Mike McQueary should have taken matters into his own hands when he saw the locker room rape, both by beating the crap out of Sandusky and by calling the cops immediately. Instead, he waited a day to tell anyone anything, and now everyone assumes that he told Paterno the full story and that he sounded credible while doing it. I'm sure he said something to Paterno, but there's a big difference between "I saw Sandusky with a kid and it looked like he might have been doing something inappropriate," and "I saw Sandusky anally raping a boy." Who knows which it was, but I can't imagine him being too forthcoming with the fact that he saw a child being raped and quietly walked away so that Sandusky could finish the deed. Of corse, now McQueary claims that he told the full story, but he'd say that to cover his ass whether he did or not.
Some people will say that no matter what Paterno knew, he should have reported the incident to the police. If he believed McQueary, then I agree. But if McQueary just said that it didn't look appropriate, I don't blame Paterno for following protocol, especially if he talked to Sandusky and found his story to be more believable that McQueary's version of events.
If someone came to you with a story about one of your office friends behaving in appropriately with a child, are you going to call the cops, or are you going to report it to the boss and talk to your friend? It probably depends on the details of what you were told, how much you trust the accuser, how much you trust the accused and how much faith you have in your boss to thoroughly investigate the claim and go to the police if appropriate. We don't know any of that here and university isn't allowing Paterno to tell his side of the story, but rather than wait for the facts to come out, every idiot with a newspaper column is calling for him to be fired.
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