By Payton Wales
So much has come to pass in just a few days. The downfall of a legend, a person whom most of the nation painted as a pillar of moral excellence has failed us, not just as a fan base or a state or nation but as a educator and caretaker. There is anger among so many, and rightfully so. After all, we are talking about child abuse and sexual molestation. It's ugly and it's gross and it's tough to deal with.
It hits closer to home for me. I was sexually molested and abused as a child over two years while under the care of child protective services. Enough so that there is no reason I should be the person I am today. Enough that I feel I should be some psychologically-twisted misfit. But I'm not, and that's due in large part to the love I received from my extended biological family who worked their asses off to eventually be my caretakers, a family who, until this moment, had little to no knowledge of what happened to me as a child.
That why this Penn State situation has me in knots. It brings up so many of the same questions I had growing up. When blame was passed around, I asked for more answers. When people called for Joe Paterno's head, I said "Wait wait wait." Not because I have loved Penn State my entire life and felt Paterno should be in the clear, but because upon reading the grand jury testimony, the first thing that struck me was Mike McQueary's actions.
I need to know why a 28-year-old man watched Jerry Sandusky perform "anal intercourse" on a boy "he estimated to be ten years old" and chose to walk away from the locker room without so much as a word to Sandusky. To take it a step further, he left the facility all together and went home to ask his father what he should do. WHY!? Why didn't he pick up a phone? Call the police. Call campus security. It does not add up. You can't tell me there wasn't a phone somewhere in the facility. Hell, it was 2002, more than likely McQueary had a cell phone. How does a 28-year-old man walk away from seeing the rape of a 10-year-old?
What's worse is the general public and some media have made excuses for McQueary. "It was one moment of inaction, how can you judge him?" "We all say we would do something but in the heat of the moment ... you never know." "Sandusky was a father figure to him and he was confused."
None of these excuses are acceptable, not in the least. If these excuses are not good enough for Paterno's inaction -- and they are not -- then how in the hell are people applying them to a man who is far more culpable than Paterno?
Don't get pulled into the malignant lie that because Paterno had all the power, or perceived power depending on your level of naivety, that it makes him more culpable than anyone else. That's a false and moronic assumption. Each man had the power to pick up a phone. One man had the power to stop the whole thing in its tracks as it was happening.
I heard Dan Patrick respond to a comment today about placing the blame on Paterno first with the comment of "you have to start somewhere." Yes, you do at the beginning, and that beginning was McQueary, not Paterno. That should have been the first media target. He should have been the first name read in last night's press conference, the first man fired.
Don't get these words toward Paterno's culpability confused with me coming to his defense. I want and need answers about his role and I'm not willing to lay blame until I know the whole story. I'm sorry; I can't do that. Blame should be placed where blame is due. Should Paterno have picked up a phone? Yes. Did Sandusky stay under his employ after the incident was reported? Apparently yes.
But what did Paterno really know? This is a huge question. What was Paterno told? All I know at this moment is what the Grand Jury testimony tells me: "Joseph V. Paterno testified to receiving the graduate assistant's report at his home on Saturday morning. Paterno testified that the graduate assistant was very upset. Paterno called Tim Curley ("Curley"), Penn State Athletic Director and Paterno's immediate superior, to his home the very next day, a Sunday, and reported to him that the graduate assistant had seen Jerry Sandusky in the Lasch Building showers fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy."
In the Grand Jury testimony, it appears the story told to Paterno by McQueary was an attenuate version. Why? Why would you ever dilute something so serious when reporting it to an authority figure? Yet both McQueary and Paterno's testimony are considered credible and accurate to each other.
The "mandatory reporting statute for suspected child abuse is located at 23 Pa.C.S. ?63l1 (Child Protective Services Law) and provides that when a staff member reports abuse, pursuant to statute, the person in charge of the school or institution has the responsibility and legal obligation to report or cause such a report to be made by telephone and in writing within 48 hours to the Department of Public Welfare of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."
Did Paterno do his job to the letter of the law? Yes. I dare you to tell me different. He did exactly what he needed to in this instance because he was not the person who witnessed the crime, and Curley is Paterno's authority. Outside of McQueary, Curley is the only other person with the authority to report this for the school. Paterno did his job to the letter of the law up to that point. He took action, calling the person he trusted to do the right thing in a timely manner and, according to testimony, he trusted Curley to file the report and investigate. Anything beyond that is an assumption.
Did he say he should have done more? Yes. Does that mean he has been living in guilt for 10 years? I don't know. It is possible he just came to the realization his friend is a monster. I doubt he knew about all eight victims. It's possible he was convinced there was none. A lot of other people were, why is he different?
What did Curley and Gary Schultz, former Penn State vice president, tell Paterno after he presented this information to them? Did Paterno follow through again? There was a second meeting after all. I doubt there was zero discussion of the topic after it came up. Did these two men, who just finished being indicted for lying to a grand jury, possibly lie to Paterno?
They could have told Paterno campus police investigated and found nothing in order to protect their university and themselves. After all, it was reported Curley knew of the allegations against Sandusky. I'm not going to be naive and say they couldn't pull the wool over the eyes of a 75-year-old Joe Paterno. Anything is possible. It's possible they all conspired to sweep this under the rug.
Some other things I need to mention here. In the state of Pennsylvania, the law states campus police possess the same authority on campuses as municipal officers. Meaning, if Curley told Paterno campus police had become involved, then by all account the police had been involved. If this is told to Paterno, then what's his accountability since as a major authority figure at the school it could be assumed he would know this rule.
Also, how did Sandusky have so many people fooled? It's not as though he had two or three fooled, but by all accounts we might be talking hundreds of people who had known of previous accusations and yet still believed this man, believed he really cared about these kids in a genuine and compassionate way and not as the sick depraved monster that he is.
We keep labeling Paterno an enabler, someone who made it possible for him to rape more children, as if he handpicked the kids this monster attacked. But if we are going to label Paterno, then we need to label some other people, too.
Sandusky's wife, his children, his adoptive children, his foster children, child protective services, his friends, the people at The Second Mile Foundation, his bosses at any and all jobs since the first accusation then fall under this category of enabler, right?
Have we stopped to ask how so many people let this go on for so many years? They all knew of these accusations, all of them. Are they all enablers? Or is it possible somehow Sandusky convinced them all this was just false accusations? After all, that's what predators do. Cover their tracks, convince you they are something they are not. It's the personification of the saying, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Ask any profiler of child molesters and murderers, these people survive by convincing people there is no way accusations like this could be true about them. It's how they blend in for years, start families and hold jobs.
Sandusky is obviously an effective predator. Look at the facts. Not one of the current victims was picked in his first year in the Foundation. All were picked in the second year, after Sandusky had time to study their personalities and manipulate their minds. Just as he has done to the people around him his entire life to hide the monster he really is. We haven't even started to ask how many victims there were before he even arrived at Penn State. How many when he was in his 20s. What about his teens? How long has he had to learn to blend in, to convince others?
If that's a possibility, then it's very possible Paterno sat Sandusky down, confronted him, asked him for the truth about the situation. And it's also possible he convinced the coach the accusations were baseless, false or inaccurate. After all, look at how many others he fooled. Is this idea so far fetched?
Not for me. I've dealt with a predator firsthand. The worst part is it was a foster sibling, someone who was still under the age of 20. I told people for years and that sibling convinced everyone -- police, case workers, the parents, counselors -- that I was simply lying, lashing out at them because I had been taken away from my biological mother. So in this situation, this rabbit hole can be deeper, muddier and more complex than anyone can imagine.
I know I'm coming across as a Paterno defender, but I'm not. I'm a seeker of answers. As a person who has been through this type of abuse, I want answers. And I can tell you the other victims do too. I want blame to be placed appropriately because I know the guilt of placing anger, blame and rage on the wrong person. That guilt can come back to haunt you when you have been through something like this. I assure you as answers come in, and hopefully they will for the sake of all the victims involved, I will be more than happy to place blame where it belongs.
If Paterno is found to have been a conspirator in some way, then I will gladly place blame and call him a conspirator. But until then, until I have facts, he is just another man who fell victim to the evil devices of a well-trained predator posing as a caring and giving human being.
Trust me when I tell you what has happened in the last few days, the media spectacle and all of the people demanding this and that, is opening wounds that for some of these victims were just starting to heal. Hell, it's opened some of mine. But probably the worst feeling I have through this is so many people are losing focus on who is really guilty here, of who the depraved and vile monster really is and how our actions, riots, accusations, questions and most importantly lack thereof are affecting these victims.
