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Police: Paterno Did Not Do Enough

#43
bradjonesbass said:
Legally, he did what he needed to do... Morally and ethically, not so much, IMHO. He should have followed up and pushed it, and if nothing was reported to CPS or the police, he should have reported it. Also, this is not the sort of activity an old man suddenly takes up in his retirement years, so I have to wonder how long Sandusky had been doing this, how many other victims there are, and how much people (including Paterno) knew about it...
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End of story. There is legal duty and then moral duty. The alleged crimes are heinous and Paterno simply did not do the right thing. His career will forever be stained by this.
 
#45
Goatee220 said:
My main question in this whole thing is - Why didn't the graduate assistant who witnessed this whole thing simply go to the nearest phone and call the police?
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I do agree, the graduate assistant had been a player and was far younger than Sandusky. He is now an assistant coach at Penn State. I suspect he was intimidated by the relationship he saw between Paterno and Sandusky. I also suspect Paterno had more than a clue what was going on. He had known Sandusky as a personal friend for years and Sandusky had been bringing kids along on away games, buying presents for them, and had already been banned from doing so at off-campus facilities when Paterno heard the accusation.

The fact that Sandusky was even allowed to take a kid into the locker room or be around them at that point was derelict, the fact that he was accused, had a past history and Joe Pa merely contacted non law enforcement personel who he had immense pull with, compounded by the fact that Joe did no follow up and continued to allow Sandusky free rein of the facilities is criminal IMO.

And for the record I have never had any special rivalry feelings towards JoePa and I've rooted for Penn State against SEC teams a few times.
 
#46
PSU officials are going to run off anyone they can right now to try and distance the university from the scandal. That will include Paterno who has done more for the university, and probably the entire state, than anyone else ever has.

I will admit I am having a hard time separating my emotions from this issue because it hits very close to home for me and my family. It just really sucks that people are now pointing fingers at Joe like he tried to cover this up, or playing armchair QB with all the 20/20 hindsight comments. How do all of you know that Paterno never followed up on what he reported? Perhaps he did, and the two men who have been accused of perjury are the ones who covered it up.

-Mike
 
#48
MJ5150 said:
I will admit I am having a hard time separating my emotions from this issue because it hits very close to home for me and my family. It just really sucks that people are now pointing fingers at Joe like he tried to cover this up, or playing armchair QB with all the 20/20 hindsight comments. How do all of you know that Paterno never followed up on what he reported? Perhaps he did, and the two men who have been accused of perjury are the ones who covered it up.

-Mike
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I'm right there with ya, Mike. Having grown up near Happy Valley, and my father being a PSU grad (not athlete, though), I have ties to PSU. I'm just going to sit back, and let all the facts come out before I really try to form any opinion, bias as it may end up being.
 
#49
I think this maybe worse than I thought. Sandusky retired shortly after the 1998 incident although he was tabbed as Paterno's successor. There are reports that the campus police and local DA had knowledge of the situation. A conspiracy theorist might wonder if Sandusky was not quietly moved aside when his issues first came to light in an attempt to keep this quiet.
 
#51
bradjonesbass said:
Maybe he did... We aren't told about the rest of the incident. Possibly Sandusky saw him and left, or possibly he confronted Sandusky and got the kid out of there.
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I won't quote the whole scenario from the grand jury report but:

Grand Jury Report said:
The graduate assistant was shocked but noticed that both Victim 2 and Sandusky saw him. The graduate assistant left immediately, distraught.
The graduate assistant went to his office and called his father, reporting to him what he had seen. His father told the graduate assistant to leave the building and come to his home. The graduate assistant and his father decided that the graduate assistant had to report what he had seen to Coach Joe Paterno ("Paterno"), head football coach of Pemi State. The nextmorning, a Saturday, the graduate assistant telephoned Paterno and went to Paterno's home, where he reported what he had seen.
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I can tell you I wouldn't walk away from what he saw. I might get fired, arrested for assault and battery and/or get my a$$ kicked but I wouldn't walk away.

Rape is always hard to prove. But in this case, the guy saw it happening and then walked a way. Here is a tiny victim and a witness at the scene of the crime. But instead he walks away and calls his boss the next morning. He was "distraught". Oh boo hoo.

If you can make it through the whole report without puking it's pretty obvious everyone knew what was going on. I'd like to give Paterno the benefit of the doubt but I've never been close enough friends with someone to overlook child molestation.

I wasn't really following the story closely but the more I find out the madder I get. It said he thought the boy looked to be about 10. I just got home from soccer practice with 9 and 10 year olds, including my 2 sons. If this is true (and granted, it's only a grand jury report) I think they should all be strung up. I'd pull the trigger on Sandusky myself.
 
#53
As a psu grad this is pretty disheartening. I will say I have never like spanier (personally too the time I met him) I'd love to see him go.

As has been said I'm reserving my judgement until all the facts are out but this does not look good at all.
 
#54
Why didn't the witness who observed the assistant coach physically intercede? Why didn't Paterno's superiors file a complaint with the police?
Today I heard on the news that two parents of children abused by Sandusky went directly to the police and filed complaints. 13 years ago???!!!??? I want to know where the D.A. is when those complaints were filed. Why was the police reluctant to make an arrest of a child abusing predator? Paterno isn't responsible for arrests. And these parents went to the police with proof 13 years ago. This is more an indictment on the police department there. This isn't a case of student athletes out drunk and the police working with the university to keep things mum. Bad judgements were made but none worse that a police department failing to discharge their duty to protect the citizenry.

http://deadspin.com/5857440/alleged...-sandusky-admitted-it-to-my-face-13-years-ago
 
#55
Clark Dark said:
Why didn't the witness who observed the assistant coach physically intercede? Why didn't Paterno's superiors file a complaint with the police?
Today I heard on the news that two parents of children abused by Sandusky went directly to the police and filed complaints. 13 years ago???!!!??? I want to know where the D.A. is when those complaints were filed. Why was the police reluctant to make an arrest of a child abusing predator? Paterno isn't responsible for arrests. And these parents went to the police with proof 13 years ago. This is more an indictment on the police department there. This isn't a case of student athletes out drunk and the police working with the university to keep things mum. Bad judgements were made but none worse that a police department failing to discharge their duty to protect the citizenry.

Alleged Victim's Mother: Jerry Sandusky Admitted It "To My Face" 13 Years Ago
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This goes back to what I said earlier, Paterno was the most powerful man at Penn State, no one wanted to cross or embarrass him.
 
#57
Dr. Cheese said:
This goes back to what I said earlier, Paterno was the most powerful man at Penn State, no one wanted to cross or embarrass him.
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That exactly why they should have gone right to the police. That way the university, Joe and most importantly the victim would have been protected. Covering it up only makes everyone involved just as guilty as Sandusky.
 
#58
Goatee220 said:
That exactly why they should have gone right to the police. That way the university, Joe and most importantly the victim would have been protected. Covering it up only makes everyone involved just as guilty as Sandusky.
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I had to do state mandated ethics training for my job today and one thing I noticed is that although we are obligated to report wrong doing to our appropriate superiors, we are also told to report any emergency directly to the police. If McCreary had done this, it would been handled on the spot.
 
#59
Clark Dark said:
Why didn't the witness who observed the assistant coach physically intercede? Why didn't Paterno's superiors file a complaint with the police?
Today I heard on the news that two parents of children abused by Sandusky went directly to the police and filed complaints. 13 years ago???!!!??? I want to know where the D.A. is when those complaints were filed. Why was the police reluctant to make an arrest of a child abusing predator? Paterno isn't responsible for arrests. And these parents went to the police with proof 13 years ago. This is more an indictment on the police department there. This isn't a case of student athletes out drunk and the police working with the university to keep things mum. Bad judgements were made but none worse that a police department failing to discharge their duty to protect the citizenry.

http://deadspin.com/5857440/alleged-victims-mother-jerry-sandusky-admitted-it-to-my-face-13-years-ago
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Did you see that the original DA disappeared, has been declared legally dead and his computer hard drive was found with the data unrecoverable?? What are the chances the two stories are related? Given the power that PSU football wields there, this thing could get really sticky...
 
#60
bradjonesbass said:
Did you see that the original DA disappeared, has been declared legally dead and his computer hard drive was found with the data unrecoverable?? What are the chances the two stories are related? Given the power that PSU football wields there, this thing could get really sticky...
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Agreed. This is starting to read like a CSI episode.
 

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