Paterno had both a legal and a moral obligation to go straight to the cops with what he suspected. Period. End of story.
He didn’t. He allowed by inaction those kids to be raped by a monster.
Period. End of story.
Paterno not only did NOT have a legal obligation to go to the police, the police in this situation could not have done anything because in PA and I’m sure elsewhere police cannot act on secondhand information. Paterno did what he was supposed to do with the information he had which by all accounts was vague.