Penn State horror story

[RockRaines]

Rock,

 

The article you quoted does not show any evidence Parterno had first hand knowledge. If the graduate assistance thought he saw a crime, he should have called the police. The second the GA didnt call the police, waited until the next day, you have a serious credibility issue.

 

If I see someone being murdered on the street, I call 9-11. I dont go home call my dad, think about what we should do, and then report it to my boss.

 

I just dont see how its logical that Paterno should have called the police (the next day when he saw nothing), when the actual eye witness did not call the police. It makes it seem like the eyewitness maybe is exaggerating, its hard to tell. No one has shown any evidence that Paterno ever witnessed any wrongdoing of any kind.

There was an investigation of wrongdoing first in 1998. As the supervisor of Sandusky, you dont think he would have known why he was being investigated? Mysteriously he was then made to retire right after.

 

After 2002 was discussed internally between the GA, Paterno, Curley and Schultz, Sandusky was then barred from being with kids on PSU property.

 

Doesnt that seem like a pretty evident pattern of sweeping this under the rug?

[StrangeSox]

You mean a grand jury after being presented evidence was able to determine credibility?

 

Thats a lot different than someone walking into my office and saying one of my secretaries murdered a janitor last night and they didnt call the police but are telling me.

 

Well the exaggeration to murder clearly distorts the scenario. Abusers don't leave behind bodies.

 

Maybe it happened, maybe it didnt, but its up to the person who witnessed the crime or AD/President to make that decision, not Joe Paterno who is a football coach.

 

Yeah, again, the GA had many more moral failings than Paterno here. But saying Paterno "is a football coach" glosses over a) his role and power in State College b) his relationship with both the accused and accuser. The accuser was someone Paterno had known personally for years; if he wasn't a credible, trusted person he would not have been given the positions with the PSU team that he had.

 

I really can't believe how many people, if placed in the same situation, are saying that they would be fine with washing their hands of the matter.

 

[Steve9347]

If anything Paterno is really the one with the least culpability.

 

He didnt witness the crime, when told about it, he reported it to the people who could do something about it. You can say he should have been more active etc, but there is no evidence (so far) that Paterno ever witnessed these actions. Putting yourself in Paterno's shoes, hes known the guy for years hes never seen anything, now hes being told the guy is raping kids in the locker room?

Oh come on... we all are well aware that JoePa didn't break any laws. He did fail every child whose been raped by Sandusky by not following up. "Oh hey, I reported it. Jerry's still here, I guess they don't want to do anything about it" should not have been the end of it.

 

If I report to my superior that a co-worker is raping little boys, and a week goes by and said co-worker is still around, I report that s*** myself. However, I'd have called the cops immediately vs reporting it to anyone else.

[RockRaines]

Not if you violate the stated chain of command.

It is the law in Penn to report these types of situations to the Police regardless of your occupation and some sort of half-military based chain of command rule.

[StrangeSox]

Not if you violate the stated chain of command.

 

I don't have a problem with an initial report to the AD. I have a problem with not doing anything else in the intervening decade.

 

If your superiors ignore serious concerns, you have a moral and ethical duty to raise those concerns outside of the chain of command.

 

edit: I do have a problem with McQueary not immediately stopping the situation and/or calling the police. "Chain of command" is irrelevant when you're witnessing a crime in action, especially one of the level of child rape. We're not talking about securities fraud or insider trading here.

Edited November 9, 2011 by StrangeSox

[Milkman delivers]

Honestly i'm probably going to do exactly what Paterno did. I'm going to immediately report it to the higher ups at Penn State. I'm going to trust that an AD and Senior VP of a top rated college like Penn State wouldn't try to cover it up. If the guy was banned from bringing kids to the locker room, i'm going to assume that whatever actually happened wasn't as bad as what we're finding out. Would I ask questions? Probably, but only if for some reason I don't think they did enough or that Sandusky's behavior warranted it. But the GA didn't do anything else either, so I dunno that there's any evidence that anything further happened.

 

Rock has brought up some information that might change my mind on what Paterno knew after this incident, and if that's true then maybe Paterno deserves more of the blame. But none of that was part of the grand jury proceedings, so it's all speculation. Instead of jumping to judgment like everyone else, i'll see how it plays out.

 

What?

[StrangeSox]

What?

 

I'm assuming that some people are taking positions for argument's sake, which is good and can make you stop and examine your thoughts.

[Steve9347]

You're a teacher, and as a teacher, you have certain responsibilities to report any child abuse. That's your legal obligation. If you report that abuse to your principal, are you done? Would you wash your hands of the matter and say "well, I told my boss, that's all I can do?" Wouldn't you follow up on the matter, making attempts to ensure that the situation was being taken seriously?

Stated much better than I did. This. Exactly.

 

[Milkman delivers]

Yeah, and he disassociated himself with him as much as possible. People have difficulty handling these sort of things. It's a fact of life. You've known someone for half your life and then you find out something horrendously awful about them that you never knew. Sometimes it's just too much for that person to be the person reporting the crime/act. Is it a "moral failure" or whatever you'd like to call it? Sure. And we all have more failures and make bad decisions. To me, it reads like Paterno simply was so disgusted with Sandusky that he didn't want to be involved in any way, shape, or form. I am not saying I condone that position necessarily, but I can certainly understand that someone would do it.

 

Paterno is just some guy that's coached football all his life. I really understand that he works with young adults, and that part of his obligations are to shape them into men ready for life, and not just football. But that doesn't necessarily extend to personally chasing down child molesters and roasting them over an open fire for their crimes. He reported it to the appropriate authorities, and they failed to act. As did seemingly everyone involved here, including those whose sole job, the thing they do for a living, was to handle the situation. And yet this is going to revolve entirely around what Paterno did or didn't do. I just find that disingenuous.

 

No, he reported it to the authorities appropriate enough to allow him to pass the buck and not get in trouble himself. The actual appropriate authorities would have been the police.

 

And it seems that you're saying that you "think" Paterno took little action because he was disgusted by it. That may be true, or it may be false. What we can say, that isn't an opinion, is that he didn't do everything in his power to see that the situation was resolved. He did the bare minimum, which should save him from prosecution, but it shouldn't save him from losing his job and his public persona.

[Milkman delivers]

Milkman,

 

Hard to fire an employee when you as the employer are far more responsible. Thats why they are going to let him retire. Paterno reported it to his supervisors, firing him is a classic case of kicking your dog because you screwed something up.

 

The Board, or whatever has the final say, should be canning all of the people who took no action. I'm not asking for the AD to fire him. I'm saying that the governing board of the school should fire all 4 of the major players here (the witness, Paterno, the AD, and the VP).

[Steve9347]

The obvious assumption to make is that Joe Paterno really didn't care that 8-13 year old boys were being consistently raped and molested by someone under his employ with whom the University has kept ties long-since they found out he was a diddler.

[Jordan4life_2007]

This just in: Joe Paterno is now more hated than Osama Bin Laden. GMAB. He might've been a little too trusting (of people he had every right to put trust in) and naive, but a villain/demon who supports rape? lol.

[Milkman delivers]

Well the exaggeration to murder clearly distorts the scenario. Abusers don't leave behind bodies.

 

 

 

Yeah, again, the GA had many more moral failings than Paterno here. But saying Paterno "is a football coach" glosses over a) his role and power in State College b) his relationship with both the accused and accuser. The accuser was someone Paterno had known personally for years; if he wasn't a credible, trusted person he would not have been given the positions with the PSU team that he had.

 

I really can't believe how many people, if placed in the same situation, are saying that they would be fine with washing their hands of the matter.

 

It makes me sick. Pass the buck right along.

[Palehosefan]

This just in: Joe Paterno is now more hated than Osama Bin Laden. GMAB. He might've been a little too trusting (of people he had every right to put trust in) and naive, but a villain/demon who supports rape? lol.

 

What if we told you that Juan Pierre was his favorite baseball player?

[Milkman delivers]

I don't have a problem with an initial report to the AD. I have a problem with not doing anything else in the intervening decade.

 

If your superiors ignore serious concerns, you have a moral and ethical duty to raise those concerns outside of the chain of command.

 

edit: I do have a problem with McQueary not immediately stopping the situation and/or calling the police. "Chain of command" is irrelevant when you're witnessing a crime in action, especially one of the level of child rape. We're not talking about securities fraud or insider trading here.

 

I don't get what is so hard to understand. At worst, I can understand first informing your AD and giving him perhaps a few days to act on it. But if he doesn't, at that point, you have to call the cops yourself. I keep saying that Paterno is not legally in trouble here, but he's undoubtedly reached the point where he should be fired.

[Soxbadger]

Its easy for people who dont handle or work with sensitive situations to say what they would have done.

 

Its a lot harder knowing that if Paterno reported it, and it wasnt true, that Paterno could have basically ruined his friends life over hearsay.

 

If the graduate assistant believed he saw a crime, it was up to him to get the police involved.

[Rowand44]

This just in: Joe Paterno is now more hated than Osama Bin Laden. GMAB. He might've been a little too trusting (of people he had every right to put trust in) and naive, but a villain/demon who supports rape? lol.

Oh f***in please. This asshole heard about children being taken advantage of and literally did the bare f***in minimum and just ignored it from there on out. f*** him.

[StrangeSox]

This just in: Joe Paterno is now more hated than Osama Bin Laden. GMAB. He might've been a little too trusting (of people he had every right to put trust in) and naive, but a villain/demon who supports rape? lol.

 

He failed to take allegations of child rape seriously and was complicit in those allegations being swept under the rug for almost a decade, allowing additional abuse to occur to more victims.

 

I don't think he supported rape or didn't find Sandusky's actions disgusting. I think he simply didn't care because he was too self-interested.

[Milkman delivers]

This just in: Joe Paterno is now more hated than Osama Bin Laden. GMAB. He might've been a little too trusting (of people he had every right to put trust in) and naive, but a villain/demon who supports rape? lol.

 

C'mon, add something to the conversation. This is just derailing the argument.

[Milkman delivers]

Its easy for people who dont handle or work with sensitive situations to say what they would have done.

 

Its a lot harder knowing that if Paterno reported it, and it wasnt true, that Paterno could have basically ruined his friends life over hearsay.

 

If the graduate assistant believed he saw a crime, it was up to him to get the police involved.

 

It's too bad that all of us haven't found ourselves in this situation so we can know for sure what we'd do. What we do know is that Paterno failed miserably, and he has to pay with his job.

[Jordan4life_2007]

Oh f***in please. This asshole heard about children being taken advantage of and literally did the bare f***in minimum and just ignored it from there on out. f*** him.

 

 

He failed to take allegations of child rape seriously and was complicit in those allegations being swept under the rug for almost a decade, allowing additional abuse to occur to more victims.

 

I don't think he supported rape or didn't find Sandusky's actions disgusting. I think he simply didn't care because he was too self-interested.

 

I don't give a s*** what he heard. "Hey Boss, I heard from somebody the other day that Rowand44 was dry-humping a 10-year old." I'm not sprinting over to the police station over some s*** like that.

[Milkman delivers]

I don't give a s*** what he heard. "Hey Boss, I heard from somebody the other day that Rowand44 was dry-humping a 10-year old." I'm not sprinting over to the police station over some s*** like that.

 

I am not usually a fan of the way the media handles a lot of things, but I'm glad they're not taking the childish approach that you are.

[StrangeSox]

Its easy for people who dont handle or work with sensitive situations to say what they would have done.

 

Its a lot harder knowing that if Paterno reported it, and it wasnt true, that Paterno could have basically ruined his friends life over hearsay.

 

Paterno could have gone to the police with the GA, another trusted colleague. He could have followed up after the AD clearly found that something had happened and banned Sandusky from bringing kids around. He could have made sure that a real investigation happened and that the victim was found.

 

If the graduate assistant believed he saw a crime, it was up to him to get the police involved.

 

Yes, again, he is more at fault than Paterno. That's been said many, many times now.

[RockRaines]

I don't give a s*** what he heard. "Hey Boss, I heard from somebody the other day that Rowand44 was dry-humping a 10-year old." I'm not sprinting over to the police station over some s*** like that.

What about when there was an investigation first in 1998 that he was molesting boys and then an assistant of yours 4 years later first hand sees him raping a boy in the shower. Do you do nothing then?

[StrangeSox]

I don't give a s*** what he heard. "Hey Boss, I heard from somebody the other day that Rowand44 was dry-humping a 10-year old." I'm not sprinting over to the police station over some s*** like that.

 

"Hey Paterno, long-time coach and now colleague, I just personally witnessed Sandusky raping a boy in the locker room" is a bit different from your dumb scenario. Get out of here with that garbage.