That's quite a spin there. In many institutions, a "procedure" has been set up to allow the institution to avoid public embarrassment. The procedure is there to keep control the situation.
So let's use some common sense here instead. What should you do if you suspect a major crime has been committed, especially a crime against a child?
You call the police. If you fear for your job, you can do it anonymously. Or you can take the moral high ground and risk your job by not being anonymous.
But you don't just mention it to your supervisor. You call the police. And if the crime is serious - and perhaps ongoing - you don't call the company police or the guard at the back gate. You call the municipal police.
Well said.
Sorry. No matter who the PD was, Campus Police, State College Police or the State police they would have been glad handed and told administration will handle this. Which is what happened. The Campus Police Chief should be in jail and fired.
What major crime was Joe told of? What major crime did MM witness? Truth is, MM didn’t witness much of anything (his words). He heard sounds.
The OAG can twist that into anal rape all they want (and they did). That doesn’t make it true, and MM called them on it.
What he told Joe, Curley, and Schultz is still unknown and will hopefully be revealed in the GS/GS/TC trials (going on 3 years now) if they ever happen.
But apparently you were there and know exactly what MM told Joe.
I know nothing about Penn State, nothing much about the people involved other than the news reports, and precious little about college football (though I have some experience with NCAA sports).
My overall take of the situation is that this is where the crack of generational ethics opened into a cavern, and Joe Pa fell into the hole.
In the distant past, crimes against children were considered unspeakable, literally. It would soil you or shame you if you did it, if you received it, and even if you spoke about it. People like JoePa probably were of the sort where it was too vile to think or say such things and he didn’t want to think about it or know about it. Thus he did the bare minimum as required.
I’m sure JoePa tried to be a Good Person and a great coach and didn’t expect or believe that turning his head somewhat regarding this pedophile could touch or affect his stature.
That is the problem. Today, it does. In fact, to many, it annihilates his status as a coach and a good human being. This is a very good topical moral question. Can you still be a great anything if you don’t stick your neck out to protect innocent victims?
My personal belief is, no. Was he a great coach? In some ways. Was he a great person? In some ways. But it’s like a wonderful German man, a scholar, studying in his little cottage around the corner from a concentration camp filled with starving dying Jews.
At some point Gd will call on us all to do the ultimate right thing, and he will be looking to see if we have the true right priorities.
JoePa chose the sanctity of the team and college football and Penn State over the protection of tortured children.
He can never whitewash that out. I feel terrible for him.