Thursday, July 12, 2012

Penn State In Freeh Fall

The hotly anticipated independent review of Penn State's conduct in the conviction of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on pedophile charges is out today, and it paints a brutal and unflinching picture of a university that literally ignored Sandusky's vile, criminal conduct for 14 years, going so far as to say the purposeful ignorance actually empowered Sandusky to hurt kids for over a decade.

In a statement released along with the 267-page report, Louis Freeh, the former FBI director and federal judge who spearheaded the review, blasted several top former officials at the school.

"Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State," Freeh wrote.

"The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized."

He went on to name four former school officials -- former President Graham Spanier, former Vice President Gary Schultz, legendary former head coach Joe Paterno, and former athletic director Tim Curley.

The four men "never demonstrated, through actions or words, any concern for the safety and well being of Sandusky's victims until after Sandusky's arrest," Freeh wrote.

Their failure "to protect against a child sexual predator harming children" lasted "more than a decade," the full report says.

"They exhibited a striking lack of empathy for Sandusky's victims by failing to inquire as to their safety and well being, especially by not attempting to determine the identity of the child who Sandusky assaulted in the Lasch Building in 2001. Further, they exposed this child to additional harm by alerting Sandusky, who was the only one who knew the child's identity, of what (Mike) McQueary saw in the shower on the night of February 9, 2001."

Pretty awful stuff here.  I've long said that as hideous and abhorrent as Sandusky's evil acts were, they pale in comparison to people like JoePa knowing about it for years and doing absolutely nothing to fix the problem or to more importantly save those kids.  Penn State is in really deep legal trouble here based on the review, and frankly I'm glad to see that more heads will roll.

And it's about damn time.

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