<p>I have never once said that McQueary did not have a moral duty to help the child at that moment. My point is that failing in crisis is very human and less reprehensible than failing to follow up on McQueary’s report.</p>
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<p>I thought of that as well. I imagine that the shame could be compounded with the realization that no one was coming to help. That the red haired man left because he was disgusted and therefore I must be bad, I must be ashamed of myself.</p>
<p>We don’t know exactly what the child was thinking or feeling, but it’s established fact that children often blame themselves when bad things happen in their lives or to people they love. Because no one helped that child, he was left to process the meaning of this event by himself, and we can imagine with a fair amount of accuracy that he didn’t have the capacity to absolve himself and blame the perpetrator.</p>
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<p>Yes, that is the greatest tragedy that there was no intervention. That child, as far as we know, has not received any help in dealing with this. Is he out there reliving this because of all that is going on? Is he afraid he will be blamed for what is going on? Is he on his way to becoming an abuser himself? There was a missed opportunity to get some help for this child and there were a lot of people along the way who are responsible for that.</p>
<p>Interesting article in # 1357, performersmom. thanks for posting.</p>
<p>^^^ Add to that, did he have ongoing physical injuries or infections as a result of the rape that could have been prevented with prompt medical treatment? Did Sandusky rape him countless more times in more private environments?</p>
<p>Catera45: </p>
<p>It is interesting you mention that the victim might be blamed for what is going on. One of the lawyers for the victims criticized the Board for firing Paterno without talking to them first. One of the things that came up in his statement, is that some of the victims and their families saw the riots on the day Paterno was fired and thought that they might be blamed for the firing.</p>
<p>So the Penn State Students protesting Joe Paterno’s firing with a riot also managed to further injure the victims of this heinous crime. It will be decades before the stench begins to recede from Penn State, thanks to the inactions of Joe Paterno,</p>
<p>It is very hard for rape and abuse victims to let people know what happened. The act of describing it is almost as painful as the original act. The victim also feels dirty, tainted.
And yes, they often blame themselves.
(p.s. I know. It happened to me. I never told ANYone. I was not actually raped. But I lived in fear of the abuser, and was so ashamed, and wondered if something I wore caused it to happen. I also decided, wrongly as I should have thought of other potential victims/my bad, but I was only 10, to weather it alone rather than create a huge messy fuss.
Also, at two schools I was involved with, pederasts of young boys were teachers, stayed there for years, in spite of numerous allegations. At one school, my brother was a victim. My mother figured it out without him actually telling her the actual details, and she complained ( he was about 7) to the school- they did not believe her and left the teacher alone. My mother stopped with the complaining in abeyance to the power of the institution potentially making life hell for my bro and also the fear of him being shamed by a public description. She shared this with me, not my father, btw. That bro is kind of a mess to this day, so who knows whether this was a turning point for him, his self-esteem.)</p>
<p>Wow, performersmom, sorry to hear that. This is so much more widespread than many realize and unfortunately, keeping it in the shadows as well.</p>
<p>Two posters on this thread have said they were sexually abused as children and did not report it because of all that goes along with it.</p>
<p>Besides reporting the 2002 incident to Curly that resulted in a meeting with the GA and the person in charge of the Campus Police. The police with the power and authority to investigate the matter what do we know for certain were the inaction of Joe Paterno? </p>
<p>What do we know for sure he knew- not we think he knew. Can someone list those for me?</p>
<p>TY, ohiomom, but these incidents were nothing like what happened with Sandusky.
So many victims. Much worse abuse.
In spite of tighter codes about reporting, which were developed to help the victims who are quite helpless.</p>
<p>Here the victim did NOT need to report it, as a 28 year old saw it happening.
He did not stop it or rescue the child at the time, and those he eventually reported it to did not appear to report it to the authorities as stipulated by the current codes, and the observer did not follow up on his report.</p>
<p>And there were probably many prior allegations, and possibly subsequent.</p>
<p>The game should be canceled out of respect for the victims this Saturday!!</p>
<p>[Penn</a> State board thought of cancelling football game | Reuters](<a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/11/us-usa-crime-coach-game-idUSTRE7AA51G20111111]Penn”>http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/11/us-usa-crime-coach-game-idUSTRE7AA51G20111111)</p>
<p>BOT’s decision was certainly based on the best interest ($) of the school and its prized football program NOT on the little victims!!! And please, stop using the seniors as an excuse!! THIS IS SHAMEFUL!!! lol</p>
<p>In the legal world you can be charged with conspiracy and these men conspired ton hide a crime.</p>
<p>Also, other states are now becoming involved as sandusky took his victim on road trips</p>
<p>All you need to know to understand Paterno is the fact that everything, everything at Penn State centered around the myth of Paterno. Fundraising, recruitment, reputation all centered on maintaining the myth of Paterno. So everyone not only protected the myth but built it and built it. And Paterno believed it and he still believes it. But its all fake based on nothing but the desire of the University to establish its reputation and raise money.</p>
<p>sm- proof of that? Can you answer my questions in post 1375 unemotionally and not with I believe, you are a fool to think etc, just facts that link Paterno to the claims you make and can be backed up.</p>
<p>Tom1944, Because I once worked with children I know in this instance, there should have been an investigation. Actually, anyone should know this. Since Sandusky had an office at PSU and a charity, Paterno should have made sure there was an investigation. When there was not one, he should have seen to it that there was one. If he had followed up, there would have been an investigation.</p>
<p>The proof that he did not follow up is that there was no investigation.</p>
<p>[Jerry</a> Sandusky, former Penn State football staffer, subject of grand jury investigation | PennLive.com](<a href=“http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/03/jerry_sandusky_former_penn_sta.html]Jerry”>Jerry Sandusky, former Penn State football staffer, subject of grand jury investigation - pennlive.com)</p>
<p>Not sure if this article has been posted, but it gives some background on the investigation. This article was written in March of this year.</p>
<p>What is interesting in this article is that the principle who reported on '09 could not get any indication as to whether his report was being investigated or not. No one would tell him anything and he tried to find out. It does beg the question as to what Paterno would have been told if he tried to find out what happened with the 2002 investigation.</p>
<p>Thats a powerful point, performersmom. We all come to this with our own personal experiences that influence our perspective. Sorry you are an abuse survivor, performersmom. </p>
<p>I was almost assaulted when I was in grad school. Got accosted in the stairwell of a parking deck . The person pretended to be a visitor to the hospital, followed me up asking innocent-sounding questions about parking to see a family member in the hospital, and then blocked my way when we were in the inside (dark) part of the stairwell, and said “where do you think you are going now?”. </p>
<p>At that very moment a campus parking attendant came down the stairs from the top level and the would-be assailant ran off down the stairs below. Should I have screamed to her “stop him! He almost attacked me!” In retrospect, probably yes. But my instant reaction, without realizing the enormity of the situation and what might have happened (I truly thought at first he was just wanting to steal my car, and I was planing how I would lead him to my car , throw the keys and and run-- it did NOT initially occur to me that I was about to be assaulted, as dumb as that now sounds. It absolutely did not occur to me.) Anyway, what ran through my head was that I probably had a parking ticket, as I had parked longer than allowed!!! So I ran up to my car to see if I was ticketed, and didnt say a thing to the parking attendant.</p>
<p>When I got back to my apartment and told my then boyfriend, a law student, what happened, he went through the roof and wanted to call the campus police. So we did, but a few hours had passed so not sure how helpful the report was. Is it possible this guy assaulted another innocent victim at some point. I hope not, and I never heard about any other incident on campus after this happened to me. </p>
<p>My point in telling this story is that in times like these we don’t always think clearly, as much as we want to think we would.</p>
<p>tom1944: Well the myth of Paterno has been pretty much shattered over the last week, and everyone knows that JoePa was the most important person on campus. When the President of the University tried to suggest he resign a few years back he threw him out of the house. No one man has every been linked to a educational institution as he was. We are seeing the cost of the worship of this myth right now</p>
<p>Since Sandusky had an office at PSU and a charity, Paterno should have made sure there was an investigation. When there was not one, he should have seen to it that there was one. If he had followed up, there would have been an investigation.</p>
<p>Do we know if Schultz told him there was an investigation? That they could not find a victim and that the GA ws unclear about what he saw so they could not move forward- do you know that. If so can you factual show me how you know that. Not I think Paterno is powerful so he controlled everything etc. In fact the President of the college who tried to push Paterno out as stated above also believed these two Curly and Schultz.</p>
<p>“What is interesting in this article is that the principle who reported on '09 could not get any indication as to whether his report was being investigated or not. No one would tell him anything and he tried to find out. It does beg the question as to what Paterno would have been told if he tried to find out what happened with the 2002 investigation.”</p>
<p>9 years? That’s a little long for Paterno to be waiting to find out if there was an investigation. It probably took long for the principal because the subject was a PSU figure.</p>
<p>There was an investigation of one of the therapists where I once worked and we knew about it at the time. It was also written up in the local newspaper while ongoing. But, the therapist was not a part of PSU football.</p>