If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts, oh what a wonderful world this would be.
If Paterno is indeed this paragon of virtue and integriety then the very least that he should need before calling the cops is a suspicion of something innapropriate. Fuck legality, he’s not a lawyer or a cop.
McQueary should have called the cops too. The only mitigation I give him is being young and stupid.
(a) Why in the world would Paterno, who is not a lawyer, think it was his job to assess whether “fondling or sexual contact” with a minor were “inappropriate but not illegal behavior” (I cannot believe you continue to imply that there is some form of legal fondling or sexual contact with a minor, but you can run all day and not get away from Paterno’s testimony to this effect)?
(b) Let’s say Paterno did decide to play boy lawyer. (Stupid, but we’ll go there). A quick look at the Pennsylvania statute would tell him that “sexual contact with a minor” might well be illegal under:
Oh hey next provision:
Well, the conduct sure offended, affronted, and alarmed McQueary, and likely the kid.
Okay, then there’s this:
But wait you say – Joe didn’t know whether “horseply” (again, horseplay involving “fondling or sexual contact”) was “indecent contact” (because he’s a moron, in your hypothetical)? Needed to consult the case-law? Wrong! That’s why he needed to go to the police and prosecutors (or child protective services – note that the statute does not say “the Athletic Director,” because they do know what forms of “fondling and sexual contact” with minors are not illegal (i.e., NONE!).
Will you admit that there is NO form of “fondling or sexual contact” (Paterno’s own self-serving words, so you’re stuck with them) with a minor that is not illegal? It’s a simple question.
I’m going to have to leave again for a while but I wanted to reach back to address this post because I wanted to thank you for the honest way you replied to what I said.
With regard to Paterno’s so-call moral deficiency in this regard, I disagree with you completely. When it comes to accusations of pedophilia I think it’s a good thing not to fly off the handle, assume the worst, and then take action as though those assumptions were incontrovertible fact. Plus we also have to take into account the fact that Paterno was not told about any back and forth movement against the child’s backside, nor had the incident described as anal rape at all. I think the fact that McQueary regarded Paterno as someone whose morals and level of innocence on something like this were such that he couldn’t even broach the subject speaks to how little Paterno would likely have envisioned anal rape or any other genuinely sexual behavior being what McQueary actually saw.
And in closing a shout out to jtgain. Thanks for your post. It hit lots of nails right on the head.
And now I’m out for the time being as a guy has to eat and tend to daily life at some point in the day.
I’m not an expert on raping kids, but I don’t see why he would need to do all these things. Lift the kid up with both arms around his waist and get it on.
There’s probably a lot of detail that he left out. Or didn’t notice altogether.
If JP thought about it at that level of detail and rejected it based on these objections, then he knew more than he claims to have known.
As I’ve indicated, I personally think it’s more likely than not that the kid was not raped - based primarily on the similarities to the other incidencts in which the kids were (apparently) not raped. But I don’t see the height mismatch as a serious objection.
If you don’t hold the top person to account when something goes wrong, why do you single out Paterno for so much sole credit for things that have gone right? Everyone involved with the university, as you say, benefited from the work of just this one man? Surely it took thousands of people, administrators, professors, students, to make Penn State what it is, not just a football coach.
Conversely, if Joe Paterno is so wise and capable as to have single-handedly made Penn State into a great school, then he was capable enough to have done something about Sandusky. And didn’t.
I believe there is fondling with a minor that may or not be sexual in nature and subject to interpretation by a witness which may not be accurate.
Also, bear in mind that when Paterno said “fondling and sexual contact” he was not speaking of what he knew as fact but only what McQueary had said to him. This is seems to be a key sticking point with you. Can you honestly not make the distinction between relaying what you were told vs. knowing it yourself?
And now I am out for a while.
You are wrong, at least with regard to Paterno.
Here’s what the article says about Paterno’s conversation with McQueary:
It never says that Paterno, as you put it, “thought McQueary was misinterpreting what he saw” or that Paterno did not believe a crime was actually going on.
I was curious about this same situation, so details are the same, I would say the report was “person you know showering with unknown boy and suspicious activity, possibly sexual”.
So given this same situation, knowing there was an example of the same thing in the past, now does it require more attention, either calling police or following up later to verify that it was investigated?
It’s true that there is a point of being too suspicious, but of the ones I’ve read about, these types of predators do a lot of damage to a lot of people and typically there are situations that had popped up in the past that were suspicious but people just didn’t put 2 and 2 together. Given how unusual a report of showering together and possible sexual activity is, I don’t think it’s being overly suspicious to either call police or at the very least, do a follow up to make sure it was investigated.
Note: I think it says a lot that Fotheringay-Phipps is willing to answer a question like this and have a discussion about it, whereas Starving Artist tends to call names (e.g. Nancy Grace almost from the start of this thread) and clearly just enjoys arguing (e.g. what are the cops going to do, question Sandusky?).
No one other than SA and (for whatever reason) filmore has said that Paterno thought McQueary was mistaken or misrepresenting anything (and that was obviously, then, just pure speculation by two posters on a message board). McQueary testified the other day that he had seen something that "“I described it was extremely sexual and that some kind of intercourse was going on . . .There’s no question in my mind that I conveyed to them that I saw Jerry in the showers, and that it was severe sexual acts, and that it was wrong and over the line.”
The only thing McQueary’s testified, at any point, about being uncertain on, is whether there was actual penetration going on, which no one seems to get was a cheap so-what cross examination tossoff – everything else he saw was consistent with and highly suggestive of penetration, and it doesn’t matter because having your genitals in any position in which anal intercourse is a reasonable inference is certainly criminally culpable, penetration or no.
There was further sworn testimony that Paterno consoled McQ. for “having to see something like that,” which he would not have done if he did not believe McQ. had in fact seen something graphically disgusting.
That’s really all I was looking for. And it’s telling, and it’s revolting.
I already know what the response is going to be. Something along the lines of:
*If someone rubbed a child’s shoulder, that would be fondling but not sexual. *
Of course that does nothing to describe the fondling of a child’s shoulder while naked and alone with him in a shower, but I’ll leave it up to **Starving **to come up with another rationalization for that. I’m sure it will have something to do with Paterno’s naif-like ignorance of dirty old men.
Have you or any native English speaker ever used the word “fondling” (even outside a fact pattern involving a naked man and a naked boy) to mean anything other than sexual fondling of the genitals or other “sensitive area” as I think the TSA calls is?
I know I haven’t, and I know a lot of native English speakers. Besides, Paterno went on to clarify that it “was of a sexual nature.”
Me? No, I don’t think so, as that’s pretty much what I understand ‘fondling’ to be. But I’m sure it will be argued.
Of course it needs to be reported. The question is about the followup. I would think it depends on how much confidence you have in the people that you did report it to to do a good job in dealing with it.
Again, suppose you did report it to the “real” police and still nothing happens. Do you need more followup? Police have been known to engage in coverups as well (or to generally be incompetant). When does it end? Maybe you should have gone to the DA. Written letters to the editor. Walked around with a sandwich board.
So it’s a balance of how much confidence you have in the people you reported it to versus how much evidence there is that they’ve not done their jobs.
In this case, if JP thought Curley & Schultz were dishonest or incompetant, then reporting to them should not have sufficed. If he knew that a real rape had taken place, then no matter how much confidence he had in Curley & Schultz, the fact that Sandusky was still up and about was evidence that they had not done their jobs. But if there was some ambiguity as to what had taken place, and he had confidence in those two, then it wasn’t his job to follow up. He had given it to those whose job it was to deal with such matters and he had no reason to believe they had not dealt with it appropriately. So McQueary was all shocked and horrified and thought it was innapropriate, and yet Sandusky is still around? Must be it turned out to not be as bad as McQueary thought and/or wasn’t criminal and appropriate safeguards were put in place going forward.
[ISTR that we’ve discussed this upthread.]
Absolutely true.
I think this is true of a lot of crimes. When people look back in hindsight there are always missed clues that take on great significance in retrospect. That doesn’t mean that people should always assume the worst about every situation.
We’re at an impasse here. As noted previously, when these laws were written they specifically allowed for reporting to supervisor as an option. I am aware that we are talking about moral issues here and not about technical legal requirements. But my point is that the people who write these laws are not a bunch of perverts or pedophile enablers, and they probably had input from other people who had expertise in the field. And obviously these seemed like reasonable steps to the people who wrote the laws, or they would have written them differently.
Anytime a set of procedures breaks down and a different set of procedures would have worked, there’s a natural tendency to look at things with hindsight and see the procedures followed as inadequate and the alternatives as the only proper course to follow. But that’s hindsight. It’s not necessarily the case.
Too little reporting of suspected pedophile activity is obviously not a good thing. But I don’t think it’s a good thing if there’s too much reporting either. Wherever you draw the line there will inevitably be victims on one side or the other or both. That’s life, in this issue as with many many others.
I don’t know if that’s a fair comparison.
I didn’t make it clear in my post, but I think Paterno made himself think that McQueary was mistaken about what he saw even though the facts did not support it. When people are confronted with uncomfortable situations, they often mold the facts to fit their belief system. Like when a mother believes her son did nothing wrong even though he’s a Mafia hitman responsible for 100 deaths. She can’t or won’t handle the truth, so she concocts some false scenario that allows her to continue to live by her previous belief system. She’s not pretending to believe he’s innocent, she truly believes he is innocent.
He’s not being held responsible for anyone’s actions but his own. He testified that McQueary reported that a little boy had been sexually molested in his own team’s locker room. His personal response was to kick the problem to someone else.
It’s HIS locker room. The allegation involved a man who was an integral part of his staff for 30 years, and still welcome on campus, and a man who was subsequently hired to be a coach.
In what universe can a head coach allow this situation to remain ambiguous? Little boys come on campus for charity events, HIS campus, HIS facilities. Presumably the parents assume they will be safe on campus, and you’ll let a man accused of molestation to be involved without getting any more details than “I guess it was OK, they never called back…” Or… McQueary accused a trusted associate with a hideous crime, without any justification, and you go ahead and hire him anyway.
It’s a question of followup, he’s the BMOC, it’s his locker room, his ex-assistant coach, his future assistant coach, and little boys getting molested. You. Follow. Up.
Every now and then I ask myself, “Why am I still subscribed to this trainwreck of a thread?” Then I read a post like this. Well played, Enola Gay, well played.
Starving Artist may not be a pedophile – but he sure comes off as an appologist and an enabler. “I wouldn’t have gone to the police, Sandusky would have denied it.” Or, “McQueary probably just saw horseplay”, or “It was only wrestling, vague sexual contact”, etc.
Basically, if he had been in McQueary’s position, he would not have gone to the cops. Even if he had been an eye-witness to goddamned child molestation.
This has gone beyond, “JoePa wouldn’t do that!” to saying that McQueary didn’t need to go to the cops, and to out and out defending Sandusky himself.
I don’t think he is a pedophile apologist at all. I think he’s Paterno apologist el-supremo. It doesn’t seem that the man could do anything short of murdering someone on video that that wouldn’t be met with **Starv **coming up with some sort of rationalized apology/defense.
That’s more or less what I thought, when all of a sudden the resident anatomists started claiming McQueary’s claim was implausible because it would have been physically impossible for Sandusky to rape a ten year old due to height differences, etc. Nothing to see here then! Oh, and then we’ve got the one guy insistent that, in effect, only actual anal penetration matters as far as sexual abuse, anything else is in some vague, impossible-to-categorize, gray area that might just very well be “mere non-sexual fondling and sexual contact.”