<p>It is likely that the first motivation McQueary’s dad had at the time was to make sure his own son was safe. I don’t think he would be the only parent whose first instinct would be for their own child not to confront someone for fear of escalating the situation. In hindsight, his father may regret telling him to leave, but not knowing what Sandusky was capable of, this father thought of his son’s safety first.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is an incredible understatement.</p>
<p>Look, life is full of gray, in addition to black and white. In this case, it is my opinion that there is absolutely no gray. I don’t care if the rapist you observe is a friend of Daddy’s, a former coach, someone who you at one time looked up to. I also don’t care if you want to work at Penn State someday and doing the right thing might fudge that up. It doesn’t matter if you are shocked or confused. There are only two possible actions to take. Stop the rape by screaming, yelling, demanding or using your superior physical prowess to separate the rapist from his victim and/or call 911 immediately. I don’t care if you are in your gym shorts. This is not the 18th century, access to phones in 2002 was not a problem. </p>
<p>See a child being raped, do something about it RIGHT NOW. This is one instance where there is just no gray.</p>
<p>JYm–yes, it’s credible that he left. Lots of people might. I don’t believe it’s defensible though. I don’t care what what the relationship was–you don’t walk away from a kid who’s being attacked. How could you live with yourself if you didn’t help? Unless he was afraid for his life, and no one has suggested Sandusky was violent (except to defenseless children) how could the first instinct not be to protect a child?</p>
<p>What kind of people are we that we could think it’s perfectly understandable that his fisrt instinct wasn’t to help? I get that it’s believable; undoubtedly that’s what happened (he didn’t intervene) but sheesh–how can we say that that’s anything but cowardly and reprehensible, from a civilized human standpoint?</p>
<p>Look, firing Paterno caused riots in State College. For a long time, Sandusky was Paterno’s #2 and logical successor, the Crown Prince (and, in some ways, perhaps more responsible for Penn State’s football success than Paterno himself). That was no longer true in 2002, but it had been true all the time McQueary was growing up and when he played football at Penn State, and Sandusky was still a major figure in the community there. Heck, there was a giant mural that included his picture up on the walls. There was an enormous power differential between McQueary and Sandusky.</p>
<p>And McQueary made all of his judgments in an instant. I think – we all think, especially in retrospect – he made the wrong one, but it’s way easier for us to decide that than it was for him in the moment.</p>
<p>If mcqweary had acted at the time, more then calling daddy, yes itnwould have been ugly, but he would have been deemed heroic. Instead he got a great job.</p>
<p>We need to separate legal and moral, we all know morally what these men should have done. </p>
<p>Legally, from how this law is written, and what kind of youth camps were run at Penn state, I am going to make an educated guess that all of the coaches were legally responsible to report any suspected child abuse. We can parse words, and yes, i know the law is words, but it’s pretty clear, even back in 2002, that if had any involvement with minor children, teaching, coaching, etc, the you had to report. </p>
<p>As these so called men chose not to report to cps, or even try and figure outnwhere this boy could have come from, what program, second mile, local school, Penn state camp,they have non real idea if it was one of their own campers. Thats not really relevant, but if it had been one of their campers, they all failed legally.</p>
<p>annasdad,
Hmmm, yes, these were the mis-perceptual, blinding issues. No exoneration there, sorry.</p>
<p>I am waiting for more “factual” shoes to drop: like mini’s finding the JoePa was on the Second Mile board (honorary member).
The speculation of “pimping” to donors is just a horrible rumor, I hope, but let us see why there was such a desire to protect Sandusky.</p>
<p>The lack of clarity and strictness of the mandated reporting statutes may be there. The jurisdictional authority of Campus Police is there, most unfortunately. The DA running for governor holding off on the case is there. (think of where ll this would be if the Grand Jury statement had not been leaked- buried several miles down…)</p>
<p>But there is no lack of clarity that these kids were victims, and that this guy seemed to have a real problem (the two sides of reporting are protecting the kids, and catching/stopping the predator.)</p>
<p>The institution and all its power and ability to raise money was such a huge machine, like a Mafia. The Founding Fathers tried to create checks and balances in the they system running our country- to me that is a noble and crucial goal to be mindful of, as is the separation of Church (here the football program) and State.</p>
<p>Still- Sandusky was technically a dirt-bag. This was FAR from the first allegation or complaint.
How did he keep so much power? Did he have anything on these other guys, other than the fact that they would get into trouble for enabling him (the vicious cycle of dishonesty)? Was it only the (admittedly hugely powerful) sway of the football program and its reputation and its power?
Or was there something else??? I am not trying to say there was, just looking at these humans’ behaviors and saying their actions point to that possibility.
So we shall see.</p>
<p>
People don’t want to believe that somebody they know and trust is a pedophile. Also, pedophiles are manipulators–Sandusky appears to have been one, if the allegations against him are all, or even largely, true. They have good explanations for the troubling things you see, and people want to believe them.</p>
<p>My thanks to ihs76 in post #1037 for answering my earlier question about why the grand jury report was made public.</p>
<p>Post #1037 read:
</p>
<p>… For the record, I took a big chance when I was in grad school to stand up to a faculty member/supervisor who was asking me to do something that I found to be ethically and morally unacceptable. I have talked about this before, and DonnaL knows and has written of the unacceptable things this professor did. He had a program to try to “reshape homosexual behaviors”. I found it repugnant and most upsetting that this was being permitted at our well respected graduate training institution. This was over 30 years ago and perhaps there wasn’t as much moral outrage then as there is now. But I was not comfortable doing these 'screening evaluations" for this “program”. I first had a delicate conversation with the head of this “program” expressing my discomfort what what he was asking me to do in evaluating these young patients (elementary school aged boys). He essentialaly blew me off. I then went to my training advisor to express my concern and to see what could be done. I was able to get out of that practicum rotation and placed elsewhere. So I took a chance and could have engaged in career suicide by declining to participate in what I was assigned to do by a supervisor. It was risky, but fortunately it worked out ok. If he had been head of the department (instead of in a conjoint department) would I have had the same nerve? Dunno. Oh, and the professor left our instituion a year or so later, but went to another university. Ugh.</p>
<p>BTW, he was later, 20 years later, found to have a male prostitute as a travel companion during a 2 week vacation to Europe. This professor subsequently resigned formt the position he held at the time.</p>
<p>Silverlady said something in post #1231 that had also occurred to me. Why didn’t the Graduate Assistant do more at the time? </p>
<p>“What if he had been abused in some way by Sandusky when he was a boy? Remember, they lived in the same neighborhood, and McQuery grew up with his children. I am not saying that he was raped, but what if something inappropriate happened, and it all came flooding back?”</p>
<p>That is interesting, Hunt. You may be right, that his FRIENDSHIP with all these folks was the ultimate blinding factor. But there were a number of complaints, allegations, and I think an admission, and the "“I won’t do it again.” Their response was crazy, to let him stay around, to support his cause, let him be with youngsters, so I guess that supports your theory of emotional need for denial.</p>
<p>Yet, I could argue that with all the value and importance of the football program, the response could have been the opposite: “Stay away. Get help. Do not take this incredibly valuable football program down with your behavior.” (Obviously, not even the Catholic Church did that, so I am smoking ****, I guess. Just looking at this all the ways I can.)</p>
<p>annasdad, the Salon article doesn’t tell me anything about what the board considered. </p>
<p>Pointing out that none of us knows what we or anyone else would do in a situation is not making excuses or defending someone. It is just pointing out the truth - no one can say for sure what they would do in someone else’s shoes. </p>
<p>Years ago, my boyfriend and I witnessed, from a window, a man kicking his puppy across the street from my apartment. My BF went down and confronted the man and told him he would take the puppy if he would just walk away. The man walked away - to his car and retrieved a shotgun. My boyfriend was able to get away because he noticed the guy was reaching into the back seat. The guy walked along the street pointing his gun at all the buildings along the street yelling that he was going to find my boyfriend and kill him. I heard him and called the police and cowered beneath the window of my second floor apartment for what seemed like a lifetime before the police came. </p>
<p>I know that experience would inform my decision to confront someone and it would certainly inform me as to what I would tell my child to do if she called to ask what she should do.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I can say for sure that if I witnessed a child being raped, I would attempt to save the child. I can say for sure that I would have reported it to the police. I have reported far, far lesser situations to the authorities. That’s what compassionate, ethical people do. They don’t go to football coaches.</p>
<p>Why is the one person who had a chance to save this child still employed by Penn State? I have yet to see an answer to that question.</p>
<p>Cartera–this is a child, not a puppy. And i don’t for a nanosecond believe (and i don’t believe anyone else has even hinted) that McQ feared that Sandusky had a weapon or otherwise was a threat to him physically. I think analogies and “similar” circumstances only go so far.</p>
<p>For all those so eager to cast McQueary in the same pit as Sandusky, Paterno, and Spanier: Here you have a 23-year-old, who has been taught to look up to this awesome father figure, who has been steeped in the sick football culture of a major football factory, who has a very junior position now in that culture. He walks in on an unspeakably horrible event.</p>
<p>What would you do? I’d like to think that if it were me, I’d take action right then to stop it - either physically intervene or call the cops right away. But I’m not sure I’d have the clarity of judgment or the moral courage to do so. Perhaps some of the other posters on the thread do have that assurance about themselves - so be it.</p>
<p>But the senior coaches and administrators who were then told about the event had no such excuse, especially when they were certainly aware that this was not the first time. They are morally culpable. McQueary - let’s just say I’m glad I was not in his shoes, then or now.</p>
<p>Joe Paterno is a huge republican supporter I wonder if Governor Corbett listed Joe in any of his campaign literature during the election? Imagine if he did when he had behind the scene information. What would that tell us? Would it lead you to believe that Paterno behaved properly in this case or that Corbett even knowing Paterno behaved poorly would do anything to win an election? Questions of character are all around us.</p>
<p>I really don’t understand the parsing about who should call official protection services. I’m a school nurse and have made dozens of those reports over the years
My last case was a child who accused his dad of beating him. I examined the child to see if he needed immediate medical attention and assured him that people would help him with this. The authorities at my school did not want me to report it. The dad was a very high officer in the town police department. I told them I had an obligation to the child and I made the report. I did not think the child was abused but it was not my call to do otherwise. I kept the child with me until he was interviewed and was sent home with mom, the custodial parent.
I have also apprehended a purse snatching thief at a previous job, physically intervened in a mugging and my H and S have both physically intervened when women (strangers) were threatened. The last was during college years. (Maybe I live in a dicey areas but it’s just what you do when you see something wrong.)
…and yes, I look back and don’t think apprehending the purse snatcher was a smart move. But he wasn’t naked and could have had a concealed weapon.</p>
<p>Who among us would sneak away from a child being raped. There is no excuse, no career choice, no judgement call needed to sneak away from a child being assaulted. At the bare minimum he needed to scream and yell and get that boy out of there. And paterno at the very least should have berated mcqeary for doing nothing and called cps at a minimum. This is all moral responsibility.</p>
<p>Legal I bet it turns out they were all mandated, even paterno, to report, having campsmwith minors on camps.</p>
<p>As a volunteer coach, we were all told it was out legal responsibility to report.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>^^^^^Well, seeing as Sandusky was butt naked, he wasn’t pulling a gun out of his pocket. </p>
<p>Let’s assume that the 6 foot 200 lb. 28 y/o athlete was afraid of this 60 y/o man from a physical perspective. When he turned his back on that child and went to the telephone, he could have called 911. Nope. Called Dad. Left the building, knowing that a little boy was being sodomized as he walked away to safety.</p>
<p>annasdad- 28 not 23. You have a propensity to misstate information and claim facts from inference.</p>