I've been snarking deeply about how Paterno was going to come out of this fray as untouched as before, so count me as one of the people gobsmacked by his firing.
The anger and outcry at this latest debacle probably has little to do with the reality of the situation and all the more to do with Penn State losing it's religion.I actually had three students ask me what I thought of the situation over the past few days after class (to my surprise--I'm teach an applied math course), and I told them exactly the same thing. The exaggerated view of these "educators", as having some elevated level of moral authority and/or life wisdom, is only the prelude to a fall of this magnitude. That being said, outside of football, most athletics on US campuses is still genuinely amateur, and I'm sure many of the coaches and athletes do what they do out of love (disclaimer: I'm not a jock, nor a big sports fan.) In fact, all of the money from football at Penn State goes to pay for the rest of the athletics programs on campus (so we are told...). My only quibble with what nickrussel says is that one needs to be clear that this is Penn State's official religion--most people here do not participate in drinking (or mixing) the Cool-Aid--and that goes for faculty and students.
I have seen first hand how hard it is to get people from outside the US to take a US degree (other than perhaps one from Harvard, Yale or MIT) seriously, and remember all too well employers coming to speak to us at my grad school, explaining what the Americans should put on our CVs to show that we had a "Real education, rather than Animal House."Well, I've seen first hand how this is not true. Some Euro-doofus recruiter you spoke with has seen Animal House and thinks that adequately summarizes university life in America? Color me unimpressed. I suppose those same idiots think our cops are like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, and that we have lots of vampires roaming around our high schools...
At Pennsylvania State University, a grown man found a blameless child being put through hell. Other grown men learned of it. Each of them had to make their choice, and decide, fundamentally, whether the continuation of their utopia — or at very least the illusion of their utopia — was worth the pain and suffering of that one child. Through their actions, and their inactions, we know the choice they made.posted by gerryblog at 7:22 AM on November 10, 2011 [9 favorites]
A person who, in the course ofSo, someone at the institution failed the law here.
employment, occupation or practice of a profession, comes into
contact with children shall report or cause a report to be made
in accordance with section 6313 (relating to reporting
procedure) when the person has reasonable cause to suspect, on
the basis of medical, professional or other training and
experience, that a child under the care, supervision, guidance
or training of that person or of an agency, institution,
organization or other entity with which that person is
affiliated is a victim of child abuse, including child abuse by
an individual who is not a perpetrator.
(c) Staff members of institutions, etc.--Whenever a person
is required to report under subsection (b) in the capacity as a
member of the staff of a medical or other public or private
institution, school, facility or agency, that person shall
immediately notify the person in charge of the institution,
school, facility or agency or the designated agent of the person
in charge.
I'm not a Christian, butAmazing. And that's not out of line with the rest of that thread.
In a way, as JoePa is being put through all this, it seems to me kind of like the story of JC dying, to save everybody else.
Defensive coordinator Tom Bradley, who was appointed Penn State interim coach in the wake of a shakeup that has claimed the jobs of Joe Paterno and other university leaders, said Thursday it will be a "game-time decision" whether McQueary will coach from the sideline or the press boxIt will be a "game-time decision" exactly how brazenly we will flaunt decency.
Mr. Paterno has had a contentious relationship with some members of the Board of Trustees. In 2004, Mr. Spanier, Mr. Curley and select board members twice went to his house in efforts to get him to retire. Mr. Paterno declined, and the moment was looked at in the narrative of Paterno’s career as an instance of his overcoming adversity.Joe still had some supporters on the board in 2004, and I don't think there was ever an official vote on whether to ask him to resign -- instead, some guys who wanted him to go asked him to go quietly and he called their bluff. Had they really wanted him gone, he'd have been gone.
1998Unbelievable.
Victim 6 is taken into the locker rooms and showers when he is 11 years old. When Victim 6 is dropped off at home, his hair is wet from showering with Sandusky. His mother reports the incident to the university police, who investigate.
Detective Ronald Schreffler testifies that he and State College Police Department Detective Ralph Ralston, with the consent of the mother of Victim 6, eavesdrop on two conversations the mother of Victim 6 has with Sandusky. Sandusky says he has showered with other boys and Victim 6's mother tries to make Sandusky promise never to shower with a boy again but he will not. At the end of the second conversation, after Sandusky is told he cannot see Victim 6 anymore, Schreffler testifies Sandusky says, "I understand. I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won't get it from you. I wish I were dead."
Jerry Lauro, an investigator with the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, testifies he and Schreffler interviewed Sandusky, and that Sandusky admits showering naked with Victim 6, admits to hugging Victim 6 while in the shower and admits that it was wrong.
The case is closed after then-Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar decides there will be no criminal charge.
....
Fall 2000
A janitor named James Calhoun observes Sandusky in the showers of the Lasch Football Building with a young boy, known as Victim 8, pinned up against the wall, performing oral sex on the boy. He tells other janitorial staff immediately. Fellow Office of Physical Plant employee Ronald Petrosky cleans the showers at Lasch and sees Sandusky and the boy, who he describes as being between the ages of 11 and 13.
Calhoun tells other physical plant employees what he saw, including Jay Witherite, his immediate supervisor. Witherite tells him to whom he should report the incident. Calhoun was a temporary employee and never makes a report. Victim 8's identity is unknown.
In 1998, a boy who was 12 at the time told police that Sandusky had showered with him in the Penn State football locker room during a tour. The boy claimed Sandusky assaulted him during the shower.Tragic on so many levels. I really want to know what sort of pressure the State Police put on her, and why.
During our own investigation, years later, the mother told us that she had been specifically instructed by state police not to speak with reporters.
No charges were filed against Sandusky in 1998. With the mother cowed into silence, the incident remained buried.
When Joe Paterno, the ousted Penn State football coach, was confronted with a possible case of child rape, he notified his bosses rather than call the police or the child-abuse hotline. That was all Pennsylvania law required him to do, yet in most other states the failure to call could be a crime.posted by ericb at 1:49 PM on November 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
In more than 40 states, the prevailing policy is that such reports must be made to police or child-protection authorities swiftly and directly, with no option for delegating the task to others and then not following through.
Already, the Penn State scandal has sparked calls for Pennsylvania to toughen its law. State Rep. Kevin Boyle says he will introduce a bill that would require mandated reporters - including school and hospital employees - to notify police themselves rather than pass their information on to superiors at work.
"It is clear that a loophole exists in our law," Boyle said. "My legislation would close that loophole by requiring those who are aware of the abuse to report it to law enforcement authorities, rather than simply following an in-house chain of command."
A review by The Associated Press of the abuse-reporting laws of all 50 states showed that Pennsylvania is one of only about a half-dozen states where the protocol for staff members of schools, hospitals and other institutions is to notify the person in charge in the event of suspected child abuse. That superior is then legally obliged to report to the authorities.
In the Penn State case, the superiors notified in 2002 by Paterno - the athletic director, Tim Curley, and a vice president, Gary Schultz - have been charged with failing to report the suspected abuse. They deny wrongdoing. State authorities say that failure enabled former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky to perpetrate additional sexual assaults on boys. Through a lawyer, he says he is innocent.
According to a 2010 database compiled by the National District Attorney's Association, other states with provisions resembling Pennsylvania's - giving institutional staff the option of reporting suspected abuse to their superiors - include Virginia, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri and South Dakota.
These policies "defy common sense and should be changed," said Victor Veith, a former prosecutor who heads the National Child Protection Training Center in Winona, Minn.
The policy, as it unfolded at Penn State, risks "putting the fox in charge of the henhouse," wrote social worker Julia Tilley, a Penn State graduate, in an op-ed this week for the Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa.
Far more prevalent across the country are laws that mandate informing law enforcement authorities. In some states, such as Michigan, New York and Hawaii, the employees must also notify the person in charge at their institution. But many of the laws explicitly warn that informing one's superior does not relieve the employee of the obligation to personally report the suspected abuse to outside authorities. || more ...
"Sandusky is married and has six adopted children. He [and his wife] also took in foster children."*Where there's smoke, there's fire. We're likely to hear horrid stories involving the kids who passed through that household.
"I think the answer to the question of inaction is simple. It wasn’t a matter of university officials and football staffers in Happy Valley not wanting to deal with it (which they didn’t), or not following up (which they didn’t), or having better things to do like attending Friday-night football pep rallies. There is no great conspiracy theory at work.posted by ericb at 3:24 PM on November 10, 2011 [4 favorites]
What happened, or more accurately did not happen, goes to the core of evil that major college sports programs in this country have become, equivalent to Mafia families in which the code of omertà rules and coaches and staff always close ranks around their own, even if it means letting someone who was first accused of inappropriate sexual conduct in 1998 continue to roam."
It hasn't bothered Sandusky that The Second Mile thus far has kept him from leaving Penn State. "Many people have talked to me about hiring him," says Paterno, "but Jerry's been reluctant to talk to them because of all the commitments he has in this area." A couple of head-coaching jobs at the college level have come and gone, as well as inquiries from Oakland and Tampa Bay about interviewing Sandusky to become a pro assistant. "A long time ago Jerry really wanted to be a head coach," says Dottie, "but now there are so many things going that he never mentions it anymore."Sandusky turned down NFL jobs because of his "commitment" to Second Mile.
"I'm concerned about his future," says Paterno, who spent 16 years as an assistant to Rip Engle at Penn State. "I'm proud of everything that he and Dottie have done, and I certainly wouldn't like to lose him, but I'd hate to see him lose his chance to be a head coach."
If Joe Paterno quits now, he will go out under a cloud that will last for eternity, not just for him but for Penn State University as a whole. It may be out of his hands, the forces of mass hysteria being what they are, but the only way Paterno could preserve one of America's proudest college legacies would be to stay and fight, or at least try.So now the 10 year old victim is "having sex" with Sandusky. Nice.
Amid the nationwide fury over the Penn State sex scandal, there has been no indication thus far that iconic head football coach Paterno did anything illegal in connection with the allegations of sexual misconduct by a former assistant coach.
Nevertheless, flocks of Chicken Littles are screeching that Penn State's sky is falling and Paterno should have done more once he was told the assistant was having sex, or was doing something untoward, with a young boy in a locker room shower.
"The only thing people remember about Woody Hayes is that he hit a player. I don't want that to happen to Joe. He didn't hit a player."Wow. Well. Yes. Whatever comes out in the trial, he certainly didn't hit a player.
"Loyalty does not stand by and turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to heinous crimes against children. Loyalty does not take the easy way out of an uncomfortable situation. Loyalty does not place more value on friendship or public perception than on what is morally right and wrong!"posted by MikeMc at 7:40 PM on November 10, 2011 [10 favorites]
1) How could the graduate assistant, Mike McQuery who saw what Jerry Sandusky was doing to the 10 year boy not stop it? He called his dad instead.posted by Danila at 10:25 PM on November 10, 2011 [13 favorites]
2) What was he scared of that he called his dad? Why was their any doubt in how he should react?
3) How is the then graduate assistant now assistant coach still on the staff and working at Penn State if he saw what happened and no one ever did anything about it?
4) How did Joe Paterno hear the words: 10 year old boy, Sandusky and shower and not act?
5) How every time after hearing those three phrases together did Paterno not question things when he saw Sandusky with another child, at his charity events, etc
6) How did two other victims go to the child services of College Station and have their claims get dismissed?
7) How did campus police not react to a 1998 episode where Sandusky was in a shower with a 11 year old boy.
8) How when 2 years later when a janitor saw Sandusky performing a sex act on a child did the his supervisor not report it
8) How did Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, who was university VP over police, not react when told the story from McQuery
9) Who looks a man in the eye and says "you can't bring children here anymore." but somehow implies it is ok to take them elsewhere
10) HOW DOES A PRESIDENT OF A UNIVERSITY BURY SOMETHING LIKE THIS?
11) How was Sundusky allowed to be working out in the Penn State locker-room last week? Last week? Everyone knew what was going on.
Each of these questions can have individual answers, but collectively there is one unthinkable answer.
THE PENN STATE FOOTBALL PROGRAM WAS AN ENABLER TO CHILD ABUSE. THE CULTURE OF PENN STATE FOOTBALL WAS SUCH THAT NO ONE WAS WILLING TO ASK THE QUESTIONS, TAKE THE ACTION AND DO WHAT WAS OBVIOUSLY RIGHT. THE PENN STATE FOOTBALL PROGRAM WAS AN ENABLE TO CHILD ABUSE.
We have learned over the past that stories evolve and change. New details emerge. However, most of these details are these peoples own testimony in a grand jury statement not accusations or claims.
NO ONE HAD THE STRENGTH TO BE A WHISTLE BLOWER. EVERYONE WAS SCARED. SCARED OF WHO AND WHAT?
PATERNO SHOULD NOT COACH SATURDAY AND PENN STATE NEEDS TO SERIOUSLY CONSIDER THE CANCELLATION OF ITS FOOTBALL PROGRAM. THINGS THIS FILTHY NEED TO BE ERADICATED.
The kids who marched in the streets last night — it wasn’t a riot; the lampposts in Beaver Canyon get torn down for everything from St. Patrick’s Day to a busy night during Arts Fest — might have said they were doing it in support of their beloved JoePa, but it wasn’t really about that. It was about the value of what they’re at Penn State for. Most of them are going to graduate twenty to fifty thousand dollars in debt, much more than they would pay to go to one of the many Commonwealth Campuses across Pennsylvania. Part of what they’re paying for is the experience in State College, and for almost 50 years, that experience depends on having a team to be proud of, and a school that others admire.posted by tonycpsu at 7:25 AM on November 11, 2011 [3 favorites]
"McQueary is a guy who once stepped in and broke up a player-related knife fight in a campus dining hall — a fight police admit could have been very ugly. But this week, he is getting blasted by the public for doing too little." *Speaks volumes about McQueary's character and priorities.
“The explosive scandal at Penn State that cost football coach Joe Paterno his job could turn into a long legal fight involving the alleged child sex abuse victims.posted by ericb at 2:04 PM on November 11, 2011 [2 favorites]
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who has represented hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by clergymen -- and who won millions of dollars in settlements with Boston's Roman Catholic archdiocese -- said on ‘The Early Show’ more victims are bound to come forward in the Penn State case.
‘This is the tip of the sexual abuse iceberg,’ he said. ‘You have children at a very young age reporting this, but the accounts state that children have come forward over the course of 15 years. They will be coming forward for decades. Individuals who have been sexually molested have coping skills that allow them to come forward when it's time. And individuals will come forward, and (by) then they are 40, 50, 60 years old, to report this abuse. Just recently, an 86-year-old man contacted me and said he'd been carrying around abuse for 80 years, and it was time to do something about it.’
He added, ‘Once a victim comes forward, it empowers others to come forward. They feel encouraged, they feel empowered, and they feel as though they are not alone. Victims of sexual abuse feel alone. They feel like they are the only ones it happened to. They feel isolated, they feel embarrassed, they feel ashamed -- even though they shouldn't -- just like in the Catholic cases. But once one victim comes forward, they feel empowered.’
…. As for the university, Garabedian said that, in firing those allegedly close to the situation, the institution is trying to control its image.
‘It's spin control,’ he said. ‘... They want to look good. This is what institutions do in these sorts of cases. They distance themselves from all the participants, from all the supervisors who knew, from the perpetrator, and they act as though -- 'Well, we did the best we could. We got rid of everybody. And so let's move on with life. Maybe 10, 20, 30, 50 years down the line this will be fine.’
He added, ‘Penn State is talking about themselves and not talking about the victims. It's all about the victims. ... They have made it about themselves, just like the Catholic Church made it about themselves. (The victims are saying,) 'Why aren't they bringing us into the fold, why aren't they telling the truth, why aren't they having educational classes, why aren't they reaching out to us?' And they are not doing so because it's all about Penn State. And it's all about money and power. It's all about self-preservation for Penn State.’”
"Although we cannot go back to business as usual, our university must move forward."That's an acknowledgement that they've made significant mistakes, and rather than dwelling on them, they want to right those wrongs, and move forward. The only way to interpret it otherwise is if you (a) redact the first part of it with "blah"s as you did, and (b) doubt the sincerity of his words when he expresses sorrow for the victims and a desire to correct the mistakes.
[Matt] Paknis didn’t think much of the Penn State power structure, or the man at the top, who “wouldn’t give you time of day unless you were on his level, or have any interaction with you without it serving him.” He saw a system that served as a “kingdom,” designed to serve a single person, without checks or balances. He saw a coach who had been able to produce a constructive output on the field, but “underneath, optimized fear.”posted by ericb at 3:10 PM on November 14, 2011
And he saw a community that bought so completely into the image that “he does things the right way,” that his way was rarely questioned.
“Joe is perceived to be a father figure or grandfather figure, and that’s a very hard thing for people to get to that realization, that your dad is bad,” Paknis says.
That’s why Paknis isn’t surprised that many former players have spoken out in sympathy toward Paterno since his firing last Wednesday, referencing all the good work he has done for the program and those who have gone through it: “Their whole image is locked into that. That is the way they define themselves. To let go of that, it’s very difficult.”
His attorney, Joe Amendola, would later suggest some of the other victims in the grand jury’s “finding of fact” would recant their claims. Who is Joe Amendola? According to Pennsylvania court documents obtained by The Daily, in 1996, at the age of 49, he impregnated a 17-year-old girl. The two later married and divorced.posted by ericb at 1:01 PM on November 15, 2011
Willie Geist: “[Many] were surprised [Sandusky] was speaking publicly. Were you?”posted by ericb at 1:30 PM on November 15, 2011
Bob Costas, sportscaster: “Yes, very much so. I was set to sit down with his attorney, Joseph Amendola, and no more than 10, 15 minutes before the cameras were to roll, Amendola says ‘What if I can get Sandusky on the phone?’ And I’m thinking, ‘I wonder from your standpoint whether that’s the smartest thing to do, but at the same time, sure if you want to do it, let’s get him on the phone.’ And that’s what happened.
Geist: “So [was it] the attorney’s idea…or did Jerry want to come on the air?”
Costas: “I can’t say for sure whether they had conferred about it. Amendola, I think, spoke to Jerry…just a few minutes before, got his ok, and then came back and said ‘We’ll do it’, so we pivoted and made it an interview with Sandusky.
"Ben Andreozzi, a Pennsylvania lawyer representing one of eight alleged victims in the Penn State sexual child abuse case, called Jerry Sandusky a 'coward' on Wednesday and said that Sandusky’s recent comments on television had emboldened his client to pursue sexual assault charges against Sandusky."posted by ericb at 10:24 AM on November 16, 2011
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — A critical break in the investigation of Jerry Sandusky came via a posting on the Internet: a random mention that a Penn State football coach, years before, might have seen something ugly, but kept silent.posted by rtha at 9:09 AM on November 17, 2011 [1 favorite]
[...]
And in 2002, after McQueary had reported what he had seen to the university’s senior officials, those officials not only never told the police, but they also never even informed the university’s top lawyer. That lawyer, Wendell Courtney, said in an interview this week that he would have been duty bound to report to law enforcement officials any allegations of inappropriate conduct toward children by Sandusky.
Paterno, through his son Scott, also said he did not know of the 1998 sex crime investigation of Sandusky, who was then his most prominent and accomplished assistant.
Investigators over the last week have made clear that they have serious doubts about whether so few people in senior positions of responsibility came to know of the 1998 investigation.
“You have to understand those statements in context — there is nothing that happens at State College that Joe Paterno doesn’t know, or that Graham Spanier doesn’t know,” one person involved in the investigation said. “Whether or not a criminal case went forward, there were ample grounds for an administrative inquiry into this matter. I have no evidence that was ever done. And if indeed that report was never passed up, it makes you wonder why not.”
Former FBI director Louis Freeh, tapped to lead Penn State's investigation into the child sexual-abuse allegations against a former assistant football coach, said his inquiry will go as far back as 1975, a much longer period than a grand jury report issued earlier this month.Bringing in someone of Freeh's stature to run things makes me hopeful that we'll see an actual investigation instead of a whitewash.
Freeh was named Monday to oversee the university board of trustees' internal investigation into the abuse allegations that ultimately led to the ouster of longtime football coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier.
Freeh said his goal was to conduct a comprehensive, fair and quick review.
The first known alleged victim in the Jerry Sandusky case, known as "Victim One" was forced to leave his school because of an onslaught of bullying, The Patriot-News reports.posted by ericb at 12:47 PM on November 21, 2011
Mike Gillum, psychologist for the family, told the news source that officials at Central Mountain High School didn't step in and provide guidance to the boy's classmates, who began to blame Joe Paterno's firing on the 17-year-old.
Victim One testified he was forced into multiple sex acts between 2006 and 2008. During that time, Sandusky was also assisting the high school with their varsity football program, the report states.
Gillum told The Patriot News that name-calling and verbal threats at the school, which is located about 30 miles northeast of Pennsylvania State University, became too much for the boy to bear.
... The 17-year-old has left the school in the middle of his senior year, and the Keystone Central School District issued a statement to the Centre Daily, saying it would be said "inappropriate” to comment on the case publicly.
"Coach Paterno would rather we NOT inform the public when a football player is found responsible for committing a serious violation of the law and/or our student code," she wrote, "despite any moral or legal obligation to do so."posted by argonauta at 10:27 AM on November 22, 2011
In an interview with Good Morning America, Joe Amendola, the attorney representing former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, said that Sandusky's accusers were "pampered" after being "labeled as victims" by the legal system, and that one's accusations were the result of tough love from Sandusky as a mentor.posted by ericb at 1:55 PM on November 22, 2011
"[P]eople when they're brought into the criminal justice system and they're labeled as victims, they're pampered, they're encouraged, they're treated specially. And particularly when you're dealing with maybe someone who hasn't had a great, the greatest of lives. Then a lot of times they start feeling more important," Amendola said in the interview.
Amendola's most specific comments about the alleged victims were directed at whom the Pennsylvania grand jury describes as Victim 1, saying those accusations were a negative reaction to Sandusky's demands for harder work toward unspecified goals.
"When you push and they don't want you to," Amendola said, "they react. And what Jerry believes happened is that this young guy got tired of Jerry pushing. Jerry believes that what happened was this young guy said, 'you know what, gee, if I say Jerry did something to me, that's the end of my relationship with Jerry.'"
All the judges in Penn State's home county removed themselves from potentially presiding over the child sex-abuse case against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and will be replaced by outside jurists, the Pennsylvania court system announced Thursday.posted by ericb at 2:00 PM on November 22, 2011 [2 favorites]
The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts said in a news release that the four Centre County Common Pleas Court judges bowed out "to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest due to real or perceived connections" to Sandusky, the university or the charity for at-risk children Sandusky founded.
John M. Cleland, a senior judge from McKean County, was appointed to take over the case, although another judge, Kathy A. Morrow, was named to handle matters until he can assume jurisdiction.
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