Penn State Sandusky scandal

Parent Cafe
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<p>“Paterno testified that the graduate assistant was very upset”</p>

<p>“Schultz testified that he was called to a meeting with Joe Paterno and Tim Curley, in which Paterno reported “disturbing” and “inappropriate” conduct in the shower by Sandusky upon a young boy, as reprted to him by a student or graduate student.”</p>

<p>still think that paterno didn’t know exactly what happened? “very upset”, “disturbing”…says it all.</p>

<p>Mr Penn Sate himself not only knew, but let it continue for another decade. He knew exactly what Sandusky was… a monster destroying kids lives, yet he let it continue. Why?..because his legacy and the schools legacy was more important to him. The guy is a POS</p>

<p>Tom…the above says it all…</p>

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<p>Someone who’s afraid of being harmed physically themselves? (Which doesn’t make too much sense for an ex-football player like this person.) Someone who’s afraid of losing his position? That doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to me.</p>

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<p>"What kind of a person does not intervene in that situation? "</p>

<p>a coward</p>

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<p>^ Someone who doesn’t want to confront someone they know and have known for years.</p>

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<p>“I think the sense in many posts here is that people have a general duty to do what is necessary to protect children from sexual abuse.”</p>

<p>Thank you. All this parsing of words on Paterno’s behalf: there may not be a “legal” basis for intervention, but there is a “moral” basis to intervene. </p>

<p>And JHS, in case it hasn’t been pointed out: Paterno did not fire Sandusky. He pushed him into retirement, and Sandusky was allowed to run youth camps and have an office at PSU until a few days ago.</p>

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<p>As others have noted, the grand jury report is only part of one version of the facts. It presents things as facts that haven’t been proven, and may not be proven.</p>

<p>I don’t think Sandusky is likely to be exonerated, but it’s too soon to say about the others. It looks like Penn State is going to try to cut its losses and dump all of them, though. That might be the right thing to do, but it won’t look so good if the case falls apart.</p>

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<p>I think if one of these witnesses or administrators along the line had been a woman, that woman would have first grabbed the boy, started screaming at the dirty old man “showering” naked with the young boy, and marched straight to the police. If I ever saw something like that happening to a child, I could not imagine letting the jerk get away with it. I can’t believe these grown men didn’t protect the boy first. </p>

<p>When would anyone ever, ever think it would be OK for an old man to be showering naked with young boys? Shampooing hair? Come on. I just don’t get it. I don’t get why whoever saw this didn’t try to rescue the kid.</p>

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<p>^ disgusting…the kid even saw him and he just walked away.</p>

<p>not just a coward…a POS that didn’t want to jeopardize his job when he walked in on a 10 year old getting reamed up the but. How about a “hey, what is going on here”…That at a minimum would have at least stopped that particular rape.</p>

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<p>I listened to the radio quite a bit today. I think the Big Ten must suspend PSU from the conference completely and immediately pending a complete review of their leadership and potential for continued membership. No sports, no TV money, no academic/research participation. Nothing. They may re-apply once all this has run its course in the courts.</p>

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<p>I agree it would have been different if a woman had been a witness. Aren’t any of these men fathers?</p>

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<p>I wish I could be so certain of things as some of you are. I thought this was interesting:</p>

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I remember in the discussion about the woman who lost custody of her children because she had cancer, several people thought that the judge would have never made such an outrageous decision if she had been a man.</p>

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<p>You can’t be certain Hunt, because you’ll never be a mother. But I’m one and I can tell you, no mother would have left that boy in the shower.</p>

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<p>I think that the grad assistant also was thinking of the PSU football program, which seems to have a life of its own of which people were very protective. </p>

<p>Everyone passed the hot potato to the next higher level of authority, up to the president of the university. Who was required by law to report the incident to the police? </p>

<p>The Pennsylvania AG opines that, according to Pennsylvania law, only Curly (the Athletic director) and Shulz (the VP of administration?) had the legal obligation to report the incident to the police. Of course, Curly and Shulz will argue that the law as written does not cover them. </p>

<p>The irony is that it would have been better for the football program to have reported Sandusky to the police when the incident happened. There would have been a scandal, but the university would be seen as being active in protecting the children. Now, there is even a worse scandal and the program and the university is seen as caring more about themselves than for the welfare of children. </p>

<p>Bigger heads will roll now than would have rolled back in 2002 upon the report of the scandal.</p>

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<p>Barrons - No academic/research participation? So punish innocent students who had nothing to do with any of this mess? THAT is ridiculous.</p>

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<p>The wagons are circling;</p>

<p>Here’s the latest from @PatriotNews at the scene #Sandusky pennlive.com/midstate/index… …and we’ve heard trustees are meeting tonight and tomorrow</p>

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<p>^ that’s always how it turns out…cover ups only make it worse</p>

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<p>I completely disagree. There is no indication that any student athletes, or any other students for that matter, were involved in any way with this scandal. To punish the entire student body for the actions of a few stupid administrators would be misguided.</p>

<p>The board needs to clean house and get rid of the bad apples and there every indication that that’s the process in motion at the moment.</p>

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<p>Penn State…football above everything else. Safety and well being of innocent children , that is for sure
The cover up is disgusting
I believe there is a special hell for those who abuse children
And there is room for those who witness it and keep their mouths shut</p>

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<p>Everyone keeps talking about witnesses- there was only one witness in the shower situation. The GA. Paterno witnessed nothing. He was told about it and reported it. Does anyone know what Paterno was told happened after that?</p>

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<p>Look. I am not a defender of Joe Pa, Curley, Schultz, or anyone. I am not their fan. I am certainly not a fan of Sandusky. </p>

<p>I agree that there is a moral obligation to protect children, and I hope I would live my life that way. I think, at the least, Paterno and his minions knew Sandusky was something of a perv about kids, and I would think a lot more of them if they had acted more forcefully to neutralize him. If I were a trustee of Penn State, I would certainly be considering firing them all now, for not having upheld the values of the institution or acted forcefully enough to protect it.</p>

<p>I have trouble believing, though, that any of them thought Sandusky was raping (not just inappropriately touching) kids on a regular basis, like he was, and did as little as they did about it. I agree with all of you – if that’s true, their behavior was horrific. I conclude from that, however, that I have to be really careful about assuming what they knew, and examine the evidence carefully before deciding they are all moral bankrupts. I think better of people than that, in addition to the whole presumption of innocence thing. Their actions are so inconsistent with what most of you insist they knew, that I can’t believe they knew it. And to an extent that includes McQueary. If he was sure at the time he was witnessing anal sex between Sandusky and a 10-year-old . . . the rest of the story makes very little sense.</p>

<p>Like all of you, I am just trying to draw the curve that best fits the data points. And one of the things I’m suggesting is that maybe McQueary is much more certain now, in retrospect, what he saw and how he described it, than he was at the time. It wouldn’t be the first time in the history of the world that happened. And finding out that Sandusky was violating kids on a regular basis for years would certainly serve as an incentive to make yourself believe that you had done a little more than you did to stop it when you had a chance.</p>

<p>Separately, in reading the grand jury report, I am disturbed that a public official with awesome law enforcement powers used those powers to embarrass and humiliate people for moral failings that I do not believe she could win a criminal conviction on. Prosecutors have incredible powers; it’s really important that they color within the lines when they use them, and I don’t think this one did. We may all be disappointed at the moral failings of Paterno, Curley, and Schultz, but there’s precious little basis to charge any of them with a crime, and describing their conduct has nothing to do with the evidence necessary to convict Sandusky. The AG went after these people, and while most of us may consider that a public service on the merits, it was not right. She is going to have their scalps on her belt, now, and that may give her career a nice boost, but it chills my blood.</p>

<p>And I certainly believe that we do not live in a society where people can prosecuted and jailedl for failing to investigate and report whether their neighbors and co-workers are sexual deviants, terrorists, racists, revolutionaries, bank robbers, whatever. There are societies where that is the case, and while neither approach is perfectly bad or perfectly good, I think ours is better.</p>