Penn State Goings-On

[merithyn]

"an eye for an eye" is not something we practice in the West though.

How is that being callous on my part?  I'm just telling you whatI've experienced through 7 1/2 years of prosecuting.

I'm not saying that it is being callous on your part. I'm saying that it is a callous that I'm glad that I don't have. I understand why you feel the way you do, and I'm sorry that it's what you've been exposed to. I can't imagine being in that situation, which is why I suppose I chose not to go to law school or be a cop.

I also understand that I am holding this man to a very high standard, but I think we should hold him - and everyone else - to that standard. I think that we, as a society, should expect someone to step in to protect those who can't protect themselves. I think that is something that our society today lacks. I want to hold myself to that standard and everyone else. And if I should ever fail like he has, I hope that I beat myself up over it every day of my life, just like I hope that he does.

Nine years of abuse. Nine years of kids being torn apart in a way that can only rarely be put back together. I just can't imagine allowing that to happen.

[alfred russel]

I dunno, is he getting death threats for 'squealing' on Sandusky - or, as here in this thread, for allegedly helping to 'keep it in the coaching family' until the grand jury?

Are the people who resulted in the current police investigation getting death threats? They too lived in the community and had charges brought that would bring bad publicity to Penn State.

[Barrister]

I dunno, is he getting death threats for 'squealing' on Sandusky - or, as here in this thread, for allegedly helping to 'keep it in the coaching family' until the grand jury?

Are the people who resulted in the current police investigation getting death threats? They too lived in the community and had charges brought that would bring bad publicity to Penn State.

I don't know that their names have been publicized.

[alfred russel]

I dunno, is he getting death threats for 'squealing' on Sandusky - or, as here in this thread, for allegedly helping to 'keep it in the coaching family' until the grand jury?

Are the people who resulted in the current police investigation getting death threats? They too lived in the community and had charges brought that would bring bad publicity to Penn State.

I don't know that their names have been publicized.

A quick search indicates it was Steve Turchetta, and a google query matching his name with "death threats" didn't turn up anything.

[The Brain]

The lack of death threats was probably a different Steve Turchetta.

[Ed Anger]

[The Brain]

[Ed Anger]

But can pike infantry hide the children better than lancers?

[dps]

McQ's best defense is that he thought his bosses would do the investigating and reporting ... but at some point he had to be aware that the only action they took was to take away his shower key, and "report" to the charity (who in turn did nothing).

I think that the problem that a lot of people aren't seeing here is that it gets harder to go to the cops later if you don't call them right away.  McQueary's first call should have been to the cops, not his father, which was a dumb move (and if you're 27 years old and have to call your father to ask what you should do when you see an adult commit a violent crime upon a 10 year old kid--and make no mistake, this was a violent crime--then I don't think that you're a coward, I think that you're an idiot).  His father then compounded the dumbitude by telling him to tell Paterno instead of calling the cops.  Paterno himself, upon being told, should have told McQueary to call the cops.  If McQueary wouldn't call the cops, IMO Paterno, because he personally was not an eyewitness, was correct in informing his supervisors of what McQueary had told him instead of calling the cops.  (It isn't clear to me, unlike some posters here, exactly how explicit a description of what McQueary had seen that he gave to Paterno, so it follows that it isn't clear to me how much, if any, Paterno watered down what he told the AD.   IMO, Paterno was in error if he watered it down any at all, but there would seem to be no real damage done by it if he did water it down, because apparantly McQueary gave Curley and Schultz a explicit, detailed account.)  Anyhow, I'm kind of rambling, but my point was that it's always easier to report something to the proper authorities if you do it right away.  It gets harder the longer you wait.  McQueary seems to have thought that he reported it to the right authorites (which he didn't--AR is right that there isn't a chain of command in the American workplace through which we report crimes--at least not violent crimes that don't arise out of the nature of your business.  Obviously, if you work at a store and see a shoplifter, you get your manager involved instead of going directly to the police yourself, and if it's something like someone stealing office supplies, you go to that person's supervisor, because they're the representative of the agreived party, and it's up to them to decide whether they want to turn the matter over to the police--but the rape of a child is WAAAYY beyond that).  At some point, maybe a month or two later, McQueary should have realized that nothing was being done, but then it's harder to go to the police.  First, he'd get the questions about why he didn't come forward sooner.  Also, he may have thought that nothing was being done because Sandusky had been confronted about the matter, denied it, and the authorites within the school believed Sandusky instead of him, and therefore reasonably may have thought it wasn't worth taking to outside police because they wouldn't believe him either--and the wait in reporting it to them would maybe have reduced the believability of the charges.

 

[Neil]

But it wasn't a violent crime, it was just sex.

[garbon]

Because unwanted sex (well actually just sex period) is never violent.

[Barrister]

But it wasn't a violent crime, it was just sex.

[jimmy olsen]

NCAA to investigate a lack of institutional control. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/sports/ncaafootball/ncaa-plans-inquiry-into-institutional-control-at-penn-state.html

[Neil]

But it wasn't a violent crime, it was just sex.

Quit being a homophobe.

[Neil]

NCAA to investigate a lack of institutional control. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/sports/ncaafootball/ncaa-plans-inquiry-into-institutional-control-at-penn-state.html

Well of course.  An organization as bereft of principles and good sense as the NCAA will definitely want to pile on.