[0:00]
Hi there. I'm Sam.
[0:04]
Bear with me. I didn't really plan this.
[0:07]
Just hiking in the forest. Something I
[0:08]
do all the time. And I need to make a
[0:11]
video
[0:13]
that I'm going to embed into a website,
[0:16]
opdv volunteerabuse.org,
[0:18]
that discusses abuse that I experienced
[0:20]
at Oregon State Parks for two months.
[0:26]
Um, I did record one, but I was still
[0:30]
processing Oh, almost up there. I was
[0:33]
still processing um a recent revelation
[0:37]
I had about
[0:39]
supervisory betrayal where I discovered
[0:43]
there's a technique that people can use
[0:45]
to elicit empathy from people
[0:49]
uh in order to extract information from
[0:50]
them. I had only recently put that piece
[0:53]
of the puzzle together
[0:56]
and
[0:58]
couldn't really talk about it without
[1:01]
just being flabbergasted by by the lack
[1:03]
of ethics.
[1:05]
So, there's there's two times where I
[1:09]
use a little bit of profanity. Main one
[1:11]
being
[1:13]
not ashamed of it. Uh it's up on that
[1:16]
website right now, but I do want to
[1:17]
replace it. I want you to get to know
[1:20]
me. I want you to know what happened.
[1:23]
So, let me try.
[1:26]
It's been nine months.
[1:29]
Last year, about a year ago, in October,
[1:32]
I traveled across the country from
[1:34]
Kentucky to Oregon in an RV
[1:40]
to embark on a new chapter in my life.
[1:42]
I'm nearly 50 years old. I had a very
[1:44]
successful career as a freelance
[1:46]
programmer,
[1:47]
but it felt empty and I wanted something
[1:49]
new. A big part of me had always
[1:54]
enjoyed being outdoors. I was a boy
[1:55]
scout as a kid and I just didn't like
[1:58]
being locked up in a house all the time.
[2:00]
It just felt like containment that was
[2:03]
just draining the drain the life out of
[2:05]
me.
[2:07]
So, I made a choice. I decided to move
[2:08]
into an RV.
[2:10]
And 6 months after I did that, I came to
[2:13]
the Oregon coast and fell in love with
[2:15]
the ocean, Pacific Ocean, and the parks
[2:19]
here. The Oregon State parks are [ __ ]
[2:20]
beautiful. Well, I did it again.
[2:26]
Okay,
[2:28]
whatever. You know,
[2:33]
I could beep it out, but why? I use that
[2:36]
word there because
[2:38]
because they're that extraordinary to
[2:40]
me. The Oregon state parks are
[2:42]
incredible
[2:44]
and I decided to volunteer for them in
[2:46]
January.
[2:48]
First month was fine. I was at Tugman
[2:49]
State Park. My boss was amazing. Uh
[2:53]
coolest person I could have ever
[2:54]
imagined being a park ranger. So, uh, I
[2:57]
felt really good that,
[3:00]
um, there would be a place for me within
[3:02]
that institution
[3:05]
because we had certain attributes in
[3:06]
common and if they made room for her,
[3:09]
they could have made room for me. That's
[3:11]
how I looked at it.
[3:14]
And
[3:18]
couple weeks into that, a different
[3:20]
volunteer told me about Honeyman State
[3:22]
Park and the the organ dunes and how
[3:25]
people um rode ATVs on them, you know,
[3:29]
uh dirt bikes and quads and his side by
[3:32]
sides. And I was very curious, very
[3:34]
interested because I've um I'm an owner
[3:37]
of a Jeep Wrangler.
[3:39]
It's one of my most it is my most
[3:41]
important thing that I own.
[3:43]
And
[3:46]
so I got it transferred there for
[3:48]
February and March.
[3:52]
One weekend there was a power outage.
[3:56]
And this happened
[3:58]
after the supervisor there had um shut
[4:02]
the water off the day before and caused
[4:04]
uh an issue with one of the guests who
[4:06]
confronted me.
[4:09]
And then that night the power went out.
[4:12]
Same guest confronted me again 3:00 in
[4:13]
the morning. And I reached out to her at
[4:17]
6:00 a.m. trying to get clarification on
[4:19]
what I'm supposed to do. And she
[4:22]
responded dismissively.
[4:24]
And something told me in that moment
[4:26]
that I needed to protect myself from
[4:28]
her. I don't know what it was. I just
[4:29]
felt it. And the next two months would
[4:32]
prove I was right. So I documented it
[4:35]
like any professional would.
[4:38]
And
[4:40]
from that moment on, they started
[4:42]
escalating. That day, the park manager
[4:44]
showed up at the welcome center while I
[4:46]
was working alone, confronted me with
[4:48]
first week mistakes I had made. Simple
[4:50]
things that anyone new to a position
[4:53]
would make that I corrected myself
[4:56]
because I self correct all the time, but
[4:59]
they were just putting me on notice. How
[5:01]
dare you? um
[5:04]
note the tone of someone in our
[5:06]
leadership
[5:08]
there. I noticed that's what they were
[5:09]
telling me. I recognized it.
[5:13]
My drug supervisor,
[5:16]
someone that I really respected and
[5:18]
liked as a person, disappeared
[5:22]
for 4 days. There was silence. And I was
[5:25]
worried. So, I sent them an email asking
[5:29]
if we could reset, telling them that I
[5:31]
would be a model volunteer. I would
[5:38]
I would conform.
[5:41]
Um, big deal for someone like me.
[5:45]
They pretended that they would reset,
[5:49]
but the escalations did not stop there.
[5:52]
I didn't know this though. I thought
[5:53]
that we truly had things went back to
[5:56]
normal for a couple days. I applied for
[5:57]
a job there as a seasonal park ranger
[5:59]
because that was one of the things I was
[6:01]
really interested in becoming was a park
[6:03]
ranger instead of a computer programmer
[6:05]
like I've been for the first half of my
[6:07]
life. And that just happened to go to
[6:10]
the same supervisor um that I had the
[6:12]
issue with
[6:14]
and she responded badly.
[6:17]
So I withdrew it. I withdrew the
[6:20]
application. I didn't explain why.
[6:23]
Um I just knew that it was better to
[6:25]
just get through my time there and maybe
[6:27]
I'll find a different a different jobs,
[6:29]
you know, a different uh park. You know,
[6:31]
I just wanted to get through my time
[6:32]
there.
[6:34]
And from that moment on, my direct
[6:38]
supervisor came into the welcome center
[6:39]
one night
[6:41]
um and spent an hour and a half talking
[6:44]
about himself, eliciting empathy from me
[6:47]
in order to get me to start talking
[6:48]
about why I had withdrawn that
[6:49]
application.
[6:51]
I didn't that night, but I was really
[6:54]
shocked by how vulnerable he had been
[6:56]
with me. And I sat with that overnight.
[7:00]
And the next day I took him on a walk
[7:02]
with me and I told him
[7:04]
and then they started weaponizing it
[7:06]
all. They weaponized why I had moved to
[7:07]
the coast. Uh they weaponized my
[7:10]
sexuality. They implied that I had a
[7:12]
crush on him. I did not. I had even set
[7:15]
a boundary with this man before we went
[7:17]
on that walk and told him it was not
[7:18]
romantic for me. This was a married man.
[7:21]
I had absolutely zero interest in a
[7:23]
romantic relationship with this person,
[7:26]
but they implied otherwise.
[7:29]
And
[7:33]
after that walk, about a week goes by, I
[7:36]
don't see him. It's the end of February.
[7:39]
It's my last day in the welcome center.
[7:40]
After that, I'm going to start cleaning
[7:41]
dirts for March. I'm asked to work a
[7:44]
double. And I do by myself. 8 hours is
[7:47]
free labor. And then an hour past that
[7:48]
to help uh somebody who just needed
[7:51]
needed a place to stay, didn't have
[7:53]
reservations, and was having trouble. I
[7:55]
spent an hour working with her to get
[7:57]
her a spot, a campsite. So, you know, I
[8:00]
worked nine hours that day because I was
[8:02]
there to serve, truly there to serve.
[8:05]
And
[8:07]
the next day, I was going to be trained
[8:09]
by a ranger that I just
[8:13]
didn't mesh well with. Every time I saw
[8:15]
this person, I could, he was just very
[8:17]
condescending all the time. And I
[8:19]
thought if this person trains me at the
[8:21]
next role that I have, you know, he's
[8:24]
going to be in a position of authority
[8:25]
over me and his condescension is going
[8:27]
to be worse. So I tried to prevent the
[8:30]
problem.
[8:31]
Tried to prevent a recurrence of what
[8:33]
had happened at the beginning.
[8:36]
And I asked my direct supervisor, could
[8:38]
somebody else train me? Actually, he
[8:40]
suggested that. I didn't. He suggested
[8:42]
that. I just told him of the situation.
[8:44]
He said, I can have somebody else train
[8:45]
you. How does that sound? I said,
[8:46]
perfect. And then the next day,
[8:49]
um, this person didn't know anything
[8:51]
about it. So, I'm texting that person
[8:54]
saying, "Well, wait a minute. You know,
[8:55]
I was promised this. This is important.
[8:57]
If you can't, then I'm just going to
[8:58]
wait until I can talk to my direct
[8:59]
supervisor about it." And so, they make
[9:02]
a um, they ask me, "How about if I just
[9:05]
go with you and, you know, while that
[9:07]
other ranger is also there, how about,
[9:09]
you know, we're both there." I'm like,
[9:10]
"Okay, it's a compromise. I can live
[9:12]
with that." And I did, and everything
[9:13]
was fine. But I saw what they were
[9:16]
doing. I knew what they were doing at
[9:17]
this point. It was just so obvious. Uh
[9:20]
they were they were trying to they were
[9:23]
trying to get rid of me. They were
[9:24]
trying to create a paper trail or
[9:25]
situation or something that that would
[9:28]
justify them just kicking me out.
[9:32]
So I sent an email to my direct
[9:33]
supervisor called trust and I told him
[9:35]
why I didn't trust him and I um
[9:38]
enumerated all the reasons why that had
[9:40]
happened in the past month. And then a
[9:42]
couple days later, uh, the two
[9:44]
leadership positions, the manager and
[9:46]
the supervisor, sat me down at the DU
[9:48]
area at a picnic table and spent over an
[9:50]
hour abusing me, telling me that I would
[9:53]
never be given the benefit of the doubt,
[9:54]
telling me to chew glass and swallow it.
[9:57]
Um,
[10:00]
telling me that I was the problem,
[10:01]
nobody liked me, I made everyone
[10:03]
uncomfortable, you know, just treating
[10:06]
me real badly. Uh, telling me that I
[10:08]
could just leave if I felt
[10:09]
uncomfortable.
[10:11]
and I recorded it. That is that is part
[10:14]
of the archive. There is a video where
[10:17]
you can watch that entire hour of them
[10:20]
abusing me. You can even hear the
[10:23]
supervisor jump in at the end when the
[10:25]
manager starts making mistakes cuz she's
[10:28]
trying to um salvage what he's doing.
[10:32]
And then she brings up my job
[10:34]
application and all these things. And um
[10:38]
you can just and during that whole whole
[10:41]
conversation they're talking about how
[10:44]
um always comes back to that first event
[10:46]
with her. They couldn't name one thing
[10:49]
that I had done wrong.
[10:51]
It just was all insinuation
[10:54]
plausible deniability. It was a pattern.
[10:57]
This is a very common institutional
[10:59]
pattern that should not be possible
[11:01]
anymore. It's straight up psychological
[11:03]
abuse.
[11:05]
But I recorded it and then I told them I
[11:08]
recorded it
[11:10]
because I thought, "Okay, this will make
[11:12]
them stop. Finally, I have the leverage
[11:15]
I need to make them stop abusing me.
[11:18]
That's why I recorded it."
[11:21]
A couple days later, the regional person
[11:24]
who's responsible for the volunteer
[11:25]
program caused to intimidate me about
[11:27]
recording that
[11:29]
does not really tried to engage with me
[11:31]
on any type of substance. I record this
[11:34]
too, by the way. Um, I call her back
[11:36]
though. This call I don't record. I just
[11:38]
call her back because I want her to feel
[11:40]
comfortable. I'm not trying to create a
[11:42]
problem here, you know. Um, and I try to
[11:45]
tell her what's happening. And she says,
[11:47]
"Get through your time there. Every park
[11:49]
is different."
[11:51]
And so I put my head down and do exactly
[11:53]
what she says.
[11:55]
And then a couple weeks later, a man
[11:57]
that I didn't know showed up while I was
[11:59]
cleaning the yurts by myself. All of
[12:01]
them open, propped open with trash cans
[12:03]
in front of the doors, a sanitizer
[12:05]
running inside of them. I'm just sitting
[12:07]
here and um
[12:10]
clearly mid clean. And this man says,
[12:13]
"I'm with the park service. I'm my team
[12:16]
and I need to take pictures of these
[12:17]
shirts for the photos on our website."
[12:19]
And then he immediately starts
[12:21]
questioning me about um my thoughts on
[12:24]
leadership. And it's intimate and forced
[12:27]
and wild. It's just absolutely wild. And
[12:29]
I'm thinking to myself, this is a state
[12:31]
park. I am a volunteer. I'm free labor.
[12:34]
This cannot be what it looks like. It
[12:36]
just it can't like it was too over the
[12:38]
top. But that's precisely what it was.
[12:41]
After that, I email the park supervisor
[12:45]
because I want it on record. I know this
[12:47]
is going to be important later. So,
[12:51]
I do that and she confirms, yeah, he's
[12:52]
from it. Never says who he is. This man
[12:55]
had no identification. He was not in
[12:57]
uniform. He just showed up while all the
[13:00]
rangers were gone at a regional event.
[13:01]
All of this can be verified, by the way.
[13:03]
Everything I've said. Um,
[13:07]
so they actually sent someone to surveil
[13:10]
me and to get me to incriminate myself.
[13:12]
They wanted me to say something they
[13:14]
could use to get rid of me, but that
[13:16]
didn't happen. I actually misinterpreted
[13:18]
it like because I'm like, "This is way
[13:20]
too over the top. This cannot be what it
[13:22]
looks like." And it's so intimate. I
[13:24]
think this man's flirting with me. I
[13:26]
actually make a video about that um
[13:28]
after the fact just talking about my
[13:30]
experiences from the day and um what
[13:32]
what it felt like. You know, I never
[13:34]
said that this was a person from um
[13:36]
Oregon State Parks or anything like
[13:37]
that. I was very vague. It's just a man,
[13:39]
you know, that I cuz he never identified
[13:41]
himself. I didn't know who he was.
[13:43]
Um, so that's
[13:45]
proof that in the moment,
[13:49]
um,
[13:50]
this happened to me.
[13:54]
From there,
[13:56]
couple days later,
[13:59]
park manager calls me up on the phone
[14:01]
while I'm doing my job and tells me that
[14:04]
they want to have another meeting with
[14:05]
me one day before I'm supposed to leave.
[14:09]
I ask why and he tells me
[14:13]
it's because so we originally had the
[14:15]
storm. I got to get around stuff. Um and
[14:17]
he tells me
[14:19]
um
[14:21]
I'm still being a problem still.
[14:25]
And I'm just like wow. Like this man
[14:27]
never stops. Like I've got a video of
[14:30]
you um abusing me. Like there's no way
[14:33]
that you could be doing this right now.
[14:34]
This is just this is just
[14:42]
I mean this man is a a walking liability
[14:44]
as far as I'm concerned. And so I'm
[14:46]
listening to him and I'm like what do
[14:48]
you mean I still being a problem? And he
[14:51]
mentions uh this saying about a homeless
[14:53]
man's journal that I turned in and uses
[14:55]
that as a pretext. And then finally, you
[14:58]
know, cuz he keeps going on and on. I
[14:59]
say, "You're a bully." I don't say it
[15:02]
loud or anything like that. I just I
[15:03]
just uh I name it. This is what's
[15:05]
happening. He's being a bully right now.
[15:07]
And then he he kicks me out of the park
[15:10]
right then and there on the phone. Hour
[15:12]
later, he shows up in my RV, ask for the
[15:14]
keys. I record this on camera. He tells
[15:16]
me he has no documentation for this act
[15:19]
that he's doing on camera.
[15:22]
And I've got 24 hours to leave the park.
[15:24]
And I have no money. I'm, you know,
[15:27]
completely restructuring my life, you
[15:29]
know, around this whole volunteer thing.
[15:31]
We've got uh plans all year long with
[15:33]
this state parks. They know this, you
[15:35]
know, different places. And
[15:38]
this jeopardized everything, which was
[15:39]
the point. And
[15:42]
so I get on camera and I tell my
[15:44]
audience what happened to me for the
[15:45]
first time. And then I share that with
[15:48]
the regional person so that she knows
[15:50]
what's going on. And then the next day
[15:53]
or the day after that, we have our
[15:55]
interview together and she starts
[15:57]
pathizing me. Um, she just twists
[16:00]
everything that happened to me, made me
[16:02]
the problem. And that's on camera. I
[16:04]
recorded that, too. That's in the
[16:06]
archive.
[16:08]
And then she does the most amazing
[16:10]
thing. She puts in writing that the
[16:12]
reason I'm being expelled from Oregon
[16:15]
State Parks, never to be allowed to
[16:16]
volunteer again, is because of my
[16:18]
speech, because I recorded that video
[16:20]
telling my audience what had happened to
[16:22]
me. And I did that because I had 24
[16:25]
hours to get out of there and no money,
[16:26]
and I needed help. and I was just trying
[16:28]
to
[16:30]
explain what was happening in my life at
[16:31]
that time. So
[16:36]
that's what happened to me at Oregon
[16:38]
State Parks. I mean,
[16:41]
I I travel across the country, you know,
[16:45]
to
[16:46]
Whoa, this is a slippery bridge. I
[16:48]
forgot about that. I really need to fix
[16:50]
this. I'm actually kind of responsible
[16:51]
for these now. Well, I'm not
[16:53]
responsible. I shouldn't say that. That
[16:54]
came out way wrong. Um, I just I have a
[16:57]
thing about um
[17:00]
I I did this at at Tugman and so I'm
[17:02]
kind of partial to it. It's technically
[17:04]
I don't I'm not responsible for trails.
[17:06]
I work for a different agency now. Um
[17:09]
but I had been meaning to talk to them
[17:10]
about these bridges just to
[17:13]
um just because of that right there. Um
[17:21]
look, I'm an honest person. I just am.
[17:24]
You know, I don't I don't filter the
[17:26]
truth.
[17:30]
I anchor myself to reality. And they
[17:33]
spent a very long time trying to
[17:36]
trying to overwrite my reality. I won't
[17:39]
let them do that because that's eraser
[17:41]
and it's unacceptable and it shouldn't
[17:44]
happen especially as a volunteer where
[17:46]
you are literally just
[17:50]
um
[17:52]
working for a state agency, you know, uh
[17:55]
government like public works
[17:58]
and just trying to be a valued asset to
[18:00]
them. And a couple of people who are
[18:03]
abusive get in the way of that and
[18:05]
there's no recourse. There's nothing you
[18:07]
can do about it. There's no one you can
[18:08]
go to.
[18:10]
It's just
[18:14]
shocking. I tried to fix it. So, several
[18:18]
months later, I write an open letter to
[18:20]
the director of Oregon State Parks,
[18:22]
lease assumption.
[18:24]
Wonderful letter. And within 12 hours,
[18:26]
she responds to it with procedural
[18:28]
language and deflection. And I hear
[18:30]
nothing for many, many months. I had
[18:33]
also submitted a public records request
[18:35]
because very good at looking at patterns
[18:38]
and if they had given me those documents
[18:40]
I would have been able to prove that
[18:41]
this isn't just about me. This is this
[18:43]
is how they operate. But they spent 90
[18:46]
days uh pretending they had replied um
[18:51]
but they had put it behind a portal that
[18:52]
I didn't have access to that they didn't
[18:54]
tell me about for 90 days.
[18:57]
So
[18:58]
I withdrew that because that became
[19:00]
evidence as far as I'm concerned. And
[19:01]
that was obstruction right there.
[19:04]
And then in December, I contacted her
[19:06]
again and she tried to reframe my
[19:09]
documentation, my archive as emotional
[19:11]
processing, that is the laundering of my
[19:13]
experience into pathization
[19:15]
in order to discredit it. That's what
[19:18]
she did.
[19:19]
From that point forward,
[19:23]
I contacted the governor. I haven't
[19:24]
heard from her.
[19:26]
Um, not even an acknowledgement. And
[19:28]
that's where we are now.
[19:32]
For nine months,
[19:35]
I have been directly next door to where
[19:38]
this all happened at Honeyman State Park
[19:39]
on the Oregon coast
[19:42]
in the Oregon Dunes
[19:46]
as a volunteer for nine months. Promoted
[19:47]
twice. Been on several different
[19:49]
campgrounds, promoted to caretaker. Uh
[19:52]
given a work truck, a route uh that I
[19:55]
have to complete every day. Trust
[20:02]
which just shows
[20:05]
I mean
[20:08]
it is so black and white what happened
[20:10]
to me and they're just trying to ignore
[20:13]
it because they have they have no def
[20:16]
defense for this. So they're just being
[20:18]
quiet. There's nothing they can say. Uh
[20:21]
they're shielding everybody. Everybody.
[20:24]
The ones who abused me, the ones who
[20:26]
covered it up, the ones who won't
[20:28]
acknowledge it.
[20:34]
I want you to ask yourself,
[20:37]
say how you want our government to
[20:38]
operate.
[20:43]
I was not treated fairly.
[20:45]
I was abused for two months.
[20:49]
I know my language is very direct, but
[20:53]
when you are describing things like
[20:54]
this, you need to be you need clarity.
[20:58]
You need to be able to speak about them
[20:59]
with clarity.
[21:01]
Um
[21:03]
or it gets laundered
[21:05]
into something it never was. Flattened
[21:08]
into something it never was.
[21:12]
So,
[21:15]
this is not going away. I've already
[21:18]
built the archive. It is comprehensive
[21:20]
and I invite you to go look at it.
