[This is a response to this post, and all the other responses, in this thread, to it. I won’t bother to quote them all.]
A major crime I was peripherally involved with, that required police investigation, was the theft of a rather expensive piece of equipment. You could have fenced it for more than I was paid for that day’s, and the next day’s, or even that month’s combined work, even if you only got 5% of it’s retail value. I was the last person to “see it alive”, in the sense that I was the one who finished up my work, then locked the door, only to return 9 hours later to find that the entire job was shut down, due to the critical place that piece of equipment occupied in our work, and we didn’t have one available. (I didn’t steal it.) I was the “obvious” suspect, and expected to be interrogated that day, but, instead, I was “never never” even questioned about it.
What was I to think about that lack of questioning? I’ll tell ya. Nobody official cared enough to even ask me, let alone initiate a hostile interrogation.
McQueary (sp? I’ve seen it at least 2 ways in this thread) was in that position. If all the higher-ups are claiming it’s been (or being) investigated, and no one is doing anything else about it, and they are not even asking you what you know, who do you report it to, further?
Especially when any further report you make will cost you the career you’ve been building? And achieve nothing more, except your being fired? How far would you go? How far must HE go, to obtain your forgiveness?
You must be joking to consider the situations even remotely similar. McCreary was the sole eye wiitness (except for the unidentified victim) to a violent crime. His testimony would be absolutely critical to any possible prosecution. You were not a witness to anything at all, except that you saw the equipment undisturbed when you left. It’s unlikely you can even know that you were the “last” person – someone else might have come in, or there might be surveillance tapes… The most you can testify to is that it was there at a certain time and gone at another time. You can’t even be sure there was a crime at all, except that maybe other people around at the time said so.
Or, for whatever reasons, management might have decided not to call the cops. I’m really not sure whether that failure constitutes a crime or not, but I certainly wouldn’t fault you for not calling the police because you were expecting to be questioned and you weren’t.
In your case, if the company you work for decides not to press charges, then there is nothing for you to do. It is up to them to press charges if an item is stolen.
A minor in the US is unable to give consent to sexual acts. So there is no question as to if having sex with a 10 year old is a crime or not, and (as far as I know) the child does not need to press charges. It is like if you kill someone. It is not up to the victim’s family to press charges. It is done by the DA’s office.
Yes. A mans career is worth more than a child being raped. :rolleyes:
Do you guys really believe that? Cause people in this thread keep bringing that up. It really makes me sick.
Nobody believes that, but they do believe a man’s career might be worth more than an unprovable allegation.
While the act is occurring is one thing, but once two weeks have passed there is no physical evidence and probably no way to identify the victim without the cooperation of the assailant. It will come down to your word against his.
Is it really worth ruining your career to accomplish nothing?
Bullshit there’s no way to identify the victim. This wasn’t some kid who randomly wandered onto the Penn State campus, he was invited, likely as part of a group event.
I also feel it is necessary to distinguish between an unprovable allegation and a covered up incident. If you watched a guy sodomize a little kid, and after your report there was no police investigation, you need to follow up. You, at a minimum, need to have the higher ups explain why they didn’t go to the police.
Police = Campus? Now there’s an encouragement that they impartially will take your word over some of the most important people in the most important program on campus - not sweep it under the rug… oh, wait, they’ve already done that once?
I agree - he could have done something - but most likely he was shocked and confused. A 28yo who goes and asks his dad what to do is obviously not a bull in a china shop.
He could have done more - but he did report it, give him credit for that. In the end, 9 years later, that makes a very big difference.
Way more than once. The Penn State campus police have a bit of a reputation for sweeping things under floor coverings. When I was attending, it was a known fact that sexual assault reports were almost never followed up on. Can’t have the campus known to be dangerous…it might curtail enrollment!
The campus police office is where crimes embarrassing to the administration go to die.
Now there are reports that McQueary (correct spelling!) did stop the rape he observed. Apparently that fact was not mentioned in the grand jury documentation because it wasn’t a fact that was requires to get the indictment against Sandusky.
If that is the case then he deserves a little more slack than we’ve been giving him. Still should have done more after the fact, IMHO.
Yeah. He should have reported it to the campus police. After all, if he’d spent 10 years or more on campus, he’d know that gets results. Or he could wait until the mayor or the governor were seated in their complimentary box during one of the games, and told them… (sarcasm alert!)
What do you suggest he do after the fact? We’re yapping in circles here, but when the whole small town deck is stacked against you, how much effort do you put into it? Maybe he told the local prosecutor, the one who mysteriously disappeared…
I say he displayed a lot of courage by telling Paterno in the first place. I give Paterno credit for not railroading the guy out of town as a threat… maybe Paterno did not believe him, just thought he was misunderstanding what he saw. Willful blindness.
In an interview today Sandusky says it was all innocent and McQueary misunderstood. They had all the showers going and the kid was sliding around in the shower… If he can be that bald-faced and willing to speak in public after all that has happened at this point and think he can talk his way out of it, is it any wonder that he danced his way out of the reported assault when he was still Big Man on Campus surrounded by buddies and adoring fans who didn’t want to believe it?
Meanwhile, another article says that 10 more former victims have come forward. That makes what, 18? 19? I see a pattern here…
The New York Times is reporting Paterno transferred ownership of his house to his wife for $1 in July.
A professor who specializes in elder law quoted in the article says:
“I can’t see any tax advantages”…“If someone told me that, my reaction would be, ‘Are they hoping to shield assets in case if there’s personal liability?’"
I was thinking degenerative disease, actually. Something like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s…the house transfer may have had nothing to do with the Sandusky thing at all.
ETA: Not that long-term care in the case of an 84-year-old is likely to be very long-term.
I thought it must be a mistake, but Paterno’s pension is apparently going to be over $500,000 per year.
That kind of $$$ can buy a LOT of assorted little pills to help soothe a guilty conscience, or at least help you float above all of your legal troubles (assuming charges are ever filed against kindly old Coach “Joe Pa”) for a few hours at a time.
So McQueary reported it to police. Campus police, I assume; and the official in charge of those police. He’s been emailing his friends to explain his side.
This new claim directly conflicts his sworn testimony to the grand jury.
Therefore, we have NOT been jumping to conclusions - we have been basing our reactions based on the man’s OWN testimony, given under oath, to the grand jury. The fact that McQueary now is stating something different makes him doubly reprehensible - either he’s lying now, or was lying to a grand jury under oath, which makes him guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice (I’m sure someone will come in and tell me I’m wrong about that legal stuff). In addition, if he was lying then about the police NOT being contacted, he’s guilty of perjury, and he’s also accusing the police of not investigating the crime, which makes the entire situation THAT MUCH WORSE, not better.
Do we know that? Has his sworn grand jury testimony been made public in its entirety? I’d imagine the parts made public are designed specifically to support the indictments.
I avoided the story completely for the longest time but have been driving in range of alot of PA sports talk radio in the last few days.
On thing mentioned yestrerday was that PSU admin people knew that there was a finsihed report of some kind in the summer. Makes the $1 house transfer thing mentioned above more suspect.