Well you have a few facts wrong:
The first incident was investigated by:
1) The local police
2) The state child endangerment agency
3) The state police
Guess what: Sandusky admitted to the mother he took a shower with the kid. The state police got this admission on audio. They looked at the guy, his actions and determined he was grossly inappropriate, but not a child molester, he did not fit the pattern and the entire justice system missed his actions. He was likely a psychopath and fooled the experts, a clever worm. He was warned against such actions and no charges filed.
Exactly how is this on Paterno? What was he supposed to do, mount a vendetta against a man cleared by the criminal justice system? Get real.
On the McQueary incident, you have the facts wrong as well. Badly wrong.
1) Paterno was not at the Sunday meeting.
2) The Sunday meeting was McQueary, his father and a close family friend.
3) the outcome of that meeting was that the father and family friend told Mcqueary to go see Paterno.
4) Paternao listened briefly and told Mcqueary to go see the head of the PSU police department (they are a full police department) and the head of the athletic program.
5) Paterno followed up to see that McQueary did so.
Paterno did nothing more.
Now here is the thing: Having been in a reserve unit and seen how the IG handles investigations (female sexual harassment charges), and having been in a company when a complaint was filed (weird guy trying to charge someone to avoid getting fired) and seeing how those actions went through, that is what you do. You do not at any point in the investigation make judgments, nor are you allowed to, nor are you allowed to speak of the investigation, other than to give what you know when asked by investigators. In fact as a supervisor your training when someone approaches you is to listen just enough to figure out that an issue exists that might be criminal in nature and then stop listening, then direct the fellow to the correct authorities and see he follows though.
Why you ask? Well the police/authorities want to get the statement with minimal tellings, without any questions asked that might shade the story or otherwise alter it. So Paterno did exactly the correct thing, according to stated procedure.
The fact is in the IG cases I knew about (I was a personal sergeant) and in the company issue, we were specifically dictated to neither talk about or act on any suspicion we might have had.
When it all came out a few years later Paterno said to the grand Jury that in retrospect, knowing what Sandusky had been guilty of such crimes, he wished he had done more. Which any one who is around and sees malfeasance wishes he could, but often one is not in such a situation. The fact is the crimes and place Sandusky recruited his victims was at a separate charity Sandusky set up, and folks seem to ignore this organization, which is where the victims were recruited, not at Penn State.
One final comment on this: The kid McQueary saw/heard, he was never raped and Sandusky never charged with a crime on that case, the kid said nothing ever happened, and had he so stated the kid stood to make some serious money off of Penn State. McQueary likely saved this kid, who was likely being groomed for something. But how you can expect Paterno to have responsibility for not making a one man crusade when, once again the criminal justice system did not find a crime had occurred in that case (like 1997), well, I simply do not see how you can expect an 80 year old guy to be omniscient. Prior to all this most PA adults had no idea of the grooming and pedo pattern, it is that case that educated a lot of folks here in PA.
Just for the record, I have no affiliation with Penn State (other than a degree from that university), the athletic department or the Paterno family. But when I was there (1995 to 1997), I saw with my own eyes the many good things that Paterno did. He was the real deal but it would take too long to cover that.
I find folks who have not done the research on this case and yet condemn Paterno to be failing in one Christian duty: not to bear false witness. If you do not know the fats do not put half truths down as you have. You got several details wrong, which a 5 minute search would have corrected.
Something to ponder.
‘On the McQueary incident, you have the facts wrong as well. Badly wrong.’
being off by one day (Saturday or Sunday)is not getting something ‘badly wrong’...
‘So Paterno did exactly the correct thing, according to stated procedure.’
true enough, but you are ignoring the distorted reality of PSU; Mcqueary was advised to report his story not to the authorities but to a football coach; this illustrates the power and influence of Paterno, a position that he himself cultivated, calling it the ‘Paterno Way’...until this story broke, at PSU when Joepa spoke, everybody listened, and most of the time acted...Paterno knew this; he just didn’t want to be bothered, a significant moral failure...