Posted on 03/10/2013 8:32:44 PM PDT by Colofornian
STATE COLLEGE — Penn State trustee Paul Suhey admits relieving Joe Paterno of his head coaching duties in November 2011 over a late-night phone call was not the right tact.
Stephanie Deviney, another trustee, is certain the whole board feels that way.
“We apologize, we screwed it up as far as how we delivered the message,” Suhey said Friday in an interview. “Our decision, we’re not going to go back on. But we messed that up big time.
“People are still so hurt by that, and you know, damn it, we screwed it up.”
The Paterno decision will go down in the annals as the trigger of when Penn State alumni and diehard fans turned against the board, and the anger has not relented. They email the trustees, write letters — even call them out in advertisements in this newspaper.
But, four trustees, in an interview with the Centre Daily Times’ editorial board, said they are committed to turning the corner, opening up and building on the progress the university has already seen in responding in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky abuse scandal. The trustees — Suhey, Deviney, board Chairman Keith Masser and Paul Silvis — said they hope the university community will meet them in the middle as part of moving forward.
SNIP
The trustees say they did not fire Paterno, thought they stood behind it as the right decision given the details of the presentment.
“We retired him three weeks early,” Suhey said...
(Excerpt) Read more at centredaily.com ...
Are you claiming Sandusky didn't get due process or his many victims?
Yes we do. And Louis Freeh admits it as well. But please continue with your uninformed diatribe.
We do know he did the bare minumum in reporting.
That's not true. He exceeded it as he made sure that his superior's superior was notified and they both met with the witness.
Considering what the allegation was
Ohh I see. It's the seriousness of the charge that makes him guilty -- just like Rush Limbaugh tells us everyday is part of the leftist mindset.
I find the extent of his reporting lacking, and so do most people other than the Joegroupies.
So you're into group think not objective facts. That's how most lefties think.
Am I right???
Are you actually suggesting that Sandusky wasn't having sex of some kind in the shower with a boy as was reported?
Meh, you're incorrigible, defending the indefensible. Good luck with that.......
Are you disagreeing with the jury who heard all the testimony on that incident and found Sandusky innocent of that charge???
Are you saying that you are privy to more information than the jury???
Or are you just saying: "it's the seriousness of the charge that makes him guilty -- the evidence be damned". Therefore he's guilty -- and so is Paterno.
Do your fellow citizens a service, don't serve on any jury.
He died, didn't he?
But he’s being lynched in absentia, isn’t he???
Freeh report
The report by a special investigative group headed by former FBI director Louis Freeh had been commissioned by the Penn State Board of Trustees. After interviewing over 400 people and reviewing over 3.5 million documents, the crux of the report's findings, which were released July 12, 2012, state:
Taking into account the available witness statements and evidence, the Special Investigative Counsel finds that it is more reasonable to conclude that, in order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders at the University — Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley — repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse from authorities, the University's Board of Trustees, the Penn State community, and the public at large.[95]
The Freeh Report states that although the "avoidance of the consequences of bad publicity" was the main driver in failing to protect child abuse victims and report to authorities, the report outlines other causes as well, among which were: "A striking lack of empathy for child abuse victims by the most senior leaders of the University"; a failure of oversight by the Board of Trustees; a University President "who discouraged discussion and dissent"; "a lack of awareness of child abuse issues"; and "a culture of reverence for the football program that is ingrained at all levels of the campus community".[96]
The report outlines how all four men were aware of the 1998 abuse incident in the locker-room shower, and had followed its investigation at the time.[97] Freeh's investigation uncovered a file kept by Schultz in which he wrote notes about Sandusky's 1998 incident. For instance, Schultz wrote: "Is this opening of Pandora's box?" He also wondered, "other children?"[98] Freeh stated that Schultz had "actively sought to conceal those records".[99][100]
The evidentiary weight of Freeh’s report draws heavily upon retrieved emails from 1998 and 2001, which Freeh referred to as “the most important evidence” in the report.[100] The report asserts that these emails demonstrate that in 1998 Paterno knew of the investigation of Sandusky, and followed it closely;[101] and suggest that it was Paterno, "long regarded as the single most powerful official at the university," who persuaded Spanier, Curley, and Schultz not to formally report Sandusky to law enforcement or child welfare authorities. According to The New York Times, the university's handling of the 2001 report of Sandusky raping a young boy is "one of the most damning episodes laid out by Mr. Freeh’s investigation..."[102]
The report states that nobody took any "responsible action after February 2001 other than Curley informing the Second Mile that Mr. Sandusky had showered with a boy"[103] and then telling Sandusky not to bring his “guests” into the Penn State facilities; but the topic of sexual abuse was not broached with Sandusky.[104][105]
The report criticizes Paterno for his failure to “alert the entire football staff, in order to prevent Sandusky from bringing another child into the Lasch Building”.[106]
According to details in the report, despite being aware of Sandusky's sexual misconduct with young boys in the locker-room showers in the Lasch Building in 1998, and 2001, Spanier, Paterno, Curley, and Schultz never restricted Sandusky's access to Penn State facilities. The report states that Sandusky had access to the Lasch Building until November 2011. Over the next ten-year period, Sandusky "was frequently at the Lasch Building working out, showing up at campus events that Penn State supported...He was showering with young boys, staying in dormitories...There are more red flags than you could count, over a long period of time."[98] Consequently, out of the 10 young boys that Sandusky would be convicted of sexually assaulting, most of them were abused after he was investigated in 1998[107] — at least five of them were assaulted "at Penn State’s football facilities and other places on campus after May 1998".[108] After his retirement in 1999, the report notes that Sandusky continued to have “unrestricted and unsupervised access to the University's facilities and affiliation with the university's prominent football program. Indeed, the continued access provided Sandusky with the very currency that enabled him to attract his victims".[106][109]
Beyond the question of building access, the report details that as part of Sandusky’s retirement agreement he could "continue to work with young people through Penn State" for more than a decade, including Second Mile events on campus, youth football camps, etc.[110]
Sandusky's access to Lasch was rescinded in November 2011. In the years previous to that, out of the 10 young boys that Sandusky was convicted of sexually assaulting, most of them were abused after he was investigated in 1998 — with the abuse of at least five of them occurring on the Penn State campus.[107][108]
At the July 12 press conference announcing the report's findings, Freeh stated in his prepared remarks: “The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children Sandusky victimized.” He said they “never demonstrated, through actions or words, any concern for the safety and well-being of Sandusky’s victims” until after he was arrested in 2011.[111]
Lynched? No. Judged? Yes.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/06/12/transcript-joe-paternos-grand-jury-testimony/
Since the Freeh report is wrong, what makes you think the summation will be any better:
The evidentiary weight of Freeh’s report draws heavily upon retrieved emails from 1998 and 2001, which Freeh referred to as “the most important evidence” in the report.
But Paterno didn't use email. So much for the evidence.
Taking into account the available witness statements and evidence, the Special Investigative Counsel finds ...
So they issue a "finding" based on what was "available" not a full or complete investigation. How convenient. Think how cookies would taste if we made them from just what we had available. And yet you eat this stuff up???
"Sandusky's access to Lasch was rescinded in November 2011."
But Sandusky's access to Lasch accompanied by kids was rescinded 10 years earlier after the 2001 incident.
He was told not to bring kids in there anymore by both the Penn State AD and a trustee on the board of his charity -- as Freeh in his report even admits.
And there were no further incidents of molestation by Sandusky on Penn State campus from that day forward.
They conveniently left that part out even though it is in the Freeh Report as well.
The rest of the summation is just as misleading and full of it as the Freeh Report itself.
Give me a break...by this same logic, Penn State could not have fired JoePa for this scandal...or other sports teams/campuses can't fire their coaches for scandals minus convictions...
More extreme exaggerated hyperbole -- of which no one was expecting...nor would have any self-respecting coach done...re: trying to draw even more attention to his program than was necessary...which, of course, was the very cover-up problem to begin with...
#1...I was using a parallel situation...(were a Boy Scout to be raped)
#2...Ask how many sexual abuse victims what the so huge distinction is 'tween "rape" and "something of a sexual nature" (which might include penetration & is broad enough of a description to actually include rape).
But go ahead with the ad hominems...'cause that & hyperbole is most of your verbal "ARSEenal."
So it is true that you are in favor of handing out convictions without a trial, and guilty verdicts without evidence, and pink slips on allegations alone: Cart ... Horse.
Duh.
Of course he is. That is what is posts are all about: Keeping the lynch mob worked up.
It's not a subtle distinction between being raped and not being raped. No one on this thread expects you to have the capacity to understand that. My posts aren't for your benefit. They're for the benefit of people who can actually, think, reason, and understand the law; which includes the difference between allegation and conviction, hearsay and evidence, rape and not rape, ...
OK, here's the thing that might be escaping a Wal-Mart greeter such as yourself. There is a difference between an at-will employee, a tenured professor, someone employed under contract, and a staff employee who must be terminated for cause. At the stage of his career when he was fired, Paterno did not have the protection of either tenure or termination for cause. Curley and Schultz do. So does Spanier.
Again, no one reading the inane piffle you post has any doubt that you think it's perfectly fine for an employer to violate a solemn agreement with an employee, even when there is in fact no evidence of wrongdoing. After all, you think nothing of slandering and defaming someone on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. But for the poor slobs who read your idiotic tripe, some few may actually acknowledge that an employer shouldn't go around firing people simply on the basis of accusations alone.
What’s scary here is that if you just substitute George Zimmerman for Joe Paterno on these threads, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them and the mindless Trayvonistas.
You don't know that. We do know he did the bare minumum in reporting.
Please read those two sentences you just wrote, and then tell me how you can say what you've said with a straight face. Only in the insane world of the PSU/Joe Paterno haters can a man report a crime to the head of the police force and still be accused of "looking the other way," or "covering up." He reported the crime. That is not, by definition, looking away.
Hearsay testimony?
Yep. Please go look up the definition of hearsay, and then come back and talk to me when you know what you're talking about.
Paterno had no direct evidence of any crime. Only McQueary had that. That means that even had Paterno lived, he would not have been called to give testimony, because the only "evidence" he could offer about the shower incident was hearsay. He could give evidence to impeach or verify McQueary's bona fides, but he could not have offered any evidence of Sandusky's wrong doing personally. That's what hearsay evidence is.
he was told by a current assistant coach about things of a sexual nature he saw with a young boy in the shower.
Wrong. McQueary was an intern at that point. Not a coach. Not an assistant. As for what Paterno was told, if we take McQueary's latest sworn statement as "his story," he made it clear he did not reveal to Paterno what he suspected was going on, "out of respect for Joe."
Finally, your assertion that I'm a "Joegroupie" is idiotic. I didn't particularly care for Paterno's coaching for the latter half of his career; his whole Big Ten tenure was actually pretty awful (IMHO) considering the talent he recruited. What I am is someone who's actually conversant with the facts of the case, something that you have revealed you are not in just a few sentences.
I want you to take yourself out of hate mode for a minute and perform the following experiment. This happens tomorrow, not ten or fourteen years ago: You supervise a number of people, and a young intern who is the son of one of them comes to you with a vague claim about wrongdoing. The claim is "of a sexual nature ... and wrong." It involves someone who worked for you for years, who is highly respected for his work in the community. This is ALL YOU KNOW. What, other than putting the person who actually witnessed the crime in touch with the police to you see as your responsibility? Seriously.
You may now resume hate mode, casually slandering anyone you please on the basis of no evidence and the gift of perfect hindsight. [Yet with all that, you still seem unable to see the person actually responsible for the crimes, or to hold him responsible: Jerry Sandusky.]
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.