Here’s the Daily Collegian coverage of the riots last night at Penn State. They quote a few more students who support Paterno’s firing than does the New York Times, which found more than one Penn State student who sounds like a real moron.
Paterno’s late night talk with students was also captured by the Collegian. At about 00:40 in this video, he says that we should all “pray a little” for the victims. That statement makes an interesting counterpoint to this Times profile of Mike McQueary, the then-graduate assistant and now-assistant coach who discovered Jerry Sandusky raping a 10 year old boy in the PSU showers in 2002:
He immediately left, met with his father and determined he would report the incident to Paterno, according to prosecutors. A person familiar with his account said McQueary did not spare the details when he met with Paterno. Nor did he when he met with the university’s athletic director and another senior administrator, the man in charge of Penn State’s campus police.
salacious crumb
would it be a stretch to say that the Penn State campus police should be investigated to see if there was a cover up? I mean could they have been warned not to investigate the Revered Holy JoePa? or Sandusky? warned of the loss of revenue should there be negative consequences to either men?
Oh but I forget 9/11 happened to us. Investigate the police and the terrorists win.
Emma
So McQueary wasn’t a shining beacon of courage but at least he didn’t try to play down what he had seen. I remember reading in one of the earlier reports that the grand jury found him credible. Means Paterno and the other two were likely lying through their teeth.
dr. bloor
The press conference was a total clusterfuck, with what (I hope) were a lot of student reporters essentially accusing the Board of a witch hunt against Joe Pa.
Apparently being “three hours from everywhere,” as they like to say there, is an excellent way of forming a cult.
salacious crumb
@Emma: Emma, the problem here is the failure of moral character. It does not matter what McQueary went and old the Holy JoePa. He should have gone straight to the police. Seeing a kid being raped and he decided to talk to his dad? what if it was his kid? I know he didnt have one but what if it was a close relative? maybe he was so fallen and or love with prestige that he may have allowed his own kid to be raped.
Mark B.
I actually have sympathy for McQueary. I don’t think he acted in the best possible way when he witnessed the rape incident, but he tried to make things right later. Perhaps he should have tried harder, but he’s not the real monster here.
4tehlulz
@dr. bloor: I heard that this morning. I like how the punkass threatened to burn shit because Cardinal Paterno was relieved of his duties.
Emma
@salacious crumb: I know that, for god’s sake. That’s what I meant when I said “he wasn’t a shining beacon of courage.” Is there an emoticon for snark?
jon
If any of my children ever participate in a riot over a coach’s firing, I will have failed as a human being.
greennotGreen
Child rape is a felony. By not immediately reporting the crime to *the police*, don’t the other actors in this tragedy become accessories after the fact?
Brian R.
Pathetic. At least the comments at the Daily Collegian are overwhelmingly negative about the little temper tantrum the students threw.
salacious crumb
@Emma: well, ok point taken..i think what jarred me when you said he didnt try to play down what he had seen. play down or not, go to the fucking police.
Anyways point taken.
salacious crumb
and you know what the sad part is..all these kids protesting JoePa’s firing are mostly rich well connected kids…they will probably end up being our future bankers and elected Representatives.
Heez
Riot? Where were the rubber bullets and tear gas?
Salacious, doesn’t it say right there in the quoted passage that he told the head of campus police? Now it may be a bit naive to expect those dingdongs to do anything but protect the U, but a misguided trust in authority isn’t quite the moral failing that abetting a child rapist is.
dsc
@Mark B.: seriously? you walk into ANY locker room ANY time ANY where in the world, you see a grown man f***ing a 10 year old in a shower, and you don’t walk in and shout “STOP! get away from that kid!” grab a towel and give it to the kid, shout “run” and then grab your cell and dial 911? And if you are strong enough, let the outrage drive you to bust his face (or, preferably) kick him in his hard on?
I would be seething! Screaming and cursing and making a citizen’s arrest.
this all makes me SICK
justawriter
Sounds to me like the University should drop athletics all together for a decade or two to reestablish a healthy moral climate on the campus. Who knows, they might even decide that academics are somehow related to the function of a university.
Steve
Penn State is a cow college. I’m not sure how much wealth and privilege we should assume.
greennotGreen
I have an experience that’s maybe a little like McQueary’s. Before the days of cell phones, I looked out to the street in front of my house and saw a man reaching into a car window and punching a woman. There was a toddler in the car with her. I called the police and took something – I don’t remember what, a wrecking bar maybe – and headed out to the car. By that time, however, the perp had fled and the woman was at the neighbor’s house asking for help.
Now, I’m a 5’3″ woman, and I knew that accosting a man might end badly, but for God’s sake there was a baby in that car! I’m not fking calling the neighborhood association!
Come on, McQueary, the kid was *ten*.
Robin G.
It’s sad that the guy who walked out on a child rape is apparently the most moral actor in this sick mess. And I don’t mean that sarcastically.
Cat Lady
I’d like for Cain, the GOP, Div. 1 football programs in general, Penn State administrators, coaches and students in particular, and every member of the beltway media all to be considered kicked in the nuts by me today.
salacious crumb
@Heez: yes he did that but he should pulled Sandusky off that kid and gone straight to the police. should have dialed 911.
didnt he inquire about the outcome of the investigation? Did he say “hey! wait a minute..a kid got raped ..why the fuck is Sandusky still here??”
Don K
It’s truly disgusting how wrapped up in the sports cult some students at enormous universities become. It probably doesn’t help matters in this case that Paterno really was St Joe of Centre County for the entire state of Pennsylvania.
WM Rine
The Times profile of McQueary tries to present him as a sympathetic victim of all this mess, the guy who did the right things but who still, by being in the middle of it, will likely be tainted and not realize his head coaching dreams.
But I’m sorry … The guy says he saw a boy being raped and he left. He didn’t intervene. He didn’t even say anything. It took him overnight to go report it to anybody. At least he did more to follow up than Paterno, but that’s not saying a lot.
I don’t think this is just a case of conscience vs. ambition, though that’s part of it. Like the Catholic Church, it’s a hierarchy, where your future and livelihood are dependent on the amiability of the guys above you in the hierarchy. It’s ripe ground for moral failure because there isn’t likely anyone who will go along and support upsetting the hierarchy from below.
Southern Beale
Students at UT rioted last year when Lane Kiffin announced he was leaving for USC.
Mark B.
@dsc: I would have done that, I think, but to be honest, I really don’t know. Unfortunately, a lot of people freeze up in a crisis situation, especially if it’s completely unexpected. I’ve seen it happen. It’s not a moral failing, in my opinion, it’s just a fact of life. I’m sure McQueary wishes he could relive the moment and have acted differently, but I’m not even sure of that. I’m not really ready to condemn someone for having an all too human failing of being unprepared for the unthinkable.
debit
@dsc: That would have been my thought, but then it came out that the guy hung out with Sandusky’s kids when he himself was a child. If he’d been a victim as well, it explains his reaction, or lack of it.
cathyx
Those students supporting Paterno are the future employees who would do the overlooking and sweeping under the rug if they encounter another episode like this.
willard
In Fairness to the GA, the administrator that he met with a week after the incident was in charge of the campus police. It’s his inaction in subsequent YEARS that I find most damning.
MattF
This removes that last, remote, possible-however-unlikely excuse for Paterno and the Penn State administrators. They all knew, and I’ll betcha they knew pre-McQueary. This is the missing piece– who knew, and when did they know?
Special Patrol Group
That wasn’t a link to the New York Times, it was to the Onion, right?
scav
@Steve: There are cows and there are cows. This isn’t exactly a AA-granting community college in rural Oke. or, say (board flight of fantasy here), UC-Chino.
cathyx
@Mark B.: Do you have kids? If so, would you excuse someone who acted as he did if it was your child involved?
Yevgraf
Where’s the NYPD when you need ’em?
They needed to helicopter in some white shirts and some of the helmet and shield guys along with a shitload of flexible fence and tear gas. It would have been instructive to both sides – the NYPD would learn what a real civil disturbance looks like, and people who need to be randomly tear gassed, tazed and beaten while in custody would gain a sense of perspective…
Don K
@salacious crumb:
Actually, I’d guess PSU students are a pretty good cross section of Pennsylvania. Three of my nephews went there, and their dad was a middle or upper-middle (definitely not executive) manager at U.S. Steel. On the other hand, a cousin of mine who went there was the son of a steel worker.
The truly rich and well connected can find a way to get their kids into Penn or Carnegie-Mellon (assuming they want to stay in the state for college).
PurpleGirl
@salacious crumb: Penn State is a state college. Are you thinking of U of Pennsylvania? That’s the fancy-schmancy school.
Svensker
@greennotGreen: I’m with you. When I was 19 and weighed about 100 pounds I was sitting around my apartment living room with a bunch of friends. There was a SCREAM from the alley behind my building. It was a woman’s scream, filled with terror. I grabbed a chef’s knife and headed out there, running and yelling, heart pounding. Creep had grabbed a young woman and dragged her into the alley to rape her, he saw me coming with the knife held high and took off. Woman was OK but scared. I didn’t get scared until about 10 minutes later and realized what I’d done. I’m no heroine. But there was no way I could not respond to that primal scream of fear. There just wasn’t. I found it odd that the rest of the folks at my apartment did nothing, just waited for me to come back up to tell them what happened.
Can’t imagine leaving Sandusky to finish fucking that little kid. I just can’t.
General Stuck
Child abuse is about the only crime that requires witnesses or those with knowledge, or even suspicions, to report to authorities what they know. Or become criminals themselves. And as it should be, due to children being so vulnerable in society. Mqueary should have done more, and he likely knows this, and that he is going to have to pay a price for those shortcomings. Again, as it should be. But just put yourself in his shoes for a second, as someone who was just going about his life and career, and suddenly that is smashed just by being in a certain place at a certain time, for something HE SAW, and nothing he actually did. He could have walked on by like he had seen nothing and not reported it at all. But otherwise, by putting it on the record, albeit inadequately from not calling the cops, his life was severely altered simply by witnessing the heinous crime of another person. And that likely would have been true if he had told the cops as well as Paterno. A situation that should have been dealt with a long time ago, by the powers that be, and wasn’t.
Yevgraf
@Don K:
Fixted it.
debit
@Svensker: I agree with you and several people who’ve said they can’t imagine not doing something; yelling, calling 911, punching out Sandusky, or getting the kid away. I can’t imagine how your first gut reaction isn’t to scream, “Oh my god, what the fuck are you doing?”
I really wonder why he didn’t do any of those things.
Hopefully, that’s an answer we’ll get, as this isn’t going to die down anytime soon.
Trinity
How is it acceptable under any circumstance to see a child being raped and to not act to stop it immediately? It was a 50+ year old man and a 10 year old!
How can you see that and not act immediately to stop it? There was no gun to his head. He just walked away.
No one involved even bothered to ever find out who that boy is. They never thought enough of that child to seek him out and try to help him later.
I am sorry, there is simply no excuse. What was this McQueary person taught? I mean, his father didn’t even have him call the police that night. Sweet FSM.
That horrifies me…and it should haunt Mike McQueary for all the days of his life.
Mark B.
@cathyx: I don’t have kids, but I’d be angry at McQueary if it were my kid. Hell, I’m angry at him now. But I also have sympathy for him, because he had a brain freeze when he saw something too horrible to comprehend which involved someone he knew and trusted, and took a while before he actually processed it and acted on it. It’s a well-known phenomenon of human behavior.
Hell, a large percentage of soldiers don’t fire their weapons the first time they’re in combat, and they’re trained to do just that, and they know it’s coming.
He fucked up. But he’s not the real bad actor here. In fact, he’s the one person in the whole drama which may have triggered the end of it, although it took way too many years and way too many other kids were hurt. He did some good.
Slugger
I am going to pray for Joe Paterno who covered up a heinous crime for the sake of his material reputation. This is surely a very grave sin.
Wake up to the truth, Joe.
Cris (without an H)
Whenever there’s a mass shooting in a public place like a school or a beauty shop, wingnuts come out of the woodwork and brag about how boldly they would have acted to stop the shooter, had they been there.
We can all agree that McQueary should have done better. (As Trinity says, unlike in the mass shooting scenario, the threat of harm to the intervening citizen is pretty small.) But for any of us to say “I would have done this and that” is just a fantasy, unless we’ve actually been there and done that.
salacious crumb
@Trinity: AMEN!!!
Jay C
Actually, I think, the NYT managed to find and print a quote which sums up the PSU/Paterno “scandal” in a nutshell:
Dead wrong, of course (IMHO) – but not so unusual or unexpected: especially if the student body there IS prone to hold those “conservative values” (like exaggerated deference to institutional power/hierarchy, and idealization of its “leadership” figures). That “legends” might tarnish themselves never seems to occur to them…
Angela
@Mark B.: I have three sons, I was a victim of sexual abuse, I counsel adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. I agree with everything you wrote. It is how I feel also.
cathyx
@Cris (without an H):
Or maybe, those who say “I would have done this and that” is just a fantasy, unless we’ve actually been there and done that, are the ones who would freeze and not report the incident to the proper authorities.
bystander
As much as I’d like to excuse Mike McQueary, because GAs are really at the bottom of the totem – totally expendable and below students in the organization of the world – he could have acted more quickly and more affirmatively. He might not have done the all the right things in the right sequence. Hindsight from the safety of the sidelines is the luxury most of us commenting on his choices have, that Mike McQueary didn’t. But, he could have taken immediate action to interrupt the rape.
Mike McQueary was the first in line to worry about his position with the university. He wasn’t the only one, but he was the first. He was also the first in line to help the victim; not the only one in a position to help, but the first. His, I’ll posit unwitting and unfortunate, choice is what set the stage for the other actors involved to try and cover it all up.
Still, I will allow, that even if he’d pulled Sandusky off the kid and called the cops, the university would still have tried to bury the incident, and McQueary would likely have been sacrificed somehow in the process. I suspect – without knowing – that the university would have done what it did anyway. The reason for McQueary to have raised bloody Cain – if no other – was for him to more easily live with himself later.
West of the Cascades
@Mark B.: This ground has been pretty thoroughly plowed in other threads, but in regard to your earlier comment that McQueary “tried to make things right later,” that’s a load of bullshit. McQueary kept silent for EIGHT YEARS after witnessing the horrible scene of a former coach raping a young child.
McQueary did not “do some good.” He simply finally told the truth to the grand jury more than a year after the investigation of Sandusky began — an investigation triggered by reports of further molestation by Sandusky of a different child, NOT by any “good” McQueary did. Sure, he could have lied to the grand jury — other, more culpable and craven Penn State employees did — but he doesn’t get a gold star merely for telling the truth under subpoena eight years after witnessing the rape.
I agree it’s understandable and possibly foregiveable that McQueary was too shocked to react to the situation he walked in on. But his cowardly inaction after the shock wore off, and his failure to do something to get Sandusky off the street in 2002 after what he witnessed justifies the scorn people are heaping on him and his firing by this university. The fact that McQueary’s silence coincided with a very successful rise in the coaching ranks at Penn State, and raises the question whether there was quid-pro-quo in those promotions.
willard
I agree with Cris. Much easier to say how we would like to react, than to actually react when unexpectedly confronted with such an atrocity.
Sizequeen
@Cris (without an H):
This is one of the most disgusting comments I have ever read here. How can anyone compare the failure to intervene in a mass shooting to McQueary’s total moral breakdown? Anybody with a soul would have stopped the rape immediately. McQueary had to weigh his career options first.
salacious crumb
for you all trying to defend/justify McQueary’s actions, Any Davidson at the New Yorker has fitting response.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2011/11/joe-paternos-tears.html#ixzz1dJc2FAVo
BobS
I’ve heard people say repeatedly over the past several days that none of us know how we’d react if we were put in McQueary’s situation, most recently Mike Golic a few minutes ago on Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN. Really? You witness a 50 year old man fucking a 10 year old in the ass and you really don’t have some kind of idea of what you’d do?
The only thing that anyway/anyhow justifies the 28 year old McQueary’s bizarre reaction (call his father, tell Paterno the following day) is if McQueary was one of Sandusky’s victims when he was growing up a friend of Sandusky’s kid (who, like all of Sandusky’s kids, were adopted) and he suffered from some variant of Stockholm Syndrome. And frankly, even if it wasn’t the case, it’s probably McQueary’s best bet for salvaging his reputation. He immediately becomes a sympathetic figure, and it makes sense that he would do it either way. He’s either a real rape victim or he’s a calculating piece of shit who weighed his career options (he was promoted to assistant coach fairly soon after the 2002 incident) and watched Sandusky bring other victims around the program over the next decade- lying about being raped wouldn’t be a big leap.
The Other Bob
@Mark B.:
Really?
But he did not call the cops, tell the kids parents or pull a rapist off his victim! He turned the other way and allow a rapist to finish, only to report it to a school admin. Maybe not monster category, but darn close and clearly cowardly.
celticdragonchick
@salacious crumb:
Also, why did McQueary keep working at the school with a man he knew to be a child molester??
Mark B.
@West of the Cascades: I’ll go along with that, the eight years following are a lot more damning than what he did the night of the incident. He’s not blameless, to be sure, but it remains to be seen how much Paterno and the admin were pressuring him to keep silent.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Cris (without an H):
Except, McQueary was in no physical danger whatsoever. In almost every other case where people play internet tough guy, there’s a real risk of injury or death.
Suffern ACE
@The Other Bob: I don’t know. How about the RAPIST is the actual monster and the idea that not-reporting even approaches that as a crime is laughable. You need to have another category of monster even to start comparing the two and if you don’t, the whole category of monster just needs to be thrown out.
Robin G.
@BobS: I do have to wonder if that was the case. Pure speculation, of course. But the fact is, to walk away from a ten year old being raped — when apparently the kid AND Sandusky saw him — indicates either some severe psychological breakdown or mustache-twirling evil. And maybe I’m naive, but I don’t think a guy who DID report everything to several people the next day is a mustache-twirling evil kind of guy.
pk
I don’t know if everyone would be able to react this way. I have been in situations (nothing like this) where I have completely been unable to react or take the action. My brain seems to stop functioning. Only later do I realize how I should have acted. And then I end up doing the right thing whatever it takes. But I know that even if I would not have been able to help the child instantly, I would have gone to the police and not waited for yrs, or kept quite. McQuery made a decision to be passive, not lie, but. not take any action either. His not helping immediately can be understood, but keeping quiet and not raising hell is unforgivable.
celticdragonchick
@bystander:
Probably true, especially if the kid didn’t talk.
However, if the school did bury it as expected, McQueary should have resigned of his own free will and found an employer that didn’t hide child molesters. If I were to HAVE to work around a monster like Sandusky, I would be sorely tempted to kill him. Not figuratively. Hurting a kid is one thing that will provoke me to violence. I have a son who is 11 and I internalize something like that.
Mark S.
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Exactly. He is also a former QB and from pictures looks like he’s 6-4, 220. He would have had absolutely no problem fending Sandusky off.
Social Outcast
@greennotGreen: No. There is a law mandating the reporting of the crime among a limited class of professionals in PA, but the penalties for violating it are minimal. A few months in jail, etc.
salacious crumb
@celticdragonchick: yup, and not just find a new employer..he should have gone to the presses and screamed at the top of his lungs…I mean this isnt one of those gray areas issues. it was clear cut. black and white. day and night. an old guy raping a 10 YR OLD!!…
how the guy slept at night for a decade knowing what he knew and what came out of it just baffles me…
gwangung
I’m confused.
People keep saying that McQueary should have gone to the police.
But I thought it was clear that he DID. Head of campus police is the police.
(And he does deserve a measure of contempt. But not the moral outrage that goes to Paterno. And certainly not the contempt that goes to Sandusky. My outrage scale isn’t binary).
Villago Delenda Est
@Mark S.:
If you look at pictures of Sandusky and Paterno side by side, and Paterno and McQueary side by side, I think you’ll agree with me that McQueary would have had the advantage in any confrontation with Sandusky.
Bill
My wife went to Penn State, as did much of her family. Her father got his season tickets in the 60s, and PSU football is one of the things she remembers most fondly of her childhood. She took over her dad’s tickets two years ago, at great (ridiculous) cost, and every autumn we drive three hours to State College several times to tailgate, watch football, and spend time with her closest friends from 20 years ago. I’m not even a sports guy, but I have come to enjoy Lions football, mostly because of how much it means to her.
Last night I sat at dinner and watched tears running down her cheeks. As an educator, she’s saddened and concerned for the abused children, and as a human being, she’s horrified and angry about what happened to them. She’s ashamed of her school. She’s trying to understand how this happened at the place with which she identifies so strongly, and how Paterno, a man she respected immensely, could have possibly been involved.
She’s looking for answers, and I don’t think she’s going to find any that make her feel better. This thing is a shit sandwich, period. I expect that this story is going to get complex as time goes on, but I don’t think I’ll ever understand just how something like this comes to pass.
The kids protesting are doing what kids do, probably half of them are just swept up in it. Paterno is or was a lesser deity to most of them, a god to some. They’re all dealing with their various combinations of hurt, anger, surprise, and shame. Some of them are just d-bags.
My only connection to Penn State is through my wife and the people that matter to her. I’m sad for the poor kids who were abused, my wife, her people, and her school, in that order.
For the good kids, this is probably like having your heart ripped out from five different directions. My wife was one of the good kids. Still is.
rb
he saw something too horrible to comprehend which involved someone he knew and trusted
Admittedly, the ‘someone he knew and trusted’ is a mitigating factor. I also think that conferring with dear old dad may have actually ended up suppressing his more appropriate response (You can just hear it: “Are you SURE you saw exactly what you think you saw? Take it to Joe. He’ll know what to do. This is a very serious matter. Lives could be destroyed. Best to leave it to those in power.”) Sometimes acting rashly and decisively is the proper and moral response, but appealing to authority will tend to moderate things regardless.
That said, I still don’t see his inaction as in any way defensible. Even IF you justify his not rescuing that kid in the moment (christ), you can’t justify his keeping silent for 10 years hence. Not lifting a finger to, I don’t know, maybe find out who that kid was and get word to his family? Or, I don’t know, get Sandusky removed, imprisoned, etc.? For fuck’s sake.
Downpuppy
McQueary would make a good book, except Conrad already wrote Lord Jim, so we know how it ends.
kay
@salacious crumb:
That’s a very good piece. Thanks.
This is just so sad:
libarbarian
Rioting in defense of a protector of child molestors?
Fuck Penn State Students!!! Fuck them all!
Mnemosyne
Let’s do a thought experiment, folks:
You’re walking through that locker room, and suddenly you see your own father naked with a 10-year-old boy. Not some stranger. Not someone who works with you. A guy that you’ve known since you were a child. And suddenly you’re seeing this person you’ve known your entire life in a scenario that literally leaves you doubting your own eyes.
I see all kinds of people talking about how they intervened in incidents with strangers, but I haven’t seen a single one from someone who says they acted quickly and decisively to call the police when they saw their brother hit their kid or caught their father molesting someone.
It’s easy to decide that you’d totally react to seeing a stranger molesting a kid. Substitute in someone you’ve known for 20 or 30 years and tell us again that you would act unhesitatingly.
Emma
@pk: See, I can understand that. Temporary freeze I can — barely, just barely — understand. But eight years of silence, taking the University’s dime, knowing what went on… nope. I can’t.
rb
@gwangung:
Head of campus police is the police.
Right. It’s the fact that it was being buried BY camp police and/or VP of fricking business and finance (!?) that people are reacting to. Essentially we blame McQ for not raising holy hell, every day, until either Sandusky was charged or McQ himself was fired.
I mean, he’s working down the hall from a known child rapist (as in he PERSONALLY KNOWS AND HAS WITNESSED this guy raping children). And he just goes about his business coaching and watching this predator run his charity for kids? Jeebus.
debg
@gwangung:
Campus police aren’t quite like city and state police. They answer to the university, not elected officials. It’s been that way since the Middle Ages, and it was set up that way in the 13th century to protect universities and their students–often to keep embarrassments under wraps.
amused
@Mnemosyne: My dad beat the shit out of the boys in our family. My Grandfather was a child molester. I’d have picked up a bench and beaten Sandusky to a bloody pulp, just so the kid would know that there are good people in the world as opposed to cowardly fuksticks like McCreary. I’ve been prepared for such an action since I was 10, so fuck you.
You are a child rape apologist, Mnemosyne. I used to look forward to your comments, but not any more. Now, when I see your name, I see RAPE APOLOGIST. See how easy it is to lose respect? You just have to open your eyes, and you refuse to do so.
cathyx
@Mnemosyne: I do not understand this way of thinking. It wouldn’t matter to me if I knew the rapist or not. There would be no hesitation in doing what I know has to be done. And I do not have to have ever experienced this situation to know absolutely what I would do if I ever were. Any one who would do what McQueary did is a coward.
Mnemosyne
@amused:
I was molested by a family member. My parents had no idea it was happening until they literally walked into the room while it was happening. So, no, I’m not apologizing for what Sandusky did. You know, the actual rapist? I’m saying that McQueary, the witness who walked in who had known Sandusky his whole life, may very well not have believed what he saw at first and not been able to physically react.
Cris (without an H)
You don’t read the comments here much then.
Mnemosyne
@cathyx:
Seriously? If you saw your own father naked with a little boy, your brain would be able to immediately say, “I need to call 911!” You would immediately attack your father physically and hold him until the police arrived?
And since I’m sure I’ll be accused of this, I’m not excusing McQueary’s actions in the 10 or so years following what he saw. I’m only saying that, in that precise moment, seeing someone he had known his entire life in a literally unbelievable situation, I’m not shocked that he was unable to react in that moment.
As I’ve said before, McQueary is a moral midget for witnessing something that horrible and then just going along with the cover-up. But Paterno is a moral monster for having evidence of multiple incidents and covering it all up to protect his football program.
gwangung
I think the relevant point is that they ARE the police, particularly for a college town. They’re not fake police. Going outside that is problematic in ANY case.
Gin & Tonic
@amused: Since we’re well into the realm of thought experiments (i.e. making shit up) — how does beating someone to a pulp show an abused kid that there are good people in the world? As opposed to, say, separating the kid from the situation, giving him a towel and quietly encouraging him to tell the police what happened. What’s Sandusky going to do to prevent that at that time? He’s obviously unarmed. Beating him to a pulp, while perhaps satisfying the lizard brain, would just teach the kid that there are people in the world who can’t control their emotions and use violence to solve complex problems.
cathyx
@Mnemosyne: I would not hesitate to turn my own father, grandfather, or son in if I saw him doing this. I’m astonished that it is so unbelievable to you.
amused
@Mnemosyne: Mcq is an accessory. He helped Sandusky finish the rape. You are bending over backwards to find excuses for Mcq. Your sad story just makes your apologetics all that much more disgusting. Just, ew.
Steve
Man, it sure gets dangerous to have an opinion around here.
Mnemosyne
@gwangung:
I’m still convinced that people are extra outraged at McQueary because he’s the only guy in the whole story that they can relate to.
The question that’s been going through my mind lately is, what did Sandusky’s wife know and when did she know it? Apparently Sandusky was molesting kids during sleepovers at his house. Where the fuck was Mrs. Sandusky while this was going on?
cathyx
@Mnemosyne: What did your parents do when they walked in on you being molested?
Mnemosyne
@amused:
So did Paterno. In fact, Paterno helped Sandusky rape multiple children, because he had known about Sandusky’s previous molestations since at least 1998 and still allowed Sandusky to have access to the Penn State campus to run his kids’ football camps. Sandusky was using Penn State facilities to find and groom his victims until 2009.
But, yes, let’s pin all of the blame for Sandusky’s and Paterno’s crimes on a single witness.
tavella
@cathyx: @Mnemosyne: I do not understand this way of thinking. It wouldn’t matter to me if I knew the rapist or not. There would be no hesitation in doing what I know has to be done. And I do not have to have ever experienced this situation to know absolutely what I would do if I ever were. Any one who would do what McQueary did is a coward.
Thing is, you don’t actually know that until you’ve done it. Again, I point out the Milgram experiment; most people firmly believe that they wouldn’t possibly torture and kill someone in the name of science, but in both the original and various copies, it’s been shown most of us will; in the original, only *one subject* took action the moment ‘harm’ was done, and most went to the ‘fatal’ end. It turns out that the combination of vague authority, victims being strangers, and shock is absolutely toxic; we have monkey brains in the end, and they are not necessarily optimized for ethical behavior.
So I stay away from bragging about how I would have been the fierce hero, even though I most certainly hope I would act in the moment.
Mnemosyne
@cathyx:
They didn’t call the police. You didn’t do that in the 1970s when it was a family member. But they didn’t walk away, either.
As I said, I won’t defend McQueary’s subsequent actions and his 10 years of working for Paterno. But I can understand, in that moment, being shocked and unable to know what to do when you see someone you’ve known since you were a child doing something unbelievable.
ETA: So as not to be too misleading — it was my older brother. And that is as much detail as I plan to go into.
eemom
Hi Mnem.
I don’t really agree with your take on this, but I’m not prepared to say you are totally wrong either. And I think that as an abuse survivor you have a right to claim some credibility on the issue.
I also know that you’re a very smart and thoughtful person from your comments on zillions of other topics, so even if I thought you were dead wrong about this I wouldn’t react like many others have. I actually think it’s kind of sad how easy it is for folks who have come to know each other here to break out the full-bore flaming knives at a disagreement over one issue. It’s happened to me.
eemom
@Steve:
exactly.
And btw thanks for your thoughtful comments on that ridiculous Israel thread the other night.
cathyx
@Mnemosyne: But what did they do the moment they opened the door and saw what was happening?
Did they close the door and wait until later to talk about it? Did they grab him and tell him to leave? Do they still have a relationship with this person?
The Thin Black Duke
No, McQueary didn’t have to go Full Metal Rambo when he witnessed a child being raped, I’ll concede that.
But what’s unforgivable in my opinion is McQueary keeping his mouth shut for ten fucking years. That’s the ugly reality that just won’t go away.
I’m sure McQueary believes he did the best he could. That doesn’t make him a hero. Just a Good German.
pk
Rape is not a complex problem! Beating him to a pulp would have been the perfect response for a man caught in the act of raping a child. Sometimes violence is the answer. BTW when a kid is being raped, maybe that is not the best time to teach him problem solving.
amused
@Gin & Tonic: Watching bad being punished violently would go a lot further than watching bad get away with it with the consent of another bad adult, don’t you think? And some bads need to be crushed out of existence. The damage Mcq did was just as bad as the damage Sandusky did. Maybe worse, in my book. Sandusky showed the kid that one adult is untrustworthy and violent; Mcq confirmed that all adults are untrustworthy and violent.
debit
@Mnemosyne:
I think what people might be reacting to is that had he acted differently, the cycle of abuse could have ended right then and there. He could have grabbed the kid and called an ambulance. He could have called the police. He could grabbed the kid and stood there screaming for help until another witness came. He did none of these things and we still don’t know why.
Yes, the cover up and everyone involved in it are despicable, but he was in a position to do something right then and there, and chose the course of action that allowed those in power to protect the criminal.
Like I said, we don’t know why. Maybe he was a victim too when he was a kid. But until he comes clean about his choices that night and his decision to remain silent for 10 years, it looks pretty bad.
Adolphus
Thin Black Dude: And as reported in the GJ presentiment, Sandusky continued to bring boys to PSU football practice as late as 2007. I want to hear more about Paterno and McQueary were at those practices, but it beggars the imagination that this supposedly moral and controlling coach didn’t at minimum hear about it.
If McQuery was at the practice, while I might (MIGHT!) excuse him not going the full Rambo in the shower in 2002, how could he not go at least a little Rocky upon seeing a man he KNEW to be a pedophile with ANOTHER boy five years later? I know the answer to that. McQueary was a team player and part of the family. A team and family that was rewarding him handsomely.
Nemesis
We may be misreading a key factor in this case.
The GA, McCready, went to JoePa after seeing Sandusky in the showers with a 10 y/o boy.
My belief is that McCready was:
keeping the scandal in-house where it could be managed
exhibiting deference to St JoePa
acknowledging through his actions that anyone associated with PSU football at the time knew of Sandusky’s affinity of boys
demonstrated there existed a tacit nod and wink surrounding anything Sandusky did on campus
Mnemosyne
@eemom:
To be fair to people on the other threads, I hadn’t revealed my past history because I wasn’t comfortable doing it, but Amanda was so forthright that I eventually was able to do it. So some of my responses might have seemed weird to people who didn’t know where I was coming from.
(Thanks again, Amanda! :-)
salacious crumb
For once, can you put you your ego aside as to what online strangers think of you (and who is on your team?) and actually try to understand the actions of McQueary??
Maybe in light of what you wrote, it’s not all that surprising that you even have a slight defense of that guy? maybe we should have McQeary in our prayers..maybe he was thinking about himself..”what will happen if the knives are out for me? what will happen to may career?” fine, i will just go about my life because no one will take my side and will make mean comments about me!!!..waaaah!!!”
John Carter
So the parents of these boys knew nothing about this for over ten years? Is that correct?
If they knew, did any of them go to the police?
If police knew about this and supposedly the Pa. Attorney General (current Gov. Corbett) knew as early as early 2009, why wasn’t anything done then? Was it to protect a potential candidate? Not once did Corbett as Attorney General mention anything about this.
Was it to “gain information” while the victims had to suffer more so that the people in power could make this grand exposure at a time of their choosing?
And if they knew, shouldn’t they have also done something sooner?
People have been arrested on the spot for allegedly raping children THEN there was an investigation.
Here we have an investigation about a supposedly open and shut case that went on for nearly three years (at least and maybe more) and nothing was done.
Did the officials even notify the parents when they learned of it and what did the parents do?
As a parent, I sure as hell wouldn’t have agreed to “wait” years until authorities did anything. That’s why god invented lawyers.
This seems to go deeper than those accused and those not accused.
amused
But, yes, let’s pin all of the blame for Sandusky’s and Paterno’s crimes on a single witness.
As you’ve been told many, many times, no one is doing that. That’s you trying to make your defense of an accessory to rape (not just a witness when he walked away) seem not so bad. And you really have been defending an accessory to rape.
Adolphus
Here is a good column that captures my thoughts on McQueary, though not completely.
A small quote
I have empathy for the difficult position McQueary was in. I do. But I also have empathy for that small child. He needed help and got none. Worse, for a split second he thought he might get some only to have that hope dashed. He needed medical attention, too. Did ANYONE involved call an ambulance? Canvas the hospitals? Yes McQeary ultimately came forward and that is good. But sometimes we have moments to make a decision to rise to an occasion and he didn’t. I have been tested in this regard to a much less extent and so far I am proud of my actions, though I will admit to overreacting once or twice. I don’t know if I would have risen to the occasion in his position. I am a small man and more likely to get my ass kicked more likely than not. But if I didn’t I would deserve shame and social sanction if not legal and I sure would never sleep well again. And I CERTAINLY would not sleep until I found out who that kid was and atoned personally if that was possible. I look forward to finding out more of what McQueary did or did not know. For now I am disgusted with the full knowledge that I could have reacted the same and would have earned your disgust.
Sorry for the block quote fail.
Mnemosyne
@pk:
But molestation is complex. If you look at the grand jury report, Sandusky was the classic child molester who picked out emotionally needy kids and seduced them. That kind of guy becomes the one adult in their lives who cares about them and wants what’s best for them … only they have to do a few things in return to make him happy, too. Don’t they want to make him happy? Don’t they know how much he loves them? It’s incredibly, incredibly manipulative and can really fuck with your head in a major way.
Paula Vogel wrote an autobiographical (and Pulitzer Prize winning) play called How I Learned to Drive that demonstrates the psychology really well.
Villago Delenda Est
@Nemesis:
This right here is the heart of the problem.
Sandusky’s behavior was not dealt with for fear of a PR nightmare.
Well, idiots, the PR nightmare is here, and it’s far worse than it would have been if action had been taken 10 years ago.
No one at Penn State is clean on this one.
eemom
@salacious crumb:
I never defended the guy, and you are an asshole.
feebog
I agree with Tavella, all of you know what you THINK you would do. Until you are faced with the reality, you really do not know how you would react. Many of you are saying that McQueary should have reacted differently, and you are right. And I have no doubt that many on this thread would have reacted differently. But you don’t know for sure unless faced with the same circumstances.
That said, I completely agree with those who question how anyone witnessing such an act could ever stand to be in the presence of a child rapist, let alone work with him for alomost ten years knowing that he was most likely doing the same thing to other children.
And the higher up the food chain in the Football program and PSU Administration, the more culpable those individuals become. Everyone of them should be fired, charged and tried.
Angela
@Mnemosyne: Hi mnemosyne, I think you were referring to me being forthright? If so, I am Angela, and it is really good to know you. :-) And if there is also an Amanda on these threads, I have missed her comments.
Whether you meant me or Amanda, I am glad that you have been able to speak out of the truth of your experience, and with the perspective that gives you. We traded comments yesterday.
eemom
@Mnemosyne:
I think it was Angela…?
Adolphus
feebog
or as the Mighty Mighty Bosstones sang:
I’m not a coward,I’ve just never been tested
I’d like to think that if I was, I would pass
Look at the tested and think there but for the grace go
I might be a coward, I’m afraid of what I might find out.
kay
@John Carter:
I agree with you.
I’d be more comfortable with an independent prosecutor at this point, actually, just to keep it entirely clean.
I also think they should release the 1998 report from the University Police, and tell us which state agency or actor saw that. Two boys were interviewed in the course of that investigation, not one, and although the DA is dead, it’s not like every lawyer who saw it or worked on it keeled over. They’re around somewhere. I’m not entirely okay with the prosecutor reviewing another prosecutor’s work.
Mnemosyne
@amused:
I’ve been defending him as not the worst person in this story, not as a good person or a moral person. As I said, I think he’s the one person in this story that most of us can identify with, which is why people are being so harsh on him as compared to the actual rapist.
As I’ve said in other threads, I view McQueary as the whistleblower. He’s the guy who went along with the crimes for years until he just couldn’t live with it anymore. He could have given the same noncommittal grand jury testimony as everyone else, but instead he blew the whole thing wide open with the extremely graphic details we have now. If not for that, Paterno wouldn’t be “retiring” today. We wouldn’t have the president of Penn State getting fired, or the perjury indictiments.
He’s the one guy in this whole thing that I think could possibly atone for his crimes given enough time. Paterno and the other conspirators are beyond hope, IMO. They’re going to think they were in the right until the day they die.
Mnemosyne
@Angela:
D’oh! Yes, I meant you. How embarrassing! :)
Amanda in the South Bay
@Mnemosyne:
What? Are you referring to me? Am a bit confused.
Angela
@Mnemosyne: No worries. Like I said, I have appreciated your input on these threads and I am glad to (virtually) know you.
Dan
If this turns out to be true, it’s going to get a whole lot worse: http://thebiglead.com/index.php/2011/11/10/mark-madden-mentioned-some-really-lurid-jerry-sandusky-rumors-on-weei-radio/
debit
@Dan: Oh my fucking god.
pk
I just read that there is more coming out on this story i.e. that Sandusky provided boys to rich donors. This is entering the realm of horror.
kay
@Dan:
“Being investigated by two prominent columnists”
Not the police or the AG, but “columnists”. I swear to God, I give up.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adolphus:
Yup, this.
I’d like to think I’d play the hero…but I know enough about myself that I might be a coward.
I was in a situation once in Korea where I was in a bar in Seoul, minding my own business, and a soldier who had obviously had way too much to drink was making a disturbance, arguing with those he was siting with, loudly, and it was approaching the stop the talk and start the fists phase.
The proprietors were about to get involved, and I was too, being a guy with brass on his hat and all, when one of this guys buddies, obviously reading my reaction and, despite the fact that I was wearing civilian clothes, knew that I was about to take official notice of this affair and had a position in the hierarchy to make things, well, official, very politely asked me to let them take care of the matter.
So I backed off, and they got the drunk guy out of the bar and presumably took him back to the barracks to sleep it off.
Obviously, this doesn’t approach the level of Sandusky and a 10 year old, but I was just slightly older than McQueary was at the time, and I was in a position were I was obligated to intervene if things got too far out of hand, as it seemed to me at the time to be about to.
In my case, though, it was a perfect stranger. McQueary was not in that situation..it was with someone he knew and admired.
That’s about as close as I can get in my experience to this situation, and it’s far from a precise analogy.
I might have just locked up like McQueary did, too.
But even after McQueary reported it, and did not see followup, he should have acted. He was witness to a crime. He reported it. The criminal was still at large even after he did so.
Something should have clicked in his head at that point.
Steve
I suspect it gets harder to report the crime over time once you’ve already failed to report it, because you have to face up to the fact that you didn’t do anything sooner. I know this is far-fetched, but sometimes even a person who reports a crime can face scathing criticism for not having done more. Yes, just trust me, it can happen.
Villago Delenda Est
@pk:
It was already in the realm of horror. It’s just been cranked up to 11, threatening to go to 12…and beyond.
BobS
Penn State has announced that McQueary and Jay Paterno will coach Saturday against Nebraska. Myself, I thought cancelling the rest of their season would have been their best option, particularly after last night. They may want to reconsider having McQueary on the sidelines the following week in Columbus.
Mark S.
@Dan:
That would certainly explain the coverup.
If true, they should just burn Penn State down to the ground. Start over in some other town.
Amanda in the South Bay
@BobS:
I’m surprised they are playing this weekend as well. Surely there must be a public safety issue with potential rioting after last night’s outrage.
Adolphus
And in the spirit of pop music oldies I penned this little ditty this morning. Hope you enjoy (Someone had to do it! It was begging to be done)
The local sports team down the street
Is trying hard to win their game
To earn some love for Joe
Who just came out to bask in fame
Another happy valley thursday
News vans burnin everywhere
Groups of children who have been abused
And no one seems to care
See Coach McQueary, he’s so damn cheery
Because he got his longed for raise
And dear JoePa, above the law
Because he leads our football craze
Another happy valley thursday
Here in status symbol land
Young boys complain how hard life is
And the men don’t seem to care
Touchdowns and field goals
They only numb the soul
And make it hard for them to see
that winning does not excuse
ignoring evil on the loose
My thoughts all seem to stray
To victims far away
I need a change of scenery
Nemesis
@gwangung: McCready didnt go to campus police. McCready went to JoePa the day after witnessing Sandusky and a 10 y/o boy in the showers engaged in anal sex. JoePa met with the AD, Curley, the next day, at JoePa’s residence. 10 days later, McCready met with Curley and the Sr VP for Fianace and Business(?) Schultz. These two claim the story they were told was about inappropriate “horsing around” in the shower. The GJ disagreed and indicted them. The GJ finds McCeready very credible.
amused
@Mnemosyne: Maybe you identify with the accessory to a child rape, but I don’t. And you have no idea whether Mcq couldn’t live with himself any more. Considering his ambitions and the lengths he went to be one of the big guys, he more likely tried to push the blame on the higher ups to save himself during testimony. He didn’t come forward on his own, he was forced. There is nothing good there. And while you may think your past absolves your defense of an accessory to child rape, it just makes you even more disgusting. Get help. Clearly your empathy meter is out of whack when you feel more for the accessory than the victim.
And before you wield your victimhood trump card again – I was also jumped by my brother. It’s the most common form of incest, you know.
Gex
@tavella: Well said.
muddy
@amused:
Thanks for this, I said this along those lines at LGM the other day:
BobS
@Amanda in the South Bay: I think it shows that the focus of the university is still misplaced on the football bottom line, i.e. wins/losses, bowl games, etc.
Eliminating Paterno effectively changes nothing with respect to game day coaching at Penn State. He’s been the head coach of the team in name only for quite some time, sticking around mostly to bulk up his lifetime stats and just to show that he couldn’t be run out like was tried in 2004.
Gex
@feebog: I would, however, add that part of what we do in society is try to socialize people into behaving in socially beneficial ways. Extreme disapproval of people who allow adults to rape children, while maybe not as understanding as it could be, might also help prevent it in the future. The pressure to do right by Penn State is socially applied. The pressure to stop a child rapist within the Penn State ranks needs to be socially applied also.
piratedan
so…. now there’s been more crowd violence exhibited on behalf of a football coach who’s implicated in heinous crimes against youth over a decade than there has been at all of the OWS protests combined and who merits the riot gear?
ruemara
@Mnemosyne:
Mem, it’s not that he didn’t stop the rape in progress. Although that sticks in the craw, it’s not what’s damning about McQueary. It’s taking a job later that year with Penn at a higher pay, greater prestige with the full knowledge that the real police were not brought in and a child molester was still bringing kids on overnights in PSU facilities as late as 2009. It’s not even caring enough to find out who was on campus with him, to offer some measure of comfort and support. I won’t get into details, but I got to live in a highly abusive home from age 1 to 5. They were the most awful, damned year of my life and considering I then got to live with my real mom and a stepfather who hated me for the next 12 years, that’s saying something. It was still better than there. Finding out that my grandmother and other members of the family at least knew something was up with the physical abuse and did nothing, broke my heart. It is a stain on your moral character to sit still in an awful situation and do nothing. I exempt even my beloved gran from none of that. She felt deep guilt that she did nothing and apologized before she died. And she was living several thousand miles away. McQueary made a choice for the years later to sit in silence while other children got to suffer. I know sometimes the “at least I’m being left alone now” feeling helps you be quiet, but I can’t live that way. You have to fight back. even a toddler knows how to bite when you’d rather die than wake up to another day. 8 years is a long time to feel shellshocked into accepting a nice position and loving cabal to protect powerful child raper.
debit
@BobS: Unbelievable. I can’t believe they’d let him represent the team in public and I can’t believe that Paterno would dare show his face in public ever again. Jesus wept.
Nemesis
@pk: Horror indeed.
There, IMO, will be mcuh more to come of this story. Wont be surprised to have a suicide or two.
Sandusky was at the top of his profession in 1999, when JoePa told him he would never be head coach of PSU. Sandusky’s reaction: retire. Makes no sense, especially in light of the fact that Sandusky was, at the time, or soon to be, interviewing for head coaching jobs (Maryland). He retired for “better benefits”? Bullshit right there.
The deeper question remains: why did school admin and to a lesser extent, JoePa, continue to cover for Sandusky and allow him back on the campus, with the keys to the place, for nearbouts a decade?
There is a reason McQreary went to JoePa and not the police. There is a reason everybody, and I mean everybody, kept quiet regarding Sandusky’s perversions. What about his wife? What about his kids? His close friends? When a person like Sandusky is obsessed with little boys and being in their company alone, people notice. People knew about Sandusky. We will find that huge numbers of people knew about him and they protected him. I want to know who else these bastards are protecting. Im wondering if Sandusky might be the beginning, not the end, of something truly staggering in scope.
We have but skimmed of the top layer of this stew. The real meat and potatoes are closer to the bottom of the pot.
Emma
@Dan: Oh God, please no. Please, please, no.
Gin & Tonic
@muddy:
Molestation of pre-adolescent boys by older men is *way* more complicated than that. In the view of the child, it’s far from clear that he is a “bad guy” — he is almost certainly someone they know, like and trust. That’s how it gets to that position in the first place. He didn’t grab this kid off the street. You *can’t* guard yourself against someone who’s helping you with school, who may be the only adult male who listens to you, who takes you to places you otherwise see only on TV, who “cares” about you. Who, maybe, shows you something that grown men like to do when they’re alone.
BobS
@debit: That would be Joe’s son Jay Paterno, the quarterback coach, who will be coaching along with McQueady Saturday.
debit
@BobS: Ah, my bad.
Mnemosyne
@Nemesis:
Yep. McQueary witnessed his incident in 2002. Sandusky had been investigated before back in 1998 and, though charges weren’t pressed, he abruptly “retired” even though he had been constantly touted as Paterno’s hand-picked successor.
Paterno knew. He knew what Sandusky was like and what he had been doing and he still chose to protect his athletic program over Sandusky’s victims. McQueary is a very small cog in this huge tapestry of corruption.
Mark S.
This isn’t very important, but even without this scandal Penn State was probably going to lose their last three games anyway (Nebraska, Ohio St., Wisconsin). They aren’t anywhere near as good as their 8-1 record would suggest.
The Republic of Stupidity
If no one’s already posted it…
Here’s the grand jury transcript…
Warning… it’s hard to read…
Gex
@Dan: Donors to Second Mile or to Penn State, I wonder.
shortstop
@West of the Cascades: This. Give somebody the benefit of the doubt that he froze in the moment, and you still have to explain his total inaction for almost a decade following — a decade that coincided with his voluntary continued employment with people he knew were shielding a pedophile.
xian
@amused: i’m starting to wonder if there is an incident in someone’s deep memory that needs to be excused or explained away
John Carter
@Dan While Mark Madden may know something, odds are pretty good he’s just interviewing for a spot on National Fox. He’s been fired a couple of times for inappropriate remarks on shows. The one that got him fired from 1250 ESPN in Pittsburgh was:
“On May 21(2008), Madden said on his radio show, “I’m very disappointed to hear Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts is near death because of a brain tumor. I always hoped Senator Kennedy would live long enough to be assassinated. And I wonder if he will receive a get well card from the Kopechne family.”
Astonishingly the ABC/Disney owned station didn’t even smack his wrists or do anything else to reprimand him until the calls against him came in. Then they covered their butts and fired him.
He has a rep for exaggerating,improvising, twisting and rewriting stories his way rather than what actually happened.
But the key thing is, he’s now employed on a Right Wing Radio Station, 105.9 “the X”, in Pittsburgh…affiliated with Fox. He got the job almost immediately after his comment about Ted Kennedy.
One of his firings
xian
@Mnemosyne: once they knew, did they take steps to stop or prevent it?
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I do think that, in those intervening years, McQueary chose to ignore what was going on for his own benefit. He participated in covering up Sandusky’s crimes,and he did it to protect his own career. I am not giving him a pass of any kind for that, except to point out that Paterno’s choices were even worse.
The reason I find him the most interesting figure in this is that he seems to be the only one who now realizes that the cover-up was wrong. He seems to me to be the only one who realizes that he was wrong, Paterno was wrong, the university was wrong. It’s weird to see people talking about McQueary as not having any remorse when he’s the only one who testified truthfully and gave very specific and damning details that brought the whole rotten conspiracy down.
A whistleblower is usually not a nice guy. He’s usually a guy who’s knee-deep in the corruption, but for some reason finds he’s unable to wade in waist-deep with everyone else. He’s still covered in shit, but at least he’s come to the realization that it is shit, unlike everyone else, who’s still trying to claim they smell like roses.
xian
@Mnemosyne: “But, yes, let’s pin all of the blame for Sandusky’s and Paterno’s crimes on a single witness” is a straw-man argument and you’re too intelligent not to know it.
No one in these threads (except the freak-troll) has excused Sandusky, Paterno, or many other people in authority who helped coverup the atrocities.
BobS
@Mark S.: As far as the game itself, I think this is going to be too much of a distraction for 18-21 year old kids to overcome this weekend, and while on the one hand McQueary being present gives continuity to the offensive game, he may also be more than a little divisive considering he’s going to be viewed as one of the reasons Paterno Sr is missing. Someone yesterday mentioned this as a rallying point for the team, and if it involved injury or illness or something with some nobility factor, yeah, I’d buy that, but there’s a reason child rape has never been a topic for halftime pep talks.
The following two weeks should be particularly interesting, especially with regard to the animals disguised as fans in Columbus.
And you’re right, they are overrated.
xian
@Mnemosyne: please point to a comment where someone said that McQueary was “the worst person in this story.”
Mark S.
@BobS:
Yeah, that was burnsie, who used it as a segue way to talk about the Duke lacrosse team that nobody gives a shit about.
Mnemosyne
@shortstop:
If he had absolutely no remorse for taking that job and keeping his mouth shut, why was he apparently the only person from Penn State who testified truthfully to the grand jury? I really want to know what you think his motive was. Is he just a dumb jock who didn’t realize how damning his testimony was?
If McQueary hadn’t testified the way he did, Joe Pa would have quietly retired at the end of the season and the Penn State president would still have his job. There would be no indictments for perjury for anyone from Penn State. So, again, it’s hard for me to write the guy off as a completely amoral lost cause who has no remorse whatsoever for what he did.
xian
@Mnemosyne: imagine if someone interpreted your comment to be a celebration of McQueary as a hero? that’s what you’ve been doing to the folks who are disagreeing with you, but in reverse.
Emma
@Mnemosyne: You keep calling him a whistleblower, but I don’t know that he volunteered anything to the grand jury. It was an ongoing investigation, somehow his name came up, and he was called in. At that point, he chose not to lie, more power to him. But I suppose to me whistleblower implies someone who sees something bad and goes out of his way to let people know. I don’t know that McQueary did that.
Mnemosyne
@xian:
salacious crumb had some good moments, like #20:
West of the Cascades has had some good moments, too:
I’m not sure why thinking that McQueary is not the worst person in this story means that I’m excusing everything he did, but apparently that’s the case.
Surly Duff
@Mnemosyne:
I find it a little hard to applaud a guy for finding the courage to not commit perjury nine years after the fact. Granted, better than commiting it and not blowing the lid off this scandal, but it provides little comfort for the victims of abuse.
I do agree that more anger should be directed at the administrators and Joe-Pa for covering the whole thing up for nine years if not longer. And based upon the information coming out, it seems hard to believe that they didn’t know even earlier. The deification and support for Paterno is staggering and strange. The man still cannot admit that crimes were committed on his watch, and ostensibly with his complicity.
The “victims or whatever”? Fuck you. Fuck you and your tainted “legacy”.
Suffern ACE
@Emma: Yeah, but I think “whistleblower” includes both Erin Brochovich and Sammy “The Bull” Gravano. Maybe it’s “whistleblower” when we like them and “rat fink” when we don’t.
JPL
McQueary recruits for Penn State and I copied the following paragraph from MSNBC. A recruit released the letter he got from Penn State and it included this statement.
They still won’t be sanctioned because no one sold their championship ring on ebay or accepted a dinner from an agent.
Mark S.
@BobS:
I take it you went to Michigan.
shortstop
@Emma: Precisely. He didn’t blow a whistle; he decided not to perjure himself when he was finally called. That, apparently, is Mnemosyne’s only measure for moral standing.
And while I’m glad to see Mnemosyne now pretending that she’s been disapproving all along of McQueary’s nearly 10 years of silence–when in reality she spent many, many hours a couple of days ago energetically ignoring the missing decade and insisting to those of us who asked that the only two relevant frames of reference are the moment in the shower and the day of grand-jury testimony, with nothing in between–I’m disgusted to see that having a couple of days to emotionally sober up hasn’t made her any more honest or her general position any less morally repugnant.
Which is, I’m sorry to say, par for the course for Mnemosyne. This is by far the most horrifying of her festivals of strawman building, goalpost moving and outright lying about others’ statements, but it ain’t the first by a long shot…and people are reacting to her history of bad-faith dialogue, not just to what is coming out of her mouth on this subject.
debit
@The Republic of Stupidity: I just read it. I feel sick. 8 victims that we know about. How many more are out there? Christ.
Emma
@Suffern ACE: Nope. Not to me. Brockovitch was a whistleblower. Gravano was saving his own arse.
Mnemosyne
@Emma:
As I understand it, McQueary gave his testimony anonymously — it was only after the report was released that people figured out that it was him. I’m not even totally sure that McQueary has admitted that he was the one who testified to seeing Sandusky in the showers with the victim.
Remember that as far as we know, Victim 2 has not been located. The only reason we know anything at all about the incident is the testimony of the anonymous “graduate assistant.”
The grand jury transcript is linked at #142 — the graduate assistant’s testimony starts on page 6 with Victim 2.
Mnemosyne
@shortstop:
Since everyone was talking about how they totally would have charged into the shower and started beating up Sandusky, I didn’t realize that they were actually expressing disgust at McQueary’s decade of silence.
If you think I’m somehow backtracking, you might want to doublecheck what you were saying on that thread if you think that your main point was McQueary’s participation in the subsequent cover-up and not his actions in the moment. I can find quotes for you if you like.
amused
@Mnemosyne: For some sick reason, you need Mcq to be the better guy. You need him to feel remorse. You might want to get that need examined. He could have stopped not only the rape he was accessory to, but the whole rotten thing. He knew the jig was up, so he told the truth and placed the blame on others, still hoping that he’d get that job promotion. And you defend him for it.
BobS
@JPL: Yeah, if this doesn’t violate some NCAA or Big Ten code of conduct regarding general decency (I’m sure they weren’t so prescient as to include sanctions for child rape), it’s time for those governing bodies to meet and revise their rules.
If Penn State football suffers no repercussions from the NCAA/Big Ten, every fan of every program past or future who has been or will be sanctioned has every right to protest the thinly disguised joke that are the rules governing college sports.
Emma
@Mnemosyne: He hasn’t said a word, but if it WEREN’T him he would be saying so right quick, IMO. But the fact that he testified anonymously makes it even worse, don’t you see that? He told the truth in exchange for the DA not revealing his identity. To me that means that he wanted to keep his nice little life, salary and perks more than he wanted to do the right thing.
Angela
@debit: The last count I read was 17. A short brief on pedophiles I read a few weeks ago says a middle-aged make who is abusing young boys has an average of 150 victims. Which is why I think there were more people who saw what was happening.
Pennlive.com has a article quoting a sister of an abuse victim who is a junior at Penn on how hard it is to be in class with everyone making jokes about what happened.
I think that also shows how tight that community is – a brother was victimized by a Penn State coach or ex-coach and she still went to the school.
willard
Here is the interview from this morning of the reporter that broke the story 7 months ago. Mark Madden Interview
He also adds that there may be a child sex trafficking ring around the 2nd mile.
JPL
@BobS: Seconded.
Mnemosyne
@amused:
I defend him as not as bad as Paterno, Curley, and Schultz, all of whom McQueary gave his information to and all of whom conspired to cover up for Sandusky at the highest level of the university.
I think that the people in the positions of the most power who created the cover-up are more disgusting than the guy who reported it to them. YMMV.
shortstop
@Mnemosyne: Your offer to cherrypick in your usual ethics-free style notwithstanding, I absolutely encourage everyone to check out the More on Paterno thread for themselves if they haven’t had the stomach-turning experience of reading it yet. I’m perfectly confident that not only was “everybody” not “talking about how they totally would have charged into the shower and started beating up Sandusky” (though many were, of course), but that even the most casual reader will find plenty of examples of the intervening decade being pointed out to you by many commenters, including me, and of your complete resistance to considering this point. As I said above, I’m delighted that you’ve finally decided you need to address it, but unimpressed by your pretense that it isn’t just the latest in your traveling goalposts.
I do not think that anyone who’s read your posts here the last few days will be able to forget them; they’ve been that far beyond the pale.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: Very sorry to hear of that, Mneme. Hope you & your family have been able to heal.
Gex
@Surly Duff: If they knew back in 98, in a way McQuery has been victimized by them too. Normally you shouldn’t be at risk of accidentally encountering child rape in your work place. Unless you’re a priest.
muddy
@Gin & Tonic:
I used “bad guy” in my personal vernacular and should have chosen a better term. Let me try to explain myself better. Let’s just call him Rapist, that’s plain enough. What I was getting at is that despite the goodness of grooming activities (which the child probably does not know are grooming activities), it is Rapist who is raping.
The other people, regardless of their +/- kindness, are not raping at least. Once it is past grooming and onto the rape, I don’t think many kids are still fooled. They know it’s wrong. But they are convinced that the wrongness falls on them. That fear is Rapist’s power.
The other people then, are not raping, you could presume they are against rape. Turns out they’re not, or else not in any meaningful way. That’s hard to take. They are not Rapist, or Are They? Maybe they just fkd with your head instead some other area. This would be overwhelmingly the case when parents are complicit.
So going forward in life, you could be very wary of guys making any potential grooming moves, and hopefully it would never happen again. Look out for Bad Guys! That’s great. But how do you tell someone who would have helped you from one that wouldn’t?
I will say that as a childhood rape survivor the constant analysis and processing required to interact with people when you have this notion in your head is exhausting. I personally found the collaborators harder to get past than Rapist. No one tries to excuse him, he’s clearly bad.
No one should excuse them either.
Mnemosyne
@shortstop:
Here’s the linky to that thread for the interested:
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/11/07/more-on-paterno/
Though I will say that I have changed my mind now that I have read more about the case in the past few days: I do think that McQueary should be fired, though I still don’t think that Paterno or Curley has the moral authority to do it. That’s what my argument was to all of the people arguing in favor of McQueary’s firing — I wanted to know who, in the line of bosses above him, had the moral authority to decide that his particular participation in the cover-up was a firing offense since all of them were even more deeply involved.
Given that the president of the university has now been fired, I’m still wondering.
muddy
@Mnemosyne: Doesn’t he have a child in grade school by now? That could make a difference. I did not realize how terrible some events in my own life were until my son was at that age and I imagined what if that were him?
willard
The letter on the second mile webpage is disgusting. The organization admits to knowing about some inappropriate behavior on the part of Sandusky in 2002, yet did NOTHING for 6 years until there were additional allegations.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Mark S.:
Suffering Jesus. If true, is it possible the Feds would shut the school down?
Gex
@muddy: That has been my girlfriend’s experience as well. She’s spent the least amount of therapy time dealing with the rapist step-father stuff. The people who knew, her mom and her dad, but did nothing are the larger problem.
JPL
@muddy: That was so well stated. I can’t imagine being a victim of such a brutal crime but being victimized twice because no one helps is horrifying to me.
The ones that didn’t tell saw the Rapist over the years and knew he still was associating with children. Maybe they said nah, he wouldn’t do it again but how can one take that chance. Did McQueary continue to call him coach?
willard
@The Fat Kate Middleton: If true, PSU needs to go away. That the child sex trafficking allegations are even plausible means the football program needs to end permanently.
WereBear
I don’t think anyone is listening to Mnemosyne’s point; despite the many times she’s made it.
A lot of people are not ready to discuss it dispassionately; I’m sure. She’s making general points about human nature… not excusing McQueary.
“Better late than never” sounds awfully lame, but it’s true.
Mnemosyne
@muddy:
I think he might. Sorry to hear about your experiences — I at least had a relatively functional family despite what was going on (my mother was dying of cancer at the time, which left the door open for the molestation, so to speak) so we were able to deal with it and stop the abuse, but like you I’m still suspicious of people who seem to want to get too close to me.
Mark S.
@Gex:
Jesus, her dad knew that her stepfather was raping her and did nothing? I’m not excusing the mom, but I’ve at least heard of that happening.
CarolDuhart2
What staggers me is that they are going to have McQ on the sidelines as if nothing has happened. Indeed, I would think that the best thing the school could do is just forfeit the season. How could playing through the rest of the season look anything but totally crass after this? How can anyone who has been a coach under Paterno be trusted as the face of the University? How can this be anything but chaos and disgrace?
If I were advising the University, if it were legally possible, I would cancel the rest of the season-like it would be if there was a plane crash or epidemic-and clean house. There would be an entirely new staff post-Paterno and the school could at least move on as far as football is concerned.
Gex
@Mark S.: Yeah, he’s a piece of work. People at her school new too, but this was back before mandated reporter days, when women and children were still mostly property so everyone minds their own business.
ETA: Or the good old days as the Republicans called it.
shortstop
@Mnemosyne:
Meh. That was one of the arguments you tried out, yes. Others included insisting that firing McQueary would just be “retaliation” for his telling the truth to the grand jury and that it would seem like punishment for reporting what he’d seen to the athletic department. Your comments in that thread were devoid of any understanding of the seriousness or supportability of the moral charges against him. I don’t think you’re morally or emotionally capable of even seeing things that don’t correspond with what you badly want to be true, so you no doubt truly believe now that you didn’t say those things or that they weren’t what you “meant.”
shortstop
@CarolDuhart2: It’s just appalling. The fact that they’re intending to go on the field on Saturday shows how far into denial they still are. Putting McQueary out there on top of it just compounds the insult.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
Thanks! In shortstop’s defense (kind of) some of my initial arguments probably were pretty muddy since I wasn’t comfortable saying in that thread that I had some history with this and was coming from that perspective. Fortunately, Angela has been really forthcoming about her history and her work with adult victims and a lot of us feel much more comfortable now.
But, yes, I’m viewing McQueary with a certain amount of detachment, probably because I don’t have kids myself and am not currently having nightmares about this happening to my own child.
Mnemosyne
@shortstop:
No, I truly believe that, after hashing things out in comments for three days and getting more information, I’ve changed my mind about some of the things I originally said. But I realize that’s a bigger sin to you than merely being wrong in the first place.
kay
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t know where you’re getting this. He was called by the prosecutor and asked questions. He has no idea what else the prosecutor has when he’s asked those questions. Because he has no criminal liability, the best bet for him there is to tell the truth, implicate the other two, and exonerate himself, which is what happened.
By the time it’s at the grand jury, he doesn’t have a whole lot of choices left. He can either risk a perjury charge, not knowing who or what else the AG has, or implicate two people and walk away. He chose the latter, but that’s not really a choice. His testimony could be completely self-interested. They’re going to use him for whatever he has, and that has nothing to do with what motivated him to implicate the other two.
It is my understanding that this came to light because a boy who was 15 years old in 2009 came forward. That’s the person who brought down the conspiracy.
CarolDuhart2
@shortstop: It is deep denial, and a real symptom of why things got so bad. In Cowtown, football was/is all, and since nobody apparently can say anything bad about it, there’s no consciousness of even how this looks to the wider world. Elsewhere where there are other things to care about, there would have been no hesitation to clean house completely and just muddle through the rest of the season and hope that a new regime would do better. But given the reaction from the students, it’s easy to see why nobody has really blown the whistle. Who in the area doesn’t work for that college or profit from it, and who could be able to withstand the massive pressure if they served on a jury?
shortstop
@Mnemosyne:
Great! That means you’re going to stop lying by commission and omission about what you and others really said and are saying! Oh, fuck me; I forgot who I was talking to for a minute.
shortstop
@CarolDuhart2: Yes, exactly. I know they’re not unique in that respect, but I’ve never seen anything like it in a higher ed situation, and I spend a lot of time in that arena. It blows the lesson of all eggs/one basket into gargantuan significance.
CarolDuhart2
@CarolDuhart2: This decision could go down as just about the worst football decision since the NFL’s decision to play football the Sunday after the JFK Assassination. The NFL/Major League Baseball skipped after September 11th, even though there was far more money at stake and far more of an audience. But the Nittany Lions can’t come to terms with this, and simply realize that all this does is dig the negative ditch deeper? That all people will think of is that they simply are putting the face of a pedophile as far as they know, or at least an enabler on television, and that they believe football and their football revenue is more important than the sensibilities of victims?
Mnemosyne
@kay:
I freely admit that I am not a lawyer (I don’t even play one on TV), but that’s not how it comes across in the grand jury transcript, dry as it is. He certainly is not portrayed a reluctant witness and the transcript specifically says that the grand jury found his testimony “extremely credible.”
The actual victims could testify to what Sandusky had done, but McQueary was the only one who was able to testify that he had reported the crime he witnessed to his supervisors, Curley and Paterno, and they did nothing. The importance of his evidence was that it was able to show that the university had been informed at the highest level by an insider about Sandusky’s crimes and they still did nothing and allowed him to continue victimizing boys on the Penn State campus.
I don’t want to discount the courage of the victims who reported Sandusky and testified against him, because it takes a huge amount of courage to come forward and say that this powerful man who everyone respects raped you, but I honestly don’t think that the president of Penn State would have been fired on the testimony of the victims.
(Fixed)
kay
@CarolDuhart2:
I think so, too. I’m sort of enjoying what a stupid fucking idea it is. I think they have no idea how bad it’s going to look to the non-insane observer, which means they still don’t get it.
They might want to fire some more people. They’re getting poor advice.
Suffern ACE
@shortstop: I am starting to have a little problem with digging around by the press to be the “first” to expose the GA. I know it’s everyone’s business, but I really would rather the effort be focused right now on finding others who might have seen something. If the investigation is ongoing, I think I want everyone to have every incentive to cooperate and if that includes keeping GAs and former players anonymous, so be it.
@Dan: Ugh. I hope that report is just someone trying to get more attention.
Gromitt Gunn
I find those who are certain that anyone who would not have intervened at that moment is “soulless” or a “monster” or whatever other convenient epithet comes to mind don’t really understand how one’s reaction to such a situation isn’t always black and white.
I am a mandated reporter. At the same time, I do elder advocacy because I know that if I were in this sort of situation I would a) have a flashback, b) freeze, and c) probably not report it until I had a chance to crawl back out if my own head. I can do elder advocacy without that happening because it doesn’t have the same triggers.
This is after a metric fuckton of counseling.
I don’t consider myself a soulless monster. I consider myself a survivor who spent a very long time putting myself back together.
amused
@shortstop: I doubt there was mind changing so much as it finally sank in that she was defending the accessory to rape. To hear the whole story and the first thing MNe does is defend someone involved? That’s some sick shite, right there. To assume because she couldn’t bring herself to rescue a kid, no one else would either. Ugh.
And bringing up prior victimhood as a defense? I can’t believe you have the balls to do such a thing, Mnem. If there are kids in your house, I fear for them. You need some help.
kay
@Mnemosyne:
McQueary took absolutely no risk at that point. None. The risk runs the other way.
Mnem, he helped himself with that testimony. It’s a no-brainer.
“Commit a crime or implicate two other people and walk away?” Hmmm.
What would you choose? Purely from sel-interest, what would you choose?
I’m simply saying that you are giving him a motivation that puts him in the best light. There’s a simpler explanation for his Come to Jesus testimony. If he says it, he walks away, guaranteed. If he lies, maybe he doesn’t.
shortstop
@Suffern ACE: I think it’s soon going to be obvious to everyone involved that the cover-up will not hold. Any idea that staying quiet will save one’s reputation and/or job is way out of date at this point. It’s going to be everyone for themselves, if it isn’t already so behind the scenes.
debit
@Gromitt Gunn: I hear you. My childhood was not ideal and left me with issues. On the one hand I’m perfectly comfortable reacting to a physical threat with physical violence. On the other hand, if, say, I come into a room and find a person of authority (say my boss) screaming at a weaker person (a coworker), I will actually run from the building in a blind panic.
Mnemosyne
@kay:
I may be putting him in the best possible light (though this extremely shaky and dim light I’m holding seems to be the only one available in this story), but I’m not sure that putting his actions in the worst possible light is automatically the most accurate portrayal, either.
You could be right — he could be a completely amoral monster who only gave the testimony that he did because he was covering his own ass. He may even have calculated that if Paterno went down, he could get Paterno’s job. I guess I want to think that someone, somewhere in this story regrets what they did and they’re not all monsters who didn’t give a shit until the cover-up threatened their own jobs.
ETA:
If the person I’m going to testify against is so beloved that there was an actual riot to protest his firing? My self-interest may not be giving full testimony. My self-interest may be to be very vague about everything in the hope I can slide by because there’s no way they’re going to convict Saint Joe Paterno of anything anyway, so I may as well protect him to protect myself.
shortstop
@shortstop: Meant to add that I don’t have an opposition to anonymous testimony for the reasons Suffern states — but allowing people to testify anonymously is very different than giving them immunity or of assigning them an imaginary moral status that they haven’t earned.
Angela
@kay: The AG showed a lot of regard in the press conference for the GA’s credible testimony. She stated that part of why they were able to move forward with perjury charges and the charges for Sandusky were because of the GA’s credible testimony.
An attorney called into a sport radio talk show here in Philly and stated that McQuery was protected as a whistle blower as soon as he reported to Paterno. At that time, that was the chain of command that he was supposed to report to. This attorney also said that the trustees could not fire McQuery for the same reason, he is protected as a whistle blower.
I’m not an attorney, nor do I play one anywhere, but that is the first I have heard McQuery has legal protection as a whistle blower in a state entity and was wondering if anyone would know if that is true?
kay
@Mnemosyne:
Maybe he went to bring down a conspiracy. Or maybe he went because he was court-ordered to appear and he didn’t have any legal duty to do more than he did in 2002, so not lying to a grand jury, which is a crime, is really the best option for him.
At that point, he only has two choices, one of which carries risk to him.
kay
@Angela:
Again, that’s all very nice, but he simply told the truth after he was court-ordered to do so, and doing so involved absolutely no risk to him at that point. Of course that’s why she was able to move forward on perjury charges for the other two. The person who had no legal liability told the truth, and implicated the other two. What’s the upside to him lying at that point, for him? There is none.
It could be both things. He could help himself and the state. I guess I’m not getting the self-sacrifice part of this story. Testifying truthfully looks like a win/win to me.
Mnemosyne
@kay:
He wouldn’t have to lie outright. He could say that he wasn’t sure what he saw, that he was vague when he reported it to Paterno, that he screwed up and didn’t make it clear to Curley and Paterno what he had seen. He could have protected them and himself by telling the truth but claiming that he hadn’t told them the rotten details.
Because, really, what was Curley and Paterno’s counter-testimony going to be? Yes, he told us that he had witnessed a very specific sex act between Sandusky and a small boy but we didn’t do anything about it? Of course they were going to claim that he was vague and they thought it was less serious than it was. And then the university is protected and Curley, Paterno and McQueary’s jobs are all protected and no one has to get prosecuted for perjury because, really, it was all just a big misunderstanding. I’m not even sure that McQueary would be liable for non-reporting since they would all agree that he reported it up the chain of command.
Angela
@kay: I understand why you believe what you believe. I have a different opinion. And, these are only opinions because although I have read the grand jury report, and listened to the AG press conference, I don’t know all of the details and I probably never will. And neither will you.
The grand jury did its job, they and the AG had praise for the GA, and I am well aware of how difficult it is to break the silence in a culture of silence and cover up.
Most people are not all good, or all bad. Human nature is complicated. I am willing to give McQuery the benefit of the doubt because ten years ago he reported to his superior who happened to be the most powerful man on the campus.
It is my understanding that is more than anyone else did. Do I wish he had done more? YES! And he did more than anyone else was willing to. Including the janitor who witnessed an oral rape, and all the cleaning staff he told.
Suffern ACE
Is it possible that McQuery was clear and vague at the same time during his testimony. Or that he was clear about Curley and Schultz but not Paterno? I’m still confused how McQuery’s testimony can be reconciled with Paterno’s testimony, but Paterno indicated that McQuery didn’t tell him the extent of what he had witnessed.
kay
@Mnemosyne:
I just think we’re too far apart on this. I’m having a lot of trouble believing any of these people.
Absolutely no hard feelings, though, and you argued well and fairly as usual.
It sucks and it’s sad. I wish I was someone who got a lot of gratification from a “perp walk”, but I’m not, so I can’t even look for that as solace.
I just wish it hadn’t happened.
Angela
@willard: This interview is horrifying. I read that it will come out by Saturday that Sandusky and 2nd Mile were pimping out young boys to rich donors.
I hope it continues to unwind and all of it comes into the light.
Mnemosyne
@kay:
Like a lot of people here, I don’t actually have any experience in the criminal justice system when it comes to these things, so I guess I’m just relieved that it got to the criminal system at all when so many other cases fall through the cracks and so many other victims suffer in silence. I appreciate that, whatever his motive, McQueary ensured that Penn State won’t be able to duck responsibility for their complicity in Sandusky’s crimes.
Since the story broke, at least 17 more victims have come forward. That, I think, is a good thing since now they’ll be able to get the help they need even if their case in particular isn’t prosecuted. Again, it’s a very dim and small and shaky light of hope, but I’ll take it.
ETA: To be clear, I mean that I don’t have any experience with the criminal justice system actually working in these cases, so it still seems unusual to me. Obviously, since you work with them every day, it doesn’t seem so unusual to you. I think that’s part of the gap that can’t be bridged.
Gex
@Angela: Do we know if that is football donors or 2nd Mile donors? Are they one and the same?
Angela
@Gex: I don’t know. Mark Madden, the man in the interview, just stated rich donors.
kay
@Mnemosyne:
I’m at bizarre revenge fantasy point. I think the 2002 victim or the 2009 victim or all of them together should walk out onto the field at the next Penn State game, and address the nation. Just shut that thing down, and speak. I honestly think that’s what it might take.
Scott P.
Given that McQueary was from State College and friends with Sandusky’s son, one wonders if he himself was molested by Sandusky as a child. That certainly could explain a reticence to come forward.
Angela
@Angela: Mark Madden also makes it clear that it is only a rumor, and that two prominent columnists are doing the investigation.
He said he usually does not report on a rumor, but that he feels no need to give Sandusky the benefit of the doubt. I agree with him on that.
Joel
@shortstop: There’s another side to this, though. If the school axes McQueary in public fashion, they might be encouraging the popular sentiment among Penn State boosters that he should be the fall guy, and that Paterno should be exonerated. Trust me, I happen to know a few such boosters, and they already refer to McQueary as “McQueery” in impolite company. They see him as a traitor. It’s impossible to comprehend. This whole thing is completely fucked up.
kay
@Mnemosyne:
This is from a 1982 article:
He ran camps at three other colleges, in addition to Penn State.
libarbarian
Fuck Penn State Students.
Fuck every child-rapist-defending one of them!
Villago Delenda Est
@Joel:
I can’t imagine why I find this so totally believable.
Of course he’s a traitor. He put his own shock and horror at what Sandusky did ahead of the good of Penn State football!
The 10 year old boy is just a thing, not a person, after all…
Gex
@Angela: Because it’s an infinitely bigger deal if the kids were specifically pimped out to benefit the football program. Although, that might explain why he was still around and involved after the 98 incident.
Mnemosyne
@kay:
I’m heading in a similar direction. I’m at the point now where I think McQueary should quit and take a coaching job at the worst inner-city or Appalachian school he can find for the next 15 or 20 years so he can begin to atone for his part in all of this. Like I said, he strikes me as the sole person at Penn State in this story who may have a dim sense that he has something to atone for at all. Paterno will keep denying any responsibility until the day he dies.
Mnemosyne
@kay:
Ugh. You would have to post that right after I ate lunch. :(
Ruckus
@Gex:
My sister also had a hard time with the people who she trusted completely, violating that trust. I don’t know the details here, my sister could not talk about them 50-55 years later, but she could talk about the people who didn’t believe her and told her she was wrong. I didn’t even know about this until my 50’s but it explained a whole lot about my sisters life.
To all of you who have suffered child abuse, whatever form or degree it took, I feel so sorry for you. I do know from my background that there are many victims responses to child abuse and many ways of coping. Some can talk about these things, some can not. Some can go on to lead reasonably normal lives, some fight these battles every day for years and some even for the rest of their lives. All of our experiences form who we are, how we fit into society, even how we feel in our own skin.
I think that is why so many of us feel that no matter who or what the circumstances the only reasonable or even unreasonable response is, protect the child. Everything else falls by the wayside, or at least it should.
It is the main reason I am a liberal. The core value of liberals as I see it is to protect those who can not protect themselves.
geg6
@Villago Delenda Est:
I will not ever defend McQueary, Paterno, Schultz, Curley, Spanier, or, especially, Sandusky.
But you can just go fuck yourself for this. There are thousands of staff and faculty who have nothing at all to do with this and who are as good or better than the staff and faculty of any college in this nation. I am one of them and you can just go fuck yourself.
Villago Delenda Est
@geg6:
Well, thank you.
The problem is, the institution itself is now irrevocably tainted, and the good people who are there, who knew nothing of it, and had nothing to do with it, have to live with that reality.
The splatter from this scandal hits everyone there, whether they had anything to do with it or not. It festered for 13 years that we know of. That’s a long time for something like this to incubate.
Villago Delenda Est
@geg6:
I might note that this doesn’t confer any degree of guilt about this on everyone at Penn State, if that was not clear.
It just means that there are tens of thousands of victims, to one degree or another, to this entire horrible affair.
You are one of them, and you have every right to be angry about that.
geg6
@Villago Delenda Est:
You think I and all of my co-workers don’t know this? You think we are completely unaware as how it affects us, our careers, and our personal reputations? And for someone here to paint all of us with this brush, a fellow BJer, people I like to think of as smart, just goes to show me that you are no different than the wingnuts you so love to bash.
I don’t even work at University Park. The majority of Penn State employees and students don’t have anything to do with University Park. But you and everyone else are willing to paint us with the same brush. I like to think that liberals, especially BJ liberals, are better than that but perhaps I was and am wrong.
Taylor
@geg6:
My own institution was in a major scandal (financial, not sex-related, but bad enough).
You get the culprits out. With financial, the bad guys walk, only their reputations damaged. That’s life.
Then you work hard to eventually restore the reputation of the institution you’ve devoted your life to.
Self pity isn’t going to buy you shit.
Angela
@Gex: I don’t know, I am hoping it is just a rumor that will have no basis beyond it. And I won’t be surprised if it is true. Sandusky seems like a classic pedophile. I have no doubt there will be much more stuff that comes out, and unfortunately, many more victims.
My heart aches for the victims who watched the students riot. The ones that have come forward are all young men. I hope the older ones find help too.
Villago Delenda Est
@geg6:
Do you think I like being painted by the same brush by non-Americans over our absolutely illegal and immoral war in Iraq? That torture was administered in my name, and yours, nominally in the pursuit of “information” but more likely in the pursuit of propaganda fodder?
We as Americans have a problem with a taint just as you as someone who is associated with Penn State has now.
That pisses me off, just as it pisses you off, I’m sure.
What I said was imprecise, and I apologize for that. It was not my intent to confer guilt on anyone ever associated with Penn State, but a statement that Penn State has a problem and that it apparently was allowed to persist for years.
All we can do now is try to make things right again. With people with your passion on the side of right, that’s certainly possible.
Adolphus
@Joel:
I have no doubt this will happen. Remember the Baylor murder scandal? The assistant coach who taped his boss discussing smearing the victim and shielding the murderer was let go and has not been able to find work coaching basketball since and last I heard was working in a plane factory. The coach has coached basketball at a lower level and has been welcomed back into the fraternity of polite basketball society..
Even Coach K at Duke said he would never hire someone who he could’t trust even if that guy was doing the absolute right thing.
McQueary and other low level coaches at these powerhouse schools know this story, or one just like it. They know they are screwed if they talk. All our outrage in the “real world” won’t save their careers in the closed, insular families of college sports.
Angela
@Mnemosyne: That is a lot of loss all together. I’m sorry you went through that. I’m glad your family could pull it back together.
BobS
@kay: Do you know which other schools? Could be we’ll be reading about them in the future.
Joel
@Taylor: To be fair, there are people in these parts talking about “wiping Penn State off the face of the map”. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It’s a ludicrous argument at its face.
MazeDancer
If that link @Dan posted is true and 2nd Mile was a sex abuse ring providing young boys for wealthy donors, some things get explained. How deep it does. And why such extended silence.
Hoping very much it is not true, because of the harm that means.
But, yes, absolutely, such things exist. And frequently they include judges, cops, lawyers and people who make sure everything goes well for the rapists.
Including removing DA’s if needed.
And, no, this isn’t fiction writing. This is very, very real. There are support groups for every kind of abuse. Molestation by fathers who were clergy for example. And survivors of cults and child sex rings.
Denying these things just keeps them happening.
BobS
@geg6: You’re going to be suffering this stigma for as long as the football program is the face of your university. Might as well get used to it.
kay
@BobS:
BobS
@kay: Thank you.
Adolphus
@MazeDancer:
That link @Dan better be true or certain journalists need to be fired. That is not something you go off half-assed about. There is also a story at Huff-Po about it with two different journalists hinting at something like this.
I don’t want it to be true, but if it isn’t, those two men should be shut away somewhere dark. That just isn’t a topic worth this type of speculation outside the Weekly World News.
kay
These are the people who stopped it:
Adolphus
@BobS:
Absolutely. Len Bias and Lefty Driesel was the face of MD Basketball for over a decade.
kay
@BobS:
The other college had him there for a single day in 2008. He had a website up listing the colleges until he pulled it down. He rented their sports fields and such.
Joel
@Adolphus: But were they the face of the University of Maryland? I doubt it. Obviously, this is a different issue. But most people have no problem separating the school from the athletic program, as well they should. Frankly, the separation should go all the way to a clean cleavage, with the players getting paid and everything else. But that’s another story for another day.
BobS
@Joel: No, they weren’t, not the way Paterno and football are the first and second things many people think of when they hear ‘Penn State’. Even more so now than last week.
Michael
I have to go take a shower — I just read the grand jury report.
The last game Sandusky coached was the 1998 Outback Bowl, played on Jan. 1, 1999. A boy identified as Victim 4 stayed with Sandusky in Tampa and attended team functions with him. Earlier in 1998, Sandusky was questioned by authorities about his involvement with another boy. In May 1999, Paterno informed Sandusky that he would not succeed him, and later in the year Sandusky retired.
It’s hard to believe that the timing of Paterno’s meeting with Sandusky had nothing to do with the investigation. In other words, it’s hard to believe that Paterno didn’t know about what Sandusky had been doing years before the 2002 incident.
In fact, if you read the report, it’s hard to believe that many many people didn’t know or weren’t suspicious about Sandusky’s pedophilia.
MazeDancer
@Adolphus:
Agree that such a charge had better be true before tossing it around for sensational factor. Or worse, web hits. Also agree, do not want what horror such an assertion implies to be true.
Though such reporting, if true, belongs completely out in the open. In very good newspapers. Possibly what you were saying is the same. That made-up crap should never be aired. And made-up crap belongs in repulsive rag papers if airing insanely happens.
Story could also be a red herring by the perpetrators. Not kidding. The cleverness of abusers is immense. They’re con artists, flim-flam attention deflectors, and skilled manipulators.
Because if child sex ring is not true, in this particular case, and gathers attention because it’s so pulp rag sensational, then all of it will get lumped together as made up and bogus. Because one made up story keeps the millions of real abuses from being believed. And the next uncovering of a real child sex ring will be dismissed as oh, another one made-up. Because no one wants to believe the reality of child abuse. Especially not the abused child.
But, in reality, the more true light shed on unspeakable acts the better. Helps victims know that they’re not to blame. And they’re not soiled goods who should be hidden from polite society. And there is nothing wrong with them.
J. A. Baker
I feel kinda bad for laughing at this, but We Know Memes has a suggested new logo for Penn State.
Adolphus
@MazeDancer:
All agreed.
On the other hand I can’t forget that the child molesting witch trials of the 80’s and 90’s were fueled by wild rumors of sex rings. I suspect that was what you were alluding to when you mentioned this might be a tactic by the perpetrators. The memory of the royal screw ups then are still fresh.
This is another reason I think these journalists better be damn sure they have proof.
Mnemosyne
@kay:
I found this accidentally, but Victim 1’s mom is even more awesome than you thought:
They threatened her and she flipped them the (figurative) bird and went to CYS anyway.
dsc
@Cris (without an H): okay. been there done it. so I know how I react. can’t see women, children, dogs hurt or destroyed by assholes.
My older brother taught me early on how to hurt someone badly–to fight back if accosted. He taught me that you only have a certain amount of time to react and not to waste it. And if you’re going to jump in, go all the way screaming your bloody lungs out–that way you have to inhale and it’s easier to do act if you remember to breathe.
NOt everyone can move from a moment of fear–but I would sure as hell try.