You left out Paterno reported it the VP in charge of campus security at the same time he reported it to the AD....The VP is directly in charge of the Campus Police force that has over 80 sworn law enforcement officers....
Paterno didn’t witness anything but got a report from a graduate student.
Supposedly the AD and VP/Police investigated and nothing became of it....
Was Paterno to launch his own independant investigation?
I’m not a Paterno or Penn State fan but didn’t the guy do the right thing based on those facts....Would you believe the graduate student or the administration/Campus Police?
The other coach was a close friend known to Paterno for years, if you had a close friend that never exhibit deviant behavior and you received a single report from a graduate student, and you then reported that behavior to the authorities with the result they reported nothing happened.
Would you go on a crusade or consider it a resolved issue? Hindsight is 20/20...At the time with the facts then he probably considered the report BS but did the right thing and reported it...
The question is why didn’t the graduate student who directly saw it go to the police but instead went to Paterno???
My point is everyone on FR is quick to hang Paterno but it appears with the facts available at the time he did the right thing....
Time will bring out all the facts....
Clearly Paterno was guilty of bad judgment. Even if the grad student came to him with some vague statement about “activity of a sexual nature,” I can’t see why he wouldn’t have asked clarifying questions unless he wanted plausible deniability. I would have asked clarifying questions.
Also Paterno should have made the announcement last night. I’m not saying he would have staved off the riots but I think they would have been less likely. Yes I agree it would have increased his civil liability, but he needed to man up and admit his success had not come with honor.
The V.P. is a finance position and only over saw the police the same way a mayor over sees the police. Financial only. The V.P. never reported this incident to campus police or local police as the law says he should have.
You left out Paterno reported it the VP in charge of campus security at the same time he reported it to the AD....
...and you left out that another official charge was brought against Sandusky in 1998 for ‘inappropriate’ behavior towards minors...charge was later dropped by Centre County DA Gricar, who has since dissappeared without a trace...one would have to believe that a control freak like Paterno would have no idea that such a charge,along with subsequent police activity, with reportage in the local media, against his own beloved assisstant coach who was still on the staff at this time, had ever taken place, in order to believe that he did the right thing with McQueary’s information in 2002...the possibility that Sandusky was a pervert was there in 1998, just before he was turned down as the next HC (do you think, maybe had something to do with the original charges), and so in 2002 when McQueary drops his bombshell, don’t you think a more vigorous reaction than ‘we’ll sleep on for a night, then kick it up the flagpole’ was in order?...
...if you don not believe that, please explain...
You left out Paterno reported it the VP in charge of campus security at the same time he reported it to the AD....
...and you left out that another official charge was brought against Sandusky in 1998 for ‘inappropriate’ behavior towards minors...charge was later dropped by Centre County DA Gricar, who has since dissappeared without a trace...one would have to believe that a control freak like Paterno would have no idea that such a charge,along with subsequent police activity, with reportage in the local media, against his own beloved assisstant coach who was still on the staff at this time, had ever taken place, in order to believe that he did the right thing with McQueary’s information in 2002...the possibility that Sandusky was a pervert was there in 1998, just before he was turned down as the next HC (do you think, maybe had something to do with the original charges), and so in 2002 when McQueary drops his bombshell, don’t you think a more vigorous reaction than ‘we’ll sleep on for a night, then kick it up the flagpole’ was in order?...
...if you don not believe that, please explain...
Your post is right.
The only thing I would add is that Paterno and Sandusky supposedly did not have a good relationship with each other.
Why has a Paterno "investigation" become the mantra of too many posters?
Silence IS a cover-up. You don’t have to “prove” the negative (the silence). The silence itself is the cover of darkness. You can see the light through the darkness — and there was no light within the Penn State staff who knew what went on.
In this way, then, as this rolled along...at some point at least, it involved into a conspiracy of silence. I don't know if that was the intent from the beginning. We don't have enough info on that. But at some point, it evolved into that. The conspiracy WAS the darkness; and they would let no light to emit on the matter.
Paterno is condemned more for what he didn't do over the long run vs. what he did do in the short run. (Otherwise, there would be charges pending vs. him, too!)
Paterno waited even 24 hours to report the crime to his superiors. Yet the 24-hour wait pales in comparison to the near-decade long silence of McQueary and his direct supervisor, Joe Paterno. And by "silence" I mean ANYBODY off-campus who would do any good in getting Sandusky off the campuses for good.
The next morning, a Saturday, the graduate assistant telephoned Paterno and went to Paterno's home, where he reported what he had seen. Joseph V. Paterno testified to receiving the graduate assistant's report at his home on a Saturday morning. Paterno testified that the graduate assistant was very upset. Paterno called Tim Curley ("Curley"), Penn State Athletic Director and Paterno's immediate superior, to his home the very next day, a Sunday, and reported to him that the graduate assistant had seen Jerry Sandusky in the Lasch Building showers fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy. Approximately one and a half weeks later, the graduate assistant was called to a meeting with Penn State Athletic Director Curley and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz ("Schultz"). The graduate assistant reported to Curley and Schultz that he had witnessed what he believed to be Sandusky having anal sex with a boy in the Lasch Building showers.