The First Hole Storror Can't Climb Out Of: A Crisis Communications Case Study

The point of this article is to help the parkour community learn from one of the worst brand crises our sport has ever seen. This article points out key elements of accountability that Storror has, so far, failed to take, potentially causing the victims and the greater parkour community additional unnecessary harm. The point of this article is not to turn this tragedy into an entertainment piece.

Read all of it. The First Hole Storror Can't Climb Out Of: A Crisis Communications Case Study

THIS IS AN AUDIO READING OF THIS ARTICLE BELOW

May 2026 | Shit hit the fan

In May of 2026, Callum Powell of Storror pleaded guilty to making and possessing 3,000 indecent images of children.

Allegations are now public that other members of the team knew about Callum's behavior for years and stayed quiet. Women in the parkour world are coming forward. Storror's accounts have gone dark. YouTube videos are being scrubbed. The website redirects to the merch store. The podcast was deleted.

Storror is in the middle of one of the worst PR crises in the history of our sport.

This article is a teardown of where Storror is, what they've done so far, and what the research says they would need to do to save the brand.

Here is what this article is NOT. A moral argument that the brand is savebale or should be saved. We are not advocating for Storror's survival. Children were harmed. The victims come first. Always.

We are using Storror as a case study because it's relevant, it's playing out in real time, and every gym owner reading this should walk away with a crisis playbook of their own. If we do our job correctly here, this educational article can help prevent future harm done by other orgs.

What This Article Will Cover

1. The timeline of events

2. The mess Storror is in right now

3. How core values and accountability could have prevented all of this

4. The crisis communications framework researchers use (SCCT)

5. The "Golden Hour" scorecard — what Storror should have done in the first 60 minutes

6. The four things every real apology has to contain

7. Why the community is watching for one specific signal next

8. What you take home as a business owner
   

Buckle in. This article goes deep.

Part 1: The Timeline

Here is what's publicly known, pulled from court filings, official statements, the Argus, the Daily Mail, and the Storror subreddit's evidence-based megathread. Remember, behind each date on the timeline is a real person who was harmed and a community reeling from the news. The detail below is about accountability, not spectacle.

June 6, 2025 — Callum Powell was reportedly arrested at an airport on a flight to Prague. The community would not learn the reason until almost a year later.

March 17, 2026 — Drew releases his "Truth Behind My STORROR Disappearance" video. The video features a voiceover from Callum sourced from the Storror Podcast. Callum was reportedly also used in the Instagram reel teasers.

March 31, 2026 — "Segar Sends Has Entered the Chat" video is released. It features Callum in his role as the Storror podcast host. This video was later removed from listings but is still discoverable, unlisted, in the Segar Sends playlist.

May 7, 2026 — Callum Powell pleads guilty in Brighton Magistrates' Court to:

• Three counts of making indecent images of a child

• Possession of a prohibited image of a child

• Possession of an extreme pornographic image

The team says they were informed of the plea on this date.

May 9, 2026 — Storror posts its only public statement on Instagram:

"On 7th May the STORROR team was made aware that Callum Powell had pleaded guilty to offences related to making and possession of indecent images of children. Prior to this the team was unaware that Callum had faced these charges... Callum has been removed from STORROR with immediate effect... Out of respect for the ongoing legal proceedings, we will not comment further at this stage."

May 9–10, 2026 — Mass content removal begins. YouTube videos featuring Callum are deleted in bulk. The Storror Podcast Instagram and channel are pulled. The Storror website is stripped of bios and redirected to the merch store. The Join+ release schedule is wiped.

May 10, 2026 — Callum is removed from the Storror Parkour Pro video game in a hotfix from the lead developer.

May 12, 2026 — Tim Shieff posts publicly on Reddit, saying the team was blindsided. This is one of the few statements from someone verifiably tied to Storror.

May 12–19, 2026 — Allegations from women in the parkour community begin to surface. Multiple women report patterns of behavior going back years. One ex-girlfriend alleges that CSAM was discovered on Callum's phone in 2019 and reported to Storror.

A second source, Kieran Fenwick, posts statements admitting that Callum's behavior was "known" in the inner circle for at least eight years. He says he personally saw a photo of evidence that Callum had taken pictures of a minor's younger siblings in secret. He also admits he "informed Storror" and then continued to train with Callum afterward.

May 19, 2026 — Josh is quietly removed from the team member listings on the Storror website and YouTube channel. No public statement is given.

May 23, 2026 — Allegations against Josh begin to surface publicly. Below is a quite from the Reddit sotrror mega thread.

"I am not at liberty to disclose much information at this time, but I am able to confirm the following. >Josh has been removed from Storror, and is reportedly subject to police investigation. >The initial disclosure that is currently being acted on, and subsequent investigation was reportedly triggered by a report by someone on the Storror team The police have been in contact with multiple individuals involved

May 23, 2026 — Storror deactivates its paid YouTube subscription service.

From May 9 onward, no member of the core Storror team has made any further public statement that we know of.

Total elapsed silence as of this writing: more than two weeks and counting.

Part 2: The First Hole Storror Can't Climb Out Of

Let's name where Storror stands at this exact moment.

The brand is on life support

The original Storror business was built on access. The whole community knew them by name. Kids worldwide watched their YouTube. Parents bought the merch. The Parkour Pro video game put their faces on millions of screens.

Now? The podcast is gone. The website is gone. Most of the YouTube backlog is gone. The team is silent. Members are being removed quietly without any announcement.

The brand is not just damaged. It is being actively dismantled in public.

No real apology has been offered

Beyond going dark, the team has not done the one thing every research-backed crisis comms framework demands in a preventable crisis: deliver a real apology.

A real apology is not a statement. It is not distancing. It is a structured, victim-centered commitment with four specific elements

1. remorse

2. forbearance

3. reparations

4. and acknowledgment of responsibility.

So far, Storror has offered none of them.

There has been no expression of remorse to the victims. No promise of specific, verifiable changes to make sure this never happens again. No reparations of any kind. The May 9 Instagram post acknowledged Callum's actions and distanced the brand from him, but that is not an apology. That is a press release.

This is the gap the community feels. Most people watching can't name the framework, but they can feel its absence. They are waiting to hear that the team is sorry. They are waiting to see commitments to specific change. They are waiting to know that victims are being supported, that Callum will not benefit financially, and that the parkour community at large is being protected from this happening again.

None of that has been said. None of that has been done.

We'll break down exactly what a real apology would look like, element by element, in Part 5. For now, just know that the silence is not just a missing statement. It is a missing apology, and the difference between those two things is the difference between a brand that might recover and one that won't.

Team members appear to have been planning their exit

For months before the guilty plea became public, Drew and Toby were both launching side projects. "Where's Drew? (Truth Behind My STORROR Disappearance)" came out in March. "Segar Sends Has Entered the Chat" came out at the end of March.

The Reddit community has been debating whether these projects were prepared in anticipation of the fallout. The original counter-argument was that both projects featured Callum in their initial uploads, suggesting nothing was being hidden.

But here is the wrinkle: the Drew video had a Callum voiceover lifted from the Storror Podcast, not new content. The Segar Sends video was released two weeks after Callum's reported arrest on June 6, 2025, but before the guilty plea became public. Whether the team knew anything is something only they and the courts will ultimately answer.

What is undeniable is the optics: multiple members of the core seven appear to have been building parallel brands not associated with Storror well before the storm hit.

No leader has emerged

Look at the post-crisis communication.

One Instagram post on May 9. That's it from the brand itself.

A reposted statement from Dom Tomato. A burnt book from Hazal. A statement from Tim Shieff. Some short comments from cameraman Dodds and Giles on Discord.

There is no spokesperson. There is no leader. There is no plan visible to the public.

Storror is a brand built on a seven-man team. Among Ben, Drew, Toby, Sacha, Max, Josh, and Callum, Callum and Josh are off the team, leaving only 5 left. Our assumption is that Ben or Drew would naturally take the lead.

But the silence from both, and from every other member, is deafening.

The community is watching, and the silence is being read as guilt

This is critical. We'll come back to this in the SCCT section. For now, just sit with this: every day Storror stays dark, the community fills the vacuum with the worst possible assumptions.

That's not unfair. That's how crisis communications work.

Part 3: Core Values Should Have Been In Place Years Ago

Before we get into the frameworks for what Storror should do now, let's name what they should have had in place years ago. Because the truth is, this crisis was preventable. Not the crime itself as that was Callum's choice alone. But the YEARS of warning signs that allegedly went unaddressed?

That was a culture failure. And culture failures are preventable.

Every gym owner reading this should pay close attention. What's described below is not theoretical. It is the foundation that separates the brands that survive a bad actor from the brands that collapse with one.

1. Strong Core Values, Including One About Character

Storror is a brand. Brands are built on values. But there's a difference between values you put on the wall and values you actually run the company by.

Storror's brand values, as the public has experienced them, have been about pushing limits, athletic excellence, and creative content. All worthy things. None of them speak to how the team holds itself together. None of them speak to what kind of people are allowed in the door.

A team running a youth-facing business needs at least one core value that speaks directly to character. Not skill. Not creativity. Character.

At the parkour gym Freedom in Motion, one of our three core values is Impeccable Character. It means they hire for it, they coach to it, they fire for the lack of it. It is non-negotiable. A coach who can do a triple kong but cannot be trusted around children does not work for us. Full stop.

Storror appears to have had no equivalent value. Or if they did, it was not enforced.

When you have a clearly stated core value about character, two things happen:

• Every team member knows the line

• Every team member has permission, even an obligation, to call out a violation

Without that value, the team has no shared language to address bad behavior. The conversation never happens because there's nothing to anchor it to.

2. A Culture Of Holding Each Other Accountable

Stating values is the easy part. Living them is the hard part.

A team of seven people running a company together has to be willing to hold each other accountable. That means when one team member sees another doing something that violates the values, they say something. Privately first. Loudly if needed.

This is one of the hardest cultural muscles to build, especially among friends. The seven members of Storror grew up together. They are brothers, in many cases literal brothers, and in most cases lifelong friends. When you are that close to someone, the instinct is to protect them. To make excuses. To assume the best. To rationalize the warning signs.

That instinct is what the allegations suggest happened. Years of behavior. Warnings from women in the community. A reported arrest. None of it metabolized into action.

A real culture of accountability would have demanded the hard conversations. It would have meant one team member sitting another down and saying, "What you're doing isn't okay. This has to change. If it doesn't, we have a problem."

That conversation is uncomfortable. It is also the only thing that keeps a brand intact when one person starts to drift.

3. Clear Boundaries For Course Correction

A culture of accountability needs a structure to back it up. Otherwise it is just hoping people are brave enough in the moment.

That structure looks like this:

First warning sign: a direct, private conversation. Document it. Be clear about what changed must look like.

Second warning sign: a written performance improvement plan with specific expectations and a timeline. The team member knows their position is at risk.

Pattern of behavior: the team member is removed from member-facing roles immediately. No more access to the audience, the kids, the community, the platform.

Serious violation: termination. Full removal. No "second chances" when children's safety is even peripherally involved.

Criminal behavior or harm to a child: immediate removal AND mandatory reporting to authorities. Not optional. Not delayed for legal review. The reporting comes first, the lawyers come second.

If Storror had any version of this structure in place, the first allegations from years ago would have triggered it. The team would have had a clear path: have the hard conversation, document it, decide if the behavior is changing, escalate if it isn't, remove the person if the pattern continues.

Instead, by the accounts now becoming public, the team allegedly closed ranks. Defended Callum from a young woman who came forward. Kept training with him. Featured him in content. Continued building the brand around him.

That is the failure that is now ending the brand. The crime is Callum's. The collapse is the team's.

4. A Reporting Channel For The Community

The team itself wasn't the only group that should have had a path to raise concerns. The broader community needed one too.

Women in the parkour scene had concerns about Callum's behavior for years. Some shared them with people inside Storror. Some shared them with each other. Some kept quiet because they didn't see a clear, safe path to speak up.

A real brand built around a public audience needs a reporting channel. Not a vague "DM us" invitation. A named contact, a clear process, a 24-hour response standard, and a commitment to take concerns seriously even when the person raising them is not a paying customer.

The community was an early warning system for Storror. The team did not listen.

5. The Hard Truth

This is the section every gym owner should read twice.

You can have a perfect crisis communications plan and still lose your brand. Because the only way to prevent a Storror-level event is to build the culture that catches it years before it gets there.

Core values about character. A team culture that demands accountability. Clear escalation paths for warning signs. A reporting channel for the community. These are the load-bearing walls. Without them, no amount of post-crisis spin will save the brand.

If you run a parkour gym, do not finish this article and feel relief that you are not Storror. Finish this article and ask whether your culture would have caught it any earlier than they did.

If the answer is "I'm not sure," that is the work for you this month. Not the holding statements. Not the apology templates. The values, the accountability, and the structure that make the templates unnecessary.

Part 4: A Crisis Communications Case Study. The Framework Researchers Use — SCCT

Now we get to the educational core of this article.

There is a well-established academic framework for handling reputational crises. It's called Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), developed by Dr. W. Timothy Coombs and published by the Institute for Public Relations.

You can read the original framework here: Institute for Public Relations — Crisis Management and Communications

SCCT says this: the response you choose has to match the type of crisis you're in.

The three crisis types

Coombs classified every reputational crisis into one of three buckets:

Crisis Type	What It Means	Stakeholder Reaction
Victim	The organization is also a victim (natural disaster, sabotage from outside)	Low blame, sympathy
Accidental	Something went wrong without intent (a minor injury, an honest mistake)	Moderate blame
Preventable	The organization knew or should have known and didn't act	Maximum blame

The category you fall into determines what kind of response works. Coombs's research showed that using the wrong response strategy for the wrong crisis type actually makes things worse.

Where Storror sits

Storror's crisis is preventable + history of prior warnings + intentional misconduct by an insider.

The allegations from MTD, YWO, IGN, and Kieran Fenwick — if even partially accurate — suggest the team had multiple data points over multiple years and did not act on them.

That's the worst category in the worst version of that category.

Coombs's research found something else that matters here: a crisis hits twice as hard when there is a history of similar issues or warnings ignored. The reputational threat doubles before you say a word. (Coombs, Corporate Reputation Review, 2007).

For Storror, the reputational threat is maxed out. Capped. There is no version where this is a small story.

The four response strategies SCCT identifies

Coombs identified four families of crisis response, ordered from least to most accommodating:

1. Deny — Claim no crisis exists. ("This isn't real, we didn't do it.")

2. Diminish — Minimize responsibility. ("It was out of our control.")

3. Rebuild — Take responsibility, apologize, compensate, and commit to change.

4. Bolster — Remind stakeholders of past good behavior. (Used as a supplement, not alone.)

For a preventable crisis with a history pattern, Rebuild is the only response that protects the brand.

"Rebuild crisis response strategies should be used for crises with strong attributions of crisis responsibility."

That's a direct quote from the SCCT framework.

That means apology. That means compensation to victims. That means corrective action that is real and visible. That means leadership accountability. Nothing less works.

You can read more on SCCT here: Wikipedia summary of the framework and Coombs's original paper.

What Storror's current response looks like in SCCT terms

Their May 9 post does some of the right things. It distances. It denies prior knowledge. It removes Callum.

But it stops there. Way short of where it needs to be. The team is currently sitting in Diminish territory ("we didn't know") for what is clearly a rebuild situation.

That mismatch is why the community is angry. The response doesn't match the crisis.

Part 5: The Golden Hour Scorecard

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) defines what it calls the Golden Hour, the critical first 60 minutes after a crisis breaks, when every action shapes the outcome.

Read the original article here: PRSA — 5 Steps for Navigating the First Hour of a Crisis

In the social media age, that hour is more like 15 minutes. News moves faster than your statement.

Here are the four things PRSA says you must do inside the Golden Hour, scored against what Storror did:

Golden Hour Step	What It Looks Like	What Storror Did	Pass / Fail
1. Ensure safety	Prioritize victims. Contact authorities. Stop further harm.	Removed Callum from the company. No public mention of victim support, reporting line, or safeguarding action.	Partial Fail
2. Establish a command center	A coordinated team, a designated leader, a primary spokesperson.	No spokesperson identified. No public leader. Statements coming from scattered individuals.	Full Fail
3. Craft a holding statement	A short, careful, victim-centered statement that buys time and shows leadership.	One Instagram post on May 9, written defensively, no mention of victims at all.	Partial Fail
4. Communicate internally first	Team is aligned. Everyone knows the plan. The brand speaks with one voice.	Drew deleted his Instagram. Dom reposted. Hazal burnt a book. Tim Shieff posted from outside. Cameraman Dodds reposted someone else.	Full Fail

Three full or partial fails out of four in the first hour. They had one job in those 60 minutes, and they took the path that maximizes long-term damage.

Why the silence is the worst part

This is where Bernstein, one of the most cited crisis communications experts of the last 30 years, comes in.

Jonathan Bernstein's 10 Steps of Crisis Communications is required reading. He puts it plainly:

"Nowhere does news of a crisis spread faster and more out of your control than on social media."

Translation: if you go dark, you don't stop the story. The story tells itself, and other people get to write it.

The BC Campus Public Relations textbook (Chapter 13) makes the same point even sharper. It says that during a crisis of "loss of control":

"As audiences learn about the crisis, they will quickly lay blame, even if unfairly... Companies that try not to spend too much on remediation during a crisis stand to lose the loyalty of stakeholders and invoke the wrath of others."

You can read the full chapter here: BC Campus — Crisis Communications

Silence in a crisis is not neutral. Silence is a story. And the story your audience writes is always worse than the truth.

Every day Storror stays dark, the community fills the vacuum with the assumption that the team knew, that the team protected Callum, and that the team is hiding more.

That assumption might be right. It might be wrong. It does not matter. The silence is the answer the public is hearing.

Part 6: The Four Elements of a Real Apology

Let's say, hypothetically, Storror wakes up tomorrow and decides to do the right thing. What does a real apology actually contain?

This is not a feeling. It's a research-backed structure. A study published in Public Relations Review tested stakeholder reactions to organizational apologies across 1,630 participants in two data breach scenarios. (Read more: ScienceDirect — Testing Perceptions of Organizational Apologies.)

They identified four elements that determine whether a public sees an apology as real:

1. Remorse — Express genuine regret

This is not "we are saddened by recent events." This is "what happened was a betrayal. Children were harmed. We are sickened. We are sorry."

Direct. Specific. About the victims, not about the brand's feelings.

Research finding: in high-blame scenarios, remorse is one of the two most important elements.

2. Forbearance — Promise it won't happen again, with proof

This is where most apologies fail. Saying "we'll do better" means nothing.

Forbearance means you publish specific, measurable, verifiable changes:

• Mandatory SafeSport training for any future hires and partners

• Background checks documented in public-facing policy

• A reporting channel for community members with a named person and a 24-hour response standard

• A third-party safeguarding audit of the organization's history and culture

• Public commitment to a governing body (Parkour Earth, for example)
  

Research finding: forbearance is the OTHER most important element in high-blame scenarios. Remorse and forbearance, together, do the heavy lifting.

3. Reparations — Offer something tangible to victims

This is the hardest part for most brands. It is also the part that matters most to the people who were harmed.

For Storror, reparations could look like:

• Public, on-the-record conversations with victims who choose to participate (on the victims' terms, never the brand's)

• Financial contribution to organizations that fight CSAM and support survivors (Stop It Now UK, IWF, NSPCC)

• A clear, named buyback of Callum's company shares so victims and the community know no future revenue benefits him

• Free safeguarding training resources provided to the parkour community at large

• Full refund of all of Callum's book sales.

Reparations are not optional. They are the difference between an apology and a press release.

4. Acknowledging responsibility

Surprisingly, this one ranked LOWER in the research. Not because it doesn't matter, but because saying "we are responsible" without remorse, forbearance, and reparations is just words.

The data: acknowledging responsibility on its own did not significantly improve reputation, future purchase intention, or word of mouth. The other three elements have to be there for it to mean anything.

Storror's May 9 post did exactly this — acknowledged the situation, distanced from Callum, but offered no remorse to victims, no forbearance commitments, and no reparations.

That's why it landed flat. That's why the community is angry. The research predicted exactly what we're watching happen.

Part 7: The One Person Who Has to Emerge

To save the brand, one person from the core seven would need to step up and become the public face of the response.

This is not a small ask. It is a 12-to-24-month commitment. Every interview. Every podcast. Every uncomfortable conversation. Every victim meeting. Every press inquiry. Every gym owner, sponsor, and fan who needs an answer.

Bernstein and PRSA both say the same thing: the lead spokesperson is the most important decision in a brand crisis. And the right person is not always the loudest or most senior.

The person who emerges needs:

1. The right skills. Bernstein notes that some great speakers freeze on camera, and great writers can fall apart in interviews. The spokesperson needs to handle hostile media, hostile community questions, and emotional victim conversations without going defensive.

2. The right position. This person has to have the authority to make commitments on behalf of the company. Do not run them up the flagpole. Make them in the room.

3. The right training. Crisis communications is not normal communications. PR for promotion is about excitement. PR in a crisis is about preservation. They are not the same skill.

4. Willingness to take personal responsibility. Even if they didn't personally do anything wrong, they have to absorb responsibility for the brand's failures. That requires real character.

Among the core seven, no obvious candidate has stepped forward. The most often-named possibilities, Ben and Drew, have stayed silent. Drew's recent moves toward solo content predate the crisis. The team appears split, scattered, and uncoordinated.

Without one person willing to carry this for a year or more, the brand has no path.

It will quietly dissolve. The members will move to their solo projects. Storror as a name will become a cautionary tale.

Part 8: What Storror's Next Move Will Tell Us

Here is what the community should watch for.

Bernstein, PRSA, BC Campus, and Coombs all agree on one thing: the response window for rebuild is short. Every day of silence makes a rebuild harder. After about 30 days, the public

moves from "waiting for an answer" to "assuming the answer."

We are already past two weeks.

The signals that say Storror is trying to recover

• A named spokesperson speaks publicly with remorse, forbearance, and reparations

• The team commits to specific, measurable safeguarding actions

• Public engagement with victims on the victims' terms

• A clear plan to remove Callum's financial benefit from the company (share buyback or bad-leaver clause)

• Visible internal alignment — the whole team speaking with one voice

• Engagement with USPKA and other governing bodies

The signals that say Storror is over

• Continued silence past 30 days

• More quiet removals (like Josh's) without explanation

• Individual members launching solo brands while the main account stays dark

• The company structure being dissolved or restructured to protect remaining members financially

• Any future content released as if "moving on" — no acknowledgment of harm, no commitment to change

At this moment, every signal we are watching is in the second column.

Part 9: What You Take Home As A Parkour Business Owner

You are not Storror. You will probably never face a crisis of this magnitude.

But you might face a similar problem... Firestorm Freerunning, a parkour gym in California, recently had an ex-coach arrested for child sexual abuse, and now allegations are emerging that the gym owners and managers knew for years about the abuse, but took no action. We have not been able to independently verify those allegations. The allegations are coming from someone claiming to be a former Firestorm employee, as noted on the official OC Sheriff's social media accounts. Image below. We point this out to make it clear that EVERY business needs to have core values, be vigilant, and maintain integrity and have a culture of accountability. Not just Storror. Your business too, dear reader.

Child abuse at Firestorm Freerunning, as reported by the Orange County Sheriff's Office in California, and the Once is Never Parkour Zien.

A coach makes a parent uncomfortable. A kid says something to their parent. A staff member is accused of misconduct. A negative review goes viral. A competitor's scandal spills onto you because of association.

Crises happen. Be ready.

According to a 2025 survey by M&C Communications, more than 70% of US business owners have no formal crisis communications plan. That means seven out of ten gym owners reading this article would handle a Storror-scale event the way Storror is handling it.

Don't be one of those seven.

Your gym crisis playbook (build this BEFORE you need it)

1. Define your company's core values. Know what your company is about and what sort of people you employ. Create a culture of integrity, communication, and intolerance to anything that violates your core values. Stop the shit before it starts to stink.
   

2. Identify your crisis team. Who is the lead spokesperson? Who is the legal counsel? Who is the operations lead? Who handles parent communication? Decide today, not in the moment.

   
   

3. Pre-write your holding statement. A one-paragraph statement you can fill in the blanks of in 15 minutes. Bernstein's example for a hotel chain: "We have implemented our crisis response plan, which places the highest priority on the health and safety of our guests and staff."

   
   

4. Know the four apology elements. Remorse, forbearance, reparations, responsibility. Memorize them. When something goes wrong, the structure is already in your head.

   
   

5. Build a notification system. How do you reach every key team member in 30 minutes? Email is not enough. SMS, social, and a phone tree all matter.
   

6. Identify your stakeholders in order. Victims first. Staff second. Community fourth. Media last... for example.
   

7. Decide your "lines you will not cross." What will you NEVER do, no matter how bad it gets? Going silent is one. Blaming victims is another. Decide now, when you're calm.
   

8. Train your team. An example from a parkour gym might be that every coach should know whom to escalate to if a parent reports a concern. Every front desk staff member should know what to do if a journalist calls. This is a 30-minute conversation at your next staff meeting.
   

9. Get the right insurance. Specifically, Abuse and Molestation coverage with strong limits. We covered this in detail in our previous article on child safety. Go read it if you haven't.
   

The Bottom Line

Storror's brand is on the brink. The actions of one man have shattered it. The silence of the others is finishing the job.

The research is clear on what they would have to do to save it: emerge with one leader, take responsibility, deliver a real apology with the four elements, engage with victims, commit to specific safeguarding actions, and stay engaged for at least a year.

The research is also clear on what happens if they don't: the brand dies. Quietly. The members scatter. Storror becomes a cautionary tale in articles like this one.

We are not advocating for their survival. Children were harmed. The victims come first. Anything the company does next is for them to decide, and any forgiveness is for the affected community to grant — not us.

But we ARE saying this to every gym owner reading:

Watch what happens next. Learn from it. Build your own plan. Make sure your gym never ends up here.

Silence is a choice. It is the loudest choice you can make. And right now, Storror is making it.

The next move will tell us whether there is any brand left to save, or only the wreckage and the long, hard work of the community to make sure the next predator does not find a home in our sport.

Sources and Further Reading

• Reddit megathread documenting the timeline: The first hole Storror can't just climb their way out of (Obviously where we got the article title inspiration from)

• Motion Mentors' previous article: Why Every Parkour Gym Owner Needs Child Abuse Prevention Training

• Coombs, W. T. — Situational Crisis Communication Theory: Institute for Public Relations

• Bernstein, J. — The 10 Steps of Crisis Communications: Bernstein Crisis Management

• PRSA — 5 Steps for Navigating the First Hour of a Crisis: PRSA

• BC Campus — Public Relations: From Strategy to Action, Chapter 13: Pressbooks

• Testing Perceptions of Organizational Apologies After a Data Breach Crisis: ScienceDirect

• M&C Communications — Think Crisis Planning Is Optional?: GlobeNewswire
  

• US Center for SafeSport reporting line: 833-587-7233

Jimmy Davidson and Christopher Hollingsworth are the founders of Freedom in Motion and Motion Mentors. They have worked with parkour gym owners across the country on operations, leadership, and culture for over a decade. motionmentors.org

If you want help building a crisis communications plan for your gym, book a call. The resources at motionmentors.org are free.