Penn State failed young victims

Penn State failed young victims

To read the 23-page findings of fact released by the grand jury that indicted Gerald A. Sandusky, a former Penn State football coach, on multiple charges of child molestation over a 15-year period is to be disgusted by the depravity of a man who allegedly preyed on vulnerable boys and to be appalled at the indifference of those university officials who enabled Sandusky.

If half of what the report details is true — and through his lawyer, Sandusky is denying it all — he was a monster. And even after university officials, including then-head football coach, Joe Paterno, had specific accusations against Sandusky brought to their attention in 1998 and 2002, they did nothing more than issue an unenforceable order that Sandusky was not to bring children onto the campus. He still had unfettered access to all of the university’s facilities — which he used and abused.

Two opportunities missed

After a graduate assistant reported in 2002 that he witnessed Sandusky engaging in the rape of a boy estimated to be 10 years old in a shower, no police report was made as required by law. The grand jury stated, “nor was there any attempt to investigate, to identify ‘Victim 2’ or to protect that child or any others from similar conduct, except as related to preventing its reoccurrence on university property.”

Anyone willing to give a pass to Paterno, to Graham Spanier, Penn State’s deposed president, or to any others implicated in the failure to protect children from a predator is blinded by forces that we can’t pretend to understand.