I spent last night reading the grand jury report into Jerry Sandusky (you can read it here, PDF file) and his decades long rape of children while coaching football at Penn State. The entire report will make your stomach turn and fill you with outrage, but one part really got me.

In 2002 a graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, witnessed Sandusky anally penetrating what appeared to be a 10 year old boy in the shower of the Penn State locker room. This 28 year old “man” did not call the police, but instead called his father. His father told him to report it to Joe Paterno. McQueary waited until the next morning, then went to JoePa’s house and told him about it. They decided the best way to handle it would be to talk to Tim Curley, Penn’s athletic director. Two weeks later McQueary found out that Sandusky had been “punished” by having his keys to the locker room taken away.

This was the rape of a 10 year old boy by a coach at Penn state and the adult that witnessed it didn’t think “maybe I should call the police”, let alone try and stop it? He might as well have held the boy down for Sandusky.

And it gets worse. McQueary is still a coach for Penn. Why in the hell hasn’t he been fired? This guy witnessed a felony being committed on school grounds by a member of the staff and didn’t report it to campus police. He should be in cuffs for this, yet he still has a job.

This whole thing reeks of the Catholic sex abuse scandal all over again. The school was worried about image instead of the innocent victims their monster was allowed to prey upon. Every single person with knowledge of what happened should, at the minimum, lose their job, if not face criminal charges.

Something else is really bothering me over this. There seems to be a lot of people out there feeling bad for JoePa. Yes he was an icon of Happy Valley for decades, but he was 76 at the time of hearing McQueary’s witnessed accounts and didn’t think the police should be involved. JoePa might as well have been there holding the boy down as well and it really pisses me off more to see responses by the Penn State students like this and this:

It’s a good thing no one knows who this boy (or the others) is, because their life would probably be in jeopardy today. A lot of die hard fans appear to be thinking that these boys should have “taken one for the team”.

And while a federal investigation has now been launched, more needs to be done. College football as a whole can and should suffer for this, but the NCAA has the ability to do some damage control. The NCAA has  the “death penalty”, which is their power to ban a school from competing in a sport for at least one year. It was famously done against SMU in the 80’s for recruiting violations. What happened at Penn State is far more egregious than anything that happened at SMU. The NCAA should come out today and announce that all Penn State athletic programs are suspended indefinitely, pending the outcome of all investigations and the institution of policies to prevent further cover-ups. The entire school should be punished for what has happened and this is a good start to it.

It’s obvious that Jerry Sandusky is a very sick man, but he is also a victim here. The ones who knew about Sandusky and didn’t do anything about it are enablers of Sandusky’s sickness and until more of the people involved are behind bars, lady justice has failed our children again.

UPDATE:

I meant to mention this, but forgot. I will admit this story really has me enraged and it’s hard to think straight. When Paterno learned that the board of trustees had terminated him, this was the start of his statement:

“I am disappointed with the Board of Trustees’ decision, but I have to accept it.

Again, Paterno was made aware of one of his subordinates raping a 10 year old boy ON SCHOOL PROPERTY and didn’t report it to the police. Paterno doesn’t deserve any respect. But many are looking at Paterno as being caught up in this and not complicit in anyway. Here’s the right wing blog Scared Monkeys:

What a sad, tragic and pathetic end to a college football coaching icon. Joe Paterno, the winningest coach in Division I NCAA football leaves the game in disgrace following the child sex abuse scandal that has rocked Happy Valley and Penn State. How could it have come to this? Honestly, as a long time Paterno fan and having known individuals that have attended PSU, I am stunned. How could a hideous pedophile like Jerry Sandusky have brought down such a beloved man like JOE PA? Oh sorry, alleged hideous, pig SOB pedophile Sandusky. If there is any justice, Sandusky will get his in the State Penn that he did to little boys at Penn State. Also, how could anyone at Penn State, including Paterno, have not done more to protect the children and not covered up this terrible crime? Did they think it would be forever just swept under the rug?

Want to know what a sad day was? It was when a 10 year old boy (and other boys) were subjected to the sexual abuse at the hand of Jerry Sandusky. Many fans fail to realize that these innocent children were the real victims. Sandusky, McQueary and Paterno are all guilty in this. Sandusky for the actual crime and McQueary and Paterno (as well as others that knew) for doing nothing to prevent it from happening again by reporting it to the police.