Article on Sandusky scandal from 7 months ago

...and the written Pennsylvania protocol, I've mentioned this on another thread but I guess I'll say it here too:

It's clear from the language of the law that it was drafted to address situations where someone begins to suspect that a child is a victim of abuse: a child comes to school with suspicious bruises, say, or makes odd and suspicious comments to a psychologist. It wasn't intended to apply to a direct witness of a crime in a situation where the child is in immediate danger--it's rather rare for that to happen in a school or childcare setting. That it's the applicable law here is something of an accident, and it's the reason for the discrepancy between what the authorities think should have been done and what the law actually requires.

(And, yes, the direct witness was McQueary, not Paterno. I don't know how many comments I've seen on these various threads that seem to have gotten that wrong.)

1. One of your best friends is accused of doing something sexual in a shower with a young boy. You "follow protocol" and report it to the AD. Nothing seemingly happens with the investigation. Are you assuming Joe assumed Sandusky was somehow exonerated? It's his best friend, or one of them, right, and we can at the least assume Joe would be concerned about his best friend. So Joe follows up, right? He finds out what is going on with his friend? What does he find out in 2002? Nothing? His friend is in the clear? He doesn't bother to find anything out? Why? He "followed protocol" and it's out of his head?

He should be held accountable for either not disclosing what he found out or for not being interested in finding out if anything happened to one of his good friends accused of having sex with a boy. In what other ways can you defend him here?

2. Joe's running a massive football operation under dimishing capabilities. Imagine the work he does all week long, and how much could go on while the assistants are game planning and Joe is napping (okay, I need some humor right now). But seriously, Sandusky could come and go without notice pretty easy, especially depending on where his office is in relationship to Joe's.

It's funny that you chastise those of us for our "assumptions" and yet you ask at the same time for people to "imagine" (which means, assume the reality of the following hypothetical situation: for neither you nor I know "exactly" what it means to run a D1 program) the amount of work Joe had to do each week in running his football program and that is how he somehow managed not to see one of his good friends on campus for nearly a decade after hearing first hand from someone who saw him a shower with a young boy. Moreover, Jerry Sandusky still held his position within his Charity. Joe knew what he had been accused of and was apparently okay with what work he assumed Jerry was doing with and around children in his Second City Charity. That is one assumption. Or we assume Joe put it out of his mind "because it was too hard to believe". We should hold Joe accountable in either scenario.

3. Joe is the biggest target because he is the most powerful figure in the Happy Valley Football Community. Either he used that power to sweep something under the rug or he misused that power by "putting things completely out of his mind". He should be lampooned for either being incompetent and morally irresponsible (I've said elsewhere, moral and legal obligations to a community are not the same) or for being in some way responsible for what looks like a "cover-up".

4. What we know is that he reported to the AD that Sandusky was seen involved in some sort of sexual act with a child.

Then you write "hardly a cover up". That was in 2002. You're again assuming Joe wasn't the least bit curious as to the outcome of the non-investigation that took place. We're all assuming Joe was aware of the fact that the police were not involved in the 2002 allegtions.

We know that they (Paterno and co.) believed the accusations were serious enough as to bar Sandusky from bringing boys to school, and we know everyone involved in the accusations were made aware of these results. All parties have said so.

From there, it is correct to assume one of two things. Either Joe didn't see fit to bring the police in because he had "done enough" by reporting it up the chain of command. In thinking he had done enough, Joe is also giving tacit approval to the actions of the Instiution to which he was reporting. He must have felt they had also done enough in their "non criminal investigation" into the allegations against Sandusky, given, again, that he had felt he had done enough in the first place. Or, Joe is that ignornant of the law, that he assumes something sexual happening in the boys lockerroom at PSU between an adult and boy is an instiutional matter and not a criminal matter. Again, he has power, and he either used it incorrectly, ignornantly, or criminally.

There's no credible explanation for Joe's behavior. Either way, he needs to be held accountable. You can empathasize with the man, understand that he was put into a position of great difficulty because of one of his friends; but being empathic doesn't mean that you are forbidden from 1. making conclusions and 2. judging the man's behaviors based on those conclusions that you've rationally come to, given the evidence. Joe failed in his role as a figurehead and as a leader of a public institution and he failed spectacularly.