Serious allegations leveled at Dave "Youngblood" DeHaan and DYE in lawsuit

[SR_matt]

The unfortunate thing is that anywhere you have a lot of youth you will have these kinds of people showing up. Boy Scouts, gymnastics, churches, are just the surface of the issue. At lest Olympic sports are able to be required to have SafeSport in place. Of course that system doesn’t prevent everything but it at least helps drastically reduce and limit the damage assholes can do as long as people follow the process.

I know as a youth in paintball there was a guy that tried to get too friendly with some of us. One of our mentors saw what was going on and had a private conversation with him basically telling him to go away or he would be made to “go away”. Never saw the guy again after that.

Of course one of the biggest issues in these situations is that so many of these cases end in plea deals and private settlements. Depending on the trauma the plaintiff/victim has endured, testifying may not be worth the trauma and they may accept a less than ideal result.

idk how to prevent this kind of thing in a less organized “sport” like paint all compared to the more organize Olympic sports with a centralized national governing body that at least somewhat answers to the government through the USPOC and safe sport. It’s probably on all of us to be vigilant and act when we see suspicious shit going on, but at the end of the day slime balls get away with too much.

time will tell what happens in this case and we should let the courts have it play out. The allegations are pretty damming for sure but as has been pointed out, innocent until proven guilty. Regardless of the outcome, there will be a lot of innocent people negatively affected.

[ford]

time will tell what happens in this case and we should let the courts have it play out. The allegations are pretty damming for sure but as has been pointed out, innocent until proven guilty.

I can't help but highlight a little bit of a frustration in this statement. Letting things play out with courts, 'innocent until proven guilty' is exactly how the Boy Scouts, churches and other powerful orgs get away with bad behavior for as long as they do.

I'm not saying let the mob and the rumor mill prevail but where is the line?

If this settles out of court tomorrow many folks will be tempted to wash their hands of this ick and move on. But let me emphasize these allegations have swirled for years...YEARS.

This is a tough question to throw out there and may be worth considering beyond just these allegations. At what point does the over-arching paintball industry have a responsibility to keep out bad actors and keep players safe?

[iamthelazerviking]

I agree. And some are saying the victim "threw the case out" or whatever, which means a settlement was made outside of court and this is very common for SA related cases.

[iamthelazerviking]

Wonder if we will see teams back out from their sponsorships, stores no longer carrying Dye products etc

[SR_matt]

You make fair points. It is a bit hard to balance protecting victims by ensuring bad actors are dealt with properly and also ensuring that those accused are actually guilty of the acts.

Generally the intent of our judicial system (at least in theory) is that it is better to let 100 criminals walk free than to convict one innocent person.

The advantage a lot of the more centralized organizations have, at least now, is a standardized youth protection program (scouts has youth protection, csrholics have virtas [may have spelled that wrong], Olympic sports have safe sport, etc).

The unfortunate reality is that we all have to be vigilant and willing to act to protect youth in our day to day lives, we have to empower kids from a young age to have the confidence to reach out to trusted adults and we as adults need to be those safe people for them as well as act when we suspect things are wrong. It’s far from a perfect system but I am not sure how we can do more without simply shifting harm.

We also need to put this specific case into perspective, it is a civil complaint, meaning the plant of is specifically seeking damages. I am not sure if criminal charges were filed, however CA statute of limitations is until the victims 40th birthday when the assault occurred when they were under 18 (it’s 10 years when the victim was an adult at the time of offense); and I have not seen mention of previous criminal conviction but maybe I missed it. To be clear, I am not questioning the validity of the claim but it seems to be a bit illogical for the lawyers to start with a civil case as getting a criminal conviction first would all but guarantee the success of a civil case, without the criminal conviction first it seems like they would be expecting to have a smaller settlement out of court. Maybe it’s simply that the plaintiff is not able or willing to testify in a criminal case, maybe there is some other logic (I am not a lawyer so maybe I am just missing the logic).

Personally I think we also should remember than a persons actions are not necessarily a reflection of the company. Of course supporting a company can support the bad actor especially when they have a financial stake in the company which we have to consider, but it does get into a more complex web of who will suffer when it’s not just a one man show.

It is a difficult and complex question though and likely people will have different opinions on how to respond to the situation for sure.

[Shan1Fat]

iamthelazerviking I was wondering the same thing. If you're Todd Adamson and working like hell to make Aftershock a global brand what do you do now?

[The Hobbit]

I’d be reaching out to PE/DLX for the remainder of this season and next. Give DYE time to work through this and rebuild the company.

[the_matrix_guy]

Wow. Insane. I had no idea...

[Riot]

Young blood….

[FullContactUSA]

I'm pissed to read this. Dye has been my favorite company gear for the last 20 years. When I came back to paintball a could years back it was right back to dye markers for me, hell I've dropped a couple hundred bucks on their stuff this year too. Kinda makes me not want to wear any of the stuff. If there is any truth to these allegations I hope there is still time for a criminal prosecution. People that abuse kids are the lowest type of scum.

[SR_matt]

I'm pissed to read this. Dye has been my favorite company gear for the last 20 years. When I came back to paintball a could years back it was right back to dye markers for me, hell I've dropped a couple hundred bucks on their stuff this year too. Kinda makes me not want to wear any of the stuff. If there is any truth to these allegations I hope there is still time for a criminal prosecution. People that abuse kids are the lowest type of scum.

Based on what I see criminal prosecution can happen until a victim who was a minor at the time of the offense has their 40th birthday in California. So probably a decade or more left.

[Drunkscriblerian]

Ooof. This was not what I wanted to read on my day off.

As an older player, I remember how big a part the mentorship that the "old dawgs" offered me was why I got into and stuck with the sport. I still remember seeing those shaggy-haired, mustachioed players working on their beat-up dust black Autocockers in the staging area, with a cold beer at their elbow and either a plug of chaw under their lip or a cigarette dangling off it. At 15 I thought those guys were cool as fuck and I wanted to be just like them. Eventually I got to know a couple and they did in fact share stuff with me. Their acceptance of me was one of the big reasons I continued playing.

That sick individuals could (and apparently did) pervert that mentor/newbie relationship to take sexual advantage of kids who just wanted to be better at paintball...ugh. I just...have no words.

I suppose I should have expected this, considering what's happened in other team sports over the years....but damn, y'all.

At this point, I'm just sad.

[Kp2 Hero]

Can't say either way of the allegations, and won't even try. But it can be argued, to a degree, that, if they're even somewhat true, it's kind of the "child actor" syndrome. He's been "famous"- even if only in our little industry- since he was a teenager, and he's been a millionaire probably since around the turn of the century. And not everybody can handle that kind of thing. (Look at Jared from 'Subway'- he was just some schmuck, Subway made him a millionaire, and at some point he decided he was rich enough to... 'indulge himself'.)

Doc.

As to the allegations , I second that Doc .

In regards to the child actor syndrome , just look at these so-called teenage celebrities surrounded by people that won’t ever say no to their excesses . Which leads to them basically remaining immature adolescents in adulthood seeking only to satisfy their carnal impulses . As opposed to most people which must learn to adapt to a world which , shocker…..doesn’t revolve around satisfying their every whim .