<p>Though as adults, the janitors should have said/done something, even if it were an anonymous call to the police reporting the events, I can truly understand why they would not have done so, given the way that so many high up in university structure, up to Paterno himself and the president of the univesity, knew what was going down and were letting it happen. </p>
<p>I do believe that EVERYONE, including the janitors, students need to be given a clear statement of how this sort of thing needs to be handled, and that it has to be reported and ANY adult who is privy to knowing children are being abused or asituations that make it reasonable to make that assumptions has to report it or will be in a lot of trouble. There should also be an easy way to report these things. No adult who sees or has good reason to suspect a child is being harmed should let it go. Those in positions where they are responsible for children have a legal responsibility to report these things, and it is going to have to be enforced at Penn State, and hopefully what transpired here makes its mark everywhere.</p>
<p>There are a lot of people who have some answering to do to the law as to why they did not report what they saw or heard. McQueary’s father and friend who were told what he saw, were doctors, where they not? Why didn’t they just pick up the phone and report what they were told? Even anonymously. No one seemed to have cared about these children which is what still shakens me. That is the note that resounds the most from that Freeh report. The children and what possibly was happening and could happen to them was not a concern in the least. Not a memo about what was possibly being done to the children, What happened to that child. Let’s go find the child and make sure he is all right. Nothing. </p>
<p>What is particularly frightening to me, is that I don’t think that these people at Penn state are some monsters (other than Sandusky). I believe that someone who would molest, rape, abuse children on a systematic basis is rare and is a monster (Sandusky), but the others are the people around us and maybe even ourselves, if a system is not in place for us to be able to report something like this. </p>
<p>In all honesty, if my job and life situation were at stake, unless I saw it with my own eyes, or someone very directly told me that they saw the very situation, I don’t think I would want to report something like this. If it doesn’t pan out, not enough proof, and the denials win out, you are out of a job and shamed. </p>
<p>The one thing I can say unequivocally say about ME, is that if I had seen what McQ says he saw, I would not have just made a noise and left the place, even if it were the POTUS himself doing the dastardly deed to a child. And if my son or anyone came and told me what s/he just saw, I would immediately call the police. My fear would have been for that child. Would McQ, father/friend have reacted the same way had he said the kid was being murdered or hacked with an ax or knife? </p>
<p>Also, hard though it may be for you more worldly ones to believe, I was naive enough that I would not have believed that someone was doing this sort of thing before this without having seen it with my own eyes or someone explicitly telling me what they saw. There are people who are bad about personal space and are may be overstepping what are considered appropriate bounds, yes, with children, but my mind would not have gone there to the possibility that they were raping those kids That someone who was working with children like Sandusky was, have adopted kids, made his life about kids, was a serial child rapist was not something believable to me. My brain would not have gone there. Now it would, thanks to Sandusky.</p>