests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Honor ” series .
Zuckerman won a Livingston Award , the largest all-media , general reporting prize in American journalism .
The reporting was essential for blowing open the enormous scandal at the Boy Scouts — so enormous that Zuckerman , at the time , could not have possibly known how huge it would be .
There was always a wholesome glow of Americana and promise surrounding the Boy Scouts , but soon a darker , parallel history of child abuse and cover-ups stretching back to the organization ’ s founding would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up early news reports — some as far back as 1935 — documenting the Scout ’ s internal files of “ degenerates.
” Though incomplete because some were destroyed , they contained the names of nearly 5,000 perpetrators who were expelled from the Boy Scouts in all 50 states on suspicion of sexual abuse .
The pattern will be familiar : Incidents were kept quiet , police were kept out of it , and parents were kept in the dark .
On February 18 , citing nearly 300 lawsuits in state and federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy .
Revenue has collapsed .
And the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , whose membership constituted nearly a fifth of the Scouts , broke away to start its own youth groups , called Vanguard .
The Boy Scouts may yet survive .
Its 1960s insurance policies did not include exclusions for child sex abuse or aggregate limits .
Whatever happens to the organization , what its collapse means for the more than 92,700 survivors who came forward is tough to say .
( In “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we reported that more than 82,000 survivors had come forward , but the number grew between the close of production and its release . )
This much , though , is clear : Their sagas were largely preventable .
The Boy Scouts made it almost certain that thousands of people would continue to be abused , its actions made sure the pain would continue .
Thousands of people have suffered in silence or were made to somehow believe that it was their fault .
Now , month by month , an organization that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and ethical leader is being destroyed by an awful truth .
“ Everyone wants to know if the Boy Scouts are going to survive , ” Kosnoff , the lawyer , told me .
“ But the real question is , should they survive ?
”

On November 16, the U.S. passed a milestone: the end of a window of less than nine months in which nearly 92,700 people came forward with shocking sexual abuse claims against the Boy Scouts of America. By way of comparison, in the last 15 years there have been some 15,000 credible child sex abuse allegations reported against the Catholic Church.
The allegations of sexual abuse against the Boy Scouts include highly violent attacks. More than half of the claimants, according to Tim Kosnoff, an attorney who has spent years representing victims of child sexual abuse, described behavior that would constitute a Class A felony — “the most serious child sex offenses,” Kosnoff said. Cover-ups by Scout officials were frequent. Instead of informing authorities, the officials told the subjects of the allegations to quietly leave the organization. Many went on to join other troops, only to face more allegations of child abuse. The young people targeted by abuse were often told by Scouting officials not to tell their parents.
There are few historical comparisons to the large-scale moral and ethical failure of the Boy Scouts organization. Arriving at our present moment — which in some ways has begun a process of healing — has not been easy.
Take the case of Adam Steed, a young man I met while directing the short film “Church and the Fourth Estate,” and the journalist Peter Zuckerman. Theirs is a tale of a long struggle for accountability, a protracted battle against the massively influential forces of the Boy Scouts, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and monied interests that went to great lengths to defend those institutions. Ultimately, it became a story of grave abuses, a story about getting a public hearing about those abuses, and about the freedom of the press to report on a massive string of alleged crimes against powerful interests.
In 1997, while at a Boy Scout camp in Idaho, Steed was sexually abused by a Scout leader and Latter-day Saints mentor named Brad Stowell. (The Boy Scouts have historically been closely connected to the Church of Latter-day Saints, often known as the Mormon church.) When Steed sought to report the abuse, leadership at the camp failed to act, so the then-14-year-old boy took it on himself to call the police, who descended on the camp and arrested Stowell.
“That should be the end of the story,” Steed told me when I interviewed him, “where the good guys come in and fix it. But unfortunately, that was just the beginning.” Steed was shunned by people in his community and targeted by people in his school and church. Worse, Stowell, who confessed to molesting 24 boys and pleaded guilty to molesting two, was initially given a 150-day jail sentence — roughly one week for every boy he abused. Compounding things, the filings for a civil case relating to Stowell were erased from the public-access court docket — meaning that people could not get a full view into the events.
The full story would only come to light because of the work of Zuckerman, a reporter with the Idaho Falls Post Register. Acting on a tip, the paper sued for access to the court file and then published the story of Stowell and the Idaho camp in a series of investigative articles called “Scout’s Honor.”
The community of Idaho Falls was rattled — but some people saw the stories as an attack on cherished institutions.
“That should be the end of the story, where the good guys come in and fix it. But unfortunately, that was just the beginning.”
Billionaire Frank VanderSloot, one of the richest people in the state, funded a series of full-page ads in the Post Register. Taking aim at the “Scout’s Honor” series, the first VanderSloot ad was headlined “Responsible Journalism or Misleading Propaganda?”
The attacks in the ad kept coming. He called attention to Zuckerman’s sexual orientation, saying that Zuckerman “declared to the public that he is homosexual.” While saying it was “unfair to conclude” that Zuckerman was biased because he was gay, the ad raised the possibility that Zuckerman’s reporting was biased because of the Boy Scout’s opposition to gay Scout leaders and the Latter-day Saints’ opposition to gay marriage. (In court proceedings, VanderSloot adamantly denied that he ever intended to question Zuckerman’s reporting on the basis of his sexual orientation.)
The harassment against Zuckerman before and after the publication of VanderSloot’s ad was enormous. He said someone left notes at his house and that an anonymous caller threatened to “rape me with his handgun.” In a sworn deposition, Zuckerman said it was “one of the darkest periods of my life.” In the end, life in small-town Idaho Falls became untenable, and Zuckerman moved away.
And yet VanderSloot followed: Later, after Zuckerman suggested on cable news that Vandersloot “outed” him in the series of adverts, the billionaire sued the reporter. It became a lengthy battle that ended with Zuckerman conceding in an affidavit that he had discussed his sexual orientation in public before VanderSloot’s ads; that he had been the subject of attacks before and after those ads ran; and that VanderSloot did not intend to cause people to harass Zuckerman.
VanderSloot’s attacks on the press did not end with Zuckerman. Mother Jones magazine reported about donations from VanderSloot’s company to Sen. Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, noting that VanderSloot was one of Romney’s national financial chairs. VanderSloot sued the publication, the author of the article, and the magazine’s then-co-editor-in-chief for saying that he “outed” Zuckerman, as well as a magazine employee for describing VanderSloot in a tweet as “gay bashing.”
Eventually, a judge granted a summary judgment in favor of Mother Jones, but the suit cost the magazine and its insurers $2.5 million in legal fees. (The Press Defense Fund, now known as the Press Freedom Defense Fund — which is part of First Look Media, The Intercept’s parent company — helped cover Mother Jones’s legal fees.) Zuckerman, in the affidavit that was part of his settlement, disclaimed the label: “Taking out ads critical of someone’s reporting is not gay bashing in my mind.”
It was an all-out attack on the press: using a deep wallet and the court system to go after journalists who dared to cover the Boy Scout scandal and VanderSloot’s intervention in it.
VanderSloot would eventually soften his tune on the Boy Scout scandal, including conceding that there was a cover-up. After speaking with several of the abused, he published another ad that said, “We never intended to cause additional pain to the victims. For that we are truly sorry.” But the effects of his efforts still matter and could continue to cause harm. Publicly questioning accounts of cover-ups of sexual abuse — especially in widely distributed media, something that the powerful have greater access to — can make survivors more scared to come forward.
Meanwhile, Zuckerman and the team at the Post Register never received any requests for corrections on their “Scout’s Honor” series. Zuckerman won a Livingston Award, the largest all-media, general reporting prize in American journalism. The reporting was essential for blowing open the enormous scandal at the Boy Scouts — so enormous that Zuckerman, at the time, could not have possibly known how huge it would be.
There was always a wholesome glow of Americana and promise surrounding the Boy Scouts, but soon a darker, parallel history of child abuse and cover-ups stretching back to the organization’s founding would come to light. The media dug up early news reports — some as far back as 1935 — documenting the Scout’s internal files of “degenerates.” Though incomplete because some were destroyed, they contained the names of nearly 5,000 perpetrators who were expelled from the Boy Scouts in all 50 states on suspicion of sexual abuse. The pattern will be familiar: Incidents were kept quiet, police were kept out of it, and parents were kept in the dark.
“Everyone wants to know if the Boy Scouts are going to survive. But the real question is, should they survive?”
On February 18, citing nearly 300 lawsuits in state and federal courts across the country, the Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy. Revenue has collapsed. And the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose membership constituted nearly a fifth of the Scouts, broke away to start its own youth groups, called Vanguard.
The Boy Scouts may yet survive. Its 1960s insurance policies did not include exclusions for child sex abuse or aggregate limits.
Whatever happens to the organization, what its collapse means for the more than 92,700 survivors who came forward is tough to say. (In “Church and the Fourth Estate,” we reported that more than 82,000 survivors had come forward, but the number grew between the close of production and its release.)
This much, though, is clear: Their sagas were largely preventable. The Boy Scouts made it almost certain that thousands of people would continue to be abused, its actions made sure the pain would continue. Thousands of people have suffered in silence or were made to somehow believe that it was their fault. Now, month by month, an organization that has held itself up as a moral and ethical leader is being destroyed by an awful truth.
“Everyone wants to know if the Boy Scouts are going to survive,” Kosnoff, the lawyer, told me. “But the real question is, should they survive?”