Penn State sex scandal - Paterno is out

[JzWand]

Re: Sexual Crime Scandal Hitting Penn State (former DC, AD)

Yep Penn State is ensuring the old regime is done.
Quit or fired, heads are rolling!

 

[ccouch (Chad)]

Re: Sexual Crime Scandal Hitting Penn State (former DC, AD)

I have an odd take on this, and it kind of defends JoPa at this point. We are all looking at this VERY emotionally. And rightfully so, but that's still a fact.

I believe that Paterno found out about it (second-hand BTW) and reported it to the people he thought would do something about it. They didn't. At that point, legally, Paterno is off the hook. Now, unfortunately, Paterno's swan song will be this large moral judgement weighed against him. That's fair. But then ask yourself this: where does it stop?

A lot of people want to villify ANYONE who had something to do with this, but the name you keep hearing is Paterno. Why is he so special? If we want to start assigning blame, is it fair to include the parents of these young kids for allowing them to spend time with a stranger (sure, they knew who he was, but c'mom, he's still a stranger)? Is it fair to blame everyone who isn't the victim? If you can make an arguement that Paterno is guilty of facilitation by doing nothing, than so is everyone who allowed the situation to occur in ANY facet.

If you're a scool teacher and you report abuse, who do you report to? Do you go straight to the police? If you don't, are you then complicant? Or look at it this way: if JoPa didn't go to the police THAT DAY, and one day passed, is he still responsible?

In the end, ONE monster is responsible. The people that perjured themselves will do time, but that's besides the point.

I agree with Hive here. If Joe Paterno actually saw the rape happen, then I think he is responsible to go to the police. However, since he didn't witness it but only heard second hand an account of it, then he did what he thought was the correct thing to do - he reported it to his boss. You don't go to the police if you don't have evidence. What if the grad assistant made the story up and told Paterno a lie? Then Sandusky could have filed a lawsuit against Paterno for defamation and everything else that goes along with false accusations. I don't like what ultimately happened here but blaming Paterno fully is not the right thing to do.

The problem is that that's the kind of thinking that helped a predator continue to prey on innocent kids for several more years.

I don't think anybody is fully blaming Paterno, and he's clearly not the only one taking the fall even though he's the biggest name. He's merely one in a string of people who failed at taking care of what they should have taken care of.

Sorry, if one of my assistants comes to me and says that a 10-year old child was being ***** in a freaking locker room bathroom, we are going to the police. It is the right thing to do. A 20-something year old grad assistant and former QB of the Penn State football team had no reason to be making that up.

Some of these guys may very well have fulfilled their legal obligation. But they didn't fulfill their moral obligations. They didn't do the right thing.

 

[RITM]

Sexual Crime Scandal Hitting Penn State (former DC, AD)

Buh bye

 

[gt2590]

Re: Sexual Crime Scandal Hitting Penn State (former DC, AD)

Never saw this coming a week ago...

An over-reaction by a Board of Regents IMO.

It was Partly done to limit the potential civil suits down the road and partly to send a message to the Athletic Department that they don't run the school, even though that is at least partly the case...

CNN covering it too, including students' reactions.

 

[TomMurry]

I was on campus this morning. Its so quiet you could hear a mouse piss on cotton around there. People dont know what to do.

 

[beefycheddar]

ESPN keeps having Millen on over and over to talk about this. He's probably just thinking "Hell, I left Detroit in better shape than Penn State is now."

 

[mstng99tim]

ESPN keeps having Millen on over and over to talk about this. He's probably just thinking "Hell, I left Detroit in better shape than Penn State is now."

:lol:

 

[Shi Guy]

Re: Sexual Crime Scandal Hitting Penn State (former DC, AD)

Penn State's decision to fire Paterno just goes to show that when the machine is threatened no one man is immune to sacrifice.

Paterno was guilty of succumbing to the diffusion of responsibility, a common sociological event, and that is all. In fact this whole situation is playing out much like the Kitty Genovese attack, where the public called for the punishment of the numerous bystanders who watched her attack and did little to nothing to stop it. Replace the numerous witnesses watching from their windows with the numerous PSU employees in the departments Paterno reported to, and you've quickly reached the threshold for the bystander effect. While it's easy to label Paterno's limited action as apathy or, as what unfortunately seems to be even more common, abetting the actual perpetration of the crime, this is simply not the case.

Much like the events of 1964 we also have a clear misrepresentation of the facts in the media, and again, based upon those facts, the societal response is one of blood thirst. Through the involvement of the ultimate symbol of innocence, our children, our emotions have been struck and we demand satisfaction. It's difficult, and it probably won't happen, but society needs to take a step back, take a deep breath, and look at this coolly, and logically. I'm not saying emotion doesn't have it's place here, just that we should let it serve as a minor motivation, rather than a guiding force.

 

[gt2590]

I was on campus this morning. Its so quiet you could hear a mouse piss on cotton around there. People dont know what to do.

Not now! :lol:

 

[alabamalongsnake]

Re: Sexual Crime Scandal Hitting Penn State (former DC, AD)

Never saw this coming a week ago...

An over-reaction by a Board of Regents IMO.

It was Partly done to limit the potential civil suits down the road and partly to send a message to the Athletic Department that they don't run the school, even though that is at least partly the case...

CNN covering it too, including students' reactions.

definitely not an over -reaction. he would have been allowed to go out on his own terms and carried off the field by players.

the right thing to do.

 

[Zeeck]

Re: Sexual Crime Scandal Hitting Penn State (former DC, AD)

Much like the events of 1964 we also have a clear misrepresentation of the facts in the media, and again, based upon those facts, the societal response is one of blood thirst.

I'm not exactly sure to what you're referring here. The facts that have been presented all came not from the media but a grand jury. Unless Joe Paterno either did not know of any reports of abuse (which he did) or knew and actually did more than report it to the AD (which he did not), then I don't see exactly where the facts have been misrepresented.

 

[mwashuc06]

my take on this situation, everyone is involved as this will go down as one of the biggest cover ups in a long time maybe the biggest in college sports. I almost think that Sandusky founded his foundation for this, coached for a while become an icon so no one would care if he did anything perverted. Joe Pa washed it under the bridge and probably told McQuery, hey i'll give you a high ranking job over time if you keep quiet, which he did outside of reporting to Curley. The AD and the other administrator told the President that this was minor and that Sandusky was just fooling around with a young kid. The President, then probably talked to the DA that is now dead and told him that if you charge Sandusky you will go down as I know politicians and perhaps even ties to mafia or drug lords in PA. The DA did nothing and stored his stuff on that Laptop, me thinks he found out about what was going on at Penn State and that he was going to pursue it, word got out to Penn State and Spainer got a hold of some of his friends to dispose of the DA, even hacking his home computer to fool the authorities that Gricar was looking to dispose his hard drive. Anyways, this is my theory, could most defiantly be wrong for sure, but I like stating opinions.

 

[alabamalongsnake]

biggest scandal in the history of college sports.

why are students protesting? makes no sense.

 

[beefycheddar]

biggest scandal in the history of college sports.

why are students protesting? makes no sense.

Because it's an excuse to get rowdy and they are in college.

 

[flagshipchromecollector]

Re: Sexual Crime Scandal Hitting Penn State (former DC, AD)

Never saw this coming a week ago...

An over-reaction by a Board of Regents IMO.

It was Partly done to limit the potential civil suits down the road and partly to send a message to the Athletic Department that they don't run the school, even though that is at least partly the case...

CNN covering it too, including students' reactions.

definitely not an over -reaction. he would have been allowed to go out on his own terms and carried off the field by players.

the right thing to do.

Totally agree. Plausible deniability is no excuse in this case. He knew enough to do the right thing. And I don't want to hear about following university protocol. In the real chain of command at PSU, the President and the AD reported to JoePa, not the other way around.

 

[TomMurry]

I was on campus this morning. Its so quiet you could hear a mouse piss on cotton around there. People dont know what to do.

Not now! :lol:

Classes are over and mobs are forming now.

 

[Shi Guy]

Re: Sexual Crime Scandal Hitting Penn State (former DC, AD)

Much like the events of 1964 we also have a clear misrepresentation of the facts in the media, and again, based upon those facts, the societal response is one of blood thirst.

I'm not exactly sure to what you're referring here. The facts that have been presented all came not from the media but a grand jury. Unless Joe Paterno either did not know of any reports of abuse (which he did) or knew and actually did more than report it to the AD (which he did not), then I don't see exactly where the facts have been misrepresented.

Perhaps I've missed it, but I've yet to see any of the actual documents from the grand jury case available for public dissemination. Instead all I've read, heard, and seen, are the media interpretations of said events. Unless you have the actual documents on your screen or in hand, then you are reading a reporters interpretation of whatever information he/she was given. Please don't read this as an attack or insult of any kind, I'm just trying to make my point clear here; none of us have a truly accurate picture of what occurred in this situation. All we have are "facts" that have been filtered through numerous media outlets (news on tv, paper, radio, etc.) and then presented to us.

In the case of 1964, the simpler version is that Kitty Genovese was a woman who was stabbed near her home in New York, an event that was witnessed by numerous people. She was attacked a few times in succession over a period of time by the same man, and the NY Times later reported that as many as 38 people witnessed the series of attacks, during which none of them called 911 or intervened to stop the attack. This report led to a public outcry for the punishment of the witnesses. The article later proven to be inaccurate, as it was revealed that some witnesses had called 911, but had deliberated before making the call. This led to sociological studies into group behavior and the phenomenon known as the diffusion of responsibility.

 

[hive17]

Re: Sexual Crime Scandal Hitting Penn State (former DC, AD)

Penn State's decision to fire Paterno just goes to show that when the machine is threatened no one man is immune to sacrifice.

Paterno was guilty of succumbing to the diffusion of responsibility, a common sociological event, and that is all. In fact this whole situation is playing out much like the Kitty Genovese attack, where the public called for the punishment of the numerous bystanders who watched her attack and did little to nothing to stop it. Replace the numerous witnesses watching from their windows with the numerous PSU employees in the departments Paterno reported to, and you've quickly reached the threshold for the bystander effect. While it's easy to label Paterno's limited action as apathy or, as what unfortunately seems to be even more common, abetting the actual perpetration of the crime, this is simply not the case.

Much like the events of 1964 we also have a clear misrepresentation of the facts in the media, and again, based upon those facts, the societal response is one of blood thirst. Through the involvement of the ultimate symbol of innocence, our children, our emotions have been struck and we demand satisfaction. It's difficult, and it probably won't happen, but society needs to take a step back, take a deep breath, and look at this coolly, and logically. I'm not saying emotion doesn't have it's place here, just that we should let it serve as a minor motivation, rather than a guiding force.

Thank you. What kills me is I KNOW that the BoR is sitting back and thinking they've put a bow on this by firing Paterno. We've completely lost focus of who the villian is and what the punishment should be. All anyone is going to talk about is now the firing of Paterno, and it looks more like a smoke screen than anything else. Say there is 100 people who could have done something; the University has picked out the largest target, taken it down, and now gets to move on.

This whole story has become more about Paterno than the crime committed (Paterno commited no crime).

 

[cubfan131]

Re: Sexual Crime Scandal Hitting Penn State (former DC, AD)

[quote="Shi Guy":2ykxgmx2]
Much like the events of 1964 we also have a clear misrepresentation of the facts in the media, and again, based upon those facts, the societal response is one of blood thirst.

I'm not exactly sure to what you're referring here. The facts that have been presented all came not from the media but a grand jury. Unless Joe Paterno either did not know of any reports of abuse (which he did) or knew and actually did more than report it to the AD (which he did not), then I don't see exactly where the facts have been misrepresented.

Perhaps I've missed it, but I've yet to see any of the actual documents from the grand jury case available for public dissemination. Instead all I've read, heard, and seen, are the media interpretations of said events. Unless you have the actual documents on your screen or in hand, then you are reading a reporters interpretation of whatever information he/she was given. Please don't read this as an attack or insult of any kind, I'm just trying to make my point clear here; none of us have a truly accurate picture of what occurred in this situation. All we have are "facts" that have been filtered through numerous media outlets (news on tv, paper, radio, etc.) and then presented to us.

In the case of 1964, the simpler version is that Kitty Genovese was a woman who was stabbed near her home in New York, an event that was witnessed by numerous people. She was attacked a few times in succession over a period of time by the same man, and the NY Times later reported that as many as 38 people witnessed the series of attacks, during which none of them called 911 or intervened to stop the attack. This report led to a public outcry for the punishment of the witnesses. The article later proven to be inaccurate, as it was revealed that some witnesses had called 911, but had deliberated before making the call. This led to sociological studies into group behavior and the phenomenon known as the diffusion of responsibility.[/quote:2ykxgmx2]

CNN had the grand jury documents posted on their website a few days back. It was incredibly disturbing and graphic.

 

[JzWand]

Re: Sexual Crime Scandal Hitting Penn State (former DC, AD)

I have an odd take on this, and it kind of defends JoPa at this point. We are all looking at this VERY emotionally. And rightfully so, but that's still a fact.

I believe that Paterno found out about it (second-hand BTW) and reported it to the people he thought would do something about it. They didn't. At that point, legally, Paterno is off the hook. Now, unfortunately, Paterno's swan song will be this large moral judgement weighed against him. That's fair. But then ask yourself this: where does it stop?

A lot of people want to villify ANYONE who had something to do with this, but the name you keep hearing is Paterno. Why is he so special? If we want to start assigning blame, is it fair to include the parents of these young kids for allowing them to spend time with a stranger (sure, they knew who he was, but c'mom, he's still a stranger)? Is it fair to blame everyone who isn't the victim? If you can make an arguement that Paterno is guilty of facilitation by doing nothing, than so is everyone who allowed the situation to occur in ANY facet.

If you're a scool teacher and you report abuse, who do you report to? Do you go straight to the police? If you don't, are you then complicant? Or look at it this way: if JoPa didn't go to the police THAT DAY, and one day passed, is he still responsible?

In the end, ONE monster is responsible. The people that perjured themselves will do time, but that's besides the point.

I agree with Hive here. If Joe Paterno actually saw the rape happen, then I think he is responsible to go to the police. However, since he didn't witness it but only heard second hand an account of it, then he did what he thought was the correct thing to do - he reported it to his boss. You don't go to the police if you don't have evidence. What if the grad assistant made the story up and told Paterno a lie? Then Sandusky could have filed a lawsuit against Paterno for defamation and everything else that goes along with false accusations. I don't like what ultimately happened here but blaming Paterno fully is not the right thing to do.

I will address some of the issues with both posts but I warn some are graphic.
But they are directly from the grand jury report!

Firstly, everywhere I have seen online has not blamed ONLY Paterno.

Hes the figurehead of the school and there was a lot of speculation about his reitrement and I think in a sense all this other stuff just fueled that.

I mean Spanier is out, Paterno is out, Curley is out, Schultz is out.
Does anyone really believe Mike McQuaery will be on the PSU sidelines next season after this?
No chance in hell PSU allows that to happen so in a way, everyones heads are rolling and rightfully so!

Most people's question I have read is why did no one call the police in 2002 when no less than 6 adults knew there was an issue and in the case of Curley (AD) and Schultz (SR VP), this would have been the second issue involving Sandusky (the first one being the 1998 investigation that was dropped) that they knew about.

Where it gets VERY complicated is with Mike McQuaery, the grad asst who actually walked in on Sandusky and the 10 y/o in the shower!

According to the grand jury report (if you can stomach it I would definitely give it a read) he told 4 people what he saw;

First he told his father.
Then he told the coach.
A week and a half later he had a closed door meeting with just Schultz and Curley (Paterno was not present).

Now heres where some wording comes into play.

Despite Mike M telling Paterno he saw Sandusky having sex with a child, Paterno ONLY reported to Curley and Schultz that Mike M had seen "fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy".

Curley is now saying that Mike M only told them of inappropriate conduct or activity that made him (Mike M) feel unconfortable.
Curley outrights denies Mike M reported Sandusky was having sex with the kid in the showers!

Schultzs version is that he had a meeting with Paterno and Curley where Paterno reported distrubing and inappropriate conduct by Sandusky as was reported to him (Paterno) by the Grad asst (Mike M.)
Schultz also told the the grand jury that in the meeting with Curley and the Grad Asst, he is unsure of what he remembered was told to him by the Grad asst (Mike M).
He testified he had the impression that Sandusky might have inappropriately grabbed the young boys gentials while wrestling and agreed that such contact was inappropriate.
Schultz eventually concedes to the grand jury that the report the Grad Asst made was of inappropriate sexual conduct by Sandusky however he testifies that the allegations were not that serious and that he and Curley had no indication a crime had occured.
Schultz agrees that sodomy between Sandusky and a child would clearly be inappropriate but denies havign such conduct reported to him by either Paterno or the Grad Asst (Mike M).

Regardless this would have been the second instance in 4 years that both Curley and Schultz were made aware of a sexual complaint by a child against Jerry Sandusky.

If I know a guy who was investigated for rape but isnt charged, but then 4 years later someone else, with no reason to lie reports another sexual incident, I would know that 4 years earlier may not have been a mistake and I need to notify the authorities.

Regarding blaming the parents, cmon.
This guy was a highly respected guy, the heir apparent to the PSU head coaching position, had a wife and kids, and ran a charity to help disadvantaged kids.
In a sick way Sandusky was quite smart.
He basically set up his own sexual recruiting program and no on was the wiser until 1998.

Regarding Paterno's possibly being sued for calling the police, thats not true from what I have read. Thats what his idiot son is trying to portray but its not correct.
He wouldnt have been sued for defamation when he passed on a very serious allegation by Mike M.
If Mike M was lying, he would have been the one being sued by Sandusky. Not Paterno.

At the end of the day, I would hope that if my employee comes to me saying he saw a colleague having sex with a child in the work washroom, sure I may call the the owner or CEO of the company but I am damn well making sure the cops are called.

He did the ABSOLUTE bare minimum required of him and hes suffering the consequences now.