The police did nothing "off-field." The district attorney did nothing "off-field." What exactly do you think the Penn. State officials should have done "off-field." Be specific, please.
1998 correct
2002 they were never given the chance. Penn State admins & coaches handcuffed them by not coming forward.
You can also add btw that public welfare did nothing "off-field" in 1998...a public welfare agent interviewed Sandusky in '98
Course of action they should have taken:
Allow me to cite three Scoutmaster posts as he does a better job than I do of being succinct...these are all from previous threads:
(a) Under 23 Pa. C.S. Section 6311, which is the Pennsylvania Child Protective Services Law, when a staff member reports abuse, the person in charge of a school or institution must notify the Department of Public Welfare by telephone and in writing within 48 hours. Joe Paterno isn't the person in charge of Penn State; his obligations to report Sadusky to legal authorities were moral and not legal. By the way, nobody at Penn State notified the Department of Public Welfare.
(b) "Schulz never told the University Police, child welfare, or any law enforcement. Nobody at Penn State did. Not McQueary, Paterno, Curley, nor Schultz. Nobody even tried to find out the identify of the preteen boy who was anally raped."
(c) Scoutmaster added on another thread that Penn State's take was "we're not going to report it to the University Police, child welfare, or any law enforcement agency, or ask the name of the boy, or confront him..."
The University Police found out about Victim #6 from the victim's mother in May 1998. On May 13 and May 19, 1998, the University Police and the State College Police Department eavesdropped on two phone calls between the victims mother and Jerry Sandusky.
Those are the calls in which Jerry Sandusky admitted showering with the boy and said that he had done it with other boys. Sandusky said he hugged the boy, but when asked if his "private parts" touched the boy, said "I don't think so . . . maybe." Sandusky apologized but refused to promise that he would not shower with other boys. (Grand Jury Presentment pages 19-20).
Note that the known extent of Victim #6's abuse was showering once and having Sandusky hug him. The victim's mother spotted the wet hair when her son came home and questioned the boy, then called the University Police.
Note that Sandusky never admitted that his genitals touched the boy.
There was a "long investigation" by the University Police, according to the GJ Presentment. The DA/State College's investigation also involved a similar incident involving an eleven year-old named 'B.J." If that's all that the DA had, given how prominent Sandusky was and how well-known The Second Mile was at that time, you may be able to understand why Sandusky was not prosecuted.
Anyway, we don't know how long a "long investigation" took.
But Sandusky coached the entire 1998 season and one year later, in May 1999, Paterno told Sandusky he would not be Paterno's successor. Maybe that's when the investigation was completed. A few days later, Sandusky announced his resignation, effective at the end of the 1999 season. Sandusky coached the entire 1999 season.
So the police, both the University Police and the State College Police did something. I'm not saying they did enough. But that's what they did.
If you're in a mood to be queasy, Sandusky was bringing a boy (Victim #4) with him as his 'date' to pregame banquets to sit at the coaches' table during both the 1998 and 1999 seasons. I wrote about that here.