Several thousand Penn State students rioted last night over the firing of long-time football coach Joe Paterno.
Thousands of enraged Penn State students tore through the streets of State College, Pa., overnight to protest the firing of Joe Paterno after the longtime head football coach was removed from his position effective immediately.
Amid chants of “We want JoePa,” “One more game” and “F*** the media!,” rioting students flipped over a television van, knocked a lamppost onto a car, threw toilet tissue and rocks at police and set off fireworks.
Police met the rioting crowds with tear gas as it became clear that the army of officers, who were out in riot gear, were far outnumbered by students. Every local police department in the county contributed officers to the effort to control the crowd, along with state police and the county sheriff’s department.
You would think that the students would be fine with the man being fired. He wasn’t fired because his team is losing. He wasn’t fired arbitrarily or because yesterday was Wednesday.
He was fired for his role in covering up one of his coaches sexual attacks on minor boys in the Penn State locker room, as was the president of the college and two other administrators who did nothing. They have yet to fire Mike McQeary, who reported the attack, and then accepted a full-time position with Penn State afterward while nobody reported the crime to the police. And lest you think that it was not a crime, the child was ten years old, and the then 28-year-old graduate assistant saw Jerry Sandusky raping the boy in the shower. He did not stop the attack. He did not call the police. He told his father. Because after all, it’s far more important not to impugn the reputation of a famous football coach even after you’ve seen him raping a ten-year-old boy.
Prosecutors allege the administrators ignored a 2002 report from a graduate assistant — identified by sources as Mike McQueary — that he saw Sandusky having sex with a young boy in a shower.
McQueary, now an assistant coach for the Nittany Lions football team, went to his father first, then to coach Joe Paterno.
Here’s hoping that he gets fired, too. In nine years, Sandusky attacked even more children.
The three-year investigation eventually ended with a grand jury finding that Sandusky had eight victims — two of them had long-term relationships with Sandusky and six involved shared showers in Lasch Building at Penn State, which houses the football program.
That’s why Paterno was fired. You can say he followed the letter of the law, perhaps. I don’t know the laws about not reporting a child rape. But by not following through, by not speaking out when he knew that Sandusky was still free, and still involved in the charity that brought him into contact with underprivileged children–his victims–Paterno failed in a moral and ethical sense.
The selfish children who rioted last night remind me of their compatriots camping out in cities throughout the country who are covering up sex attacks in their midst because it makes the Occupy movement look bad. But for thousands of students to ignore the fact that children were raped–that’s despicable. Their behavior is disgusting. They should be ashamed of themselves.
The saddest thing about all of this? They’re not.
Technically, Paterno did report it – to the athletic director, his superior. Arguably, he should have told McQuery, who did witness it, to go to the police, but Paterno was not a witness and did not try to cover it up.
I didn’t say he didn’t report it. But neither did he do anything when he knew that Sandusky was still bringing children to the Penn State locker room for years after the first time he was caught. He may not have actively covered it up, but by failing to make sure that Sandusky was punished properly for his crime, Paterno was an accomplice in the molestation that happened years later.
The fact that McQeary didn’t go to the police first and foremost–and especially that he didn’t even try to stop the attack he witnessed–is utterly despicable. The man should be jailed as an accomplice after the fact.
Curiously enough, I saw a lot more coverage of the Penn State riot than the Occupy Oakland rampage. I wonder why.
I hasten to add, if it isn’t clear, that I am in no way at all defending Sandusky or the rest of the establishment at Penn State. I tried reading the grand jury report but left off about halfway through; it’s really disgusting.
Yeah, I stopped reading it as well. Sandusky is going away for life, but he’s already ruined God knows how many boys. Watching those selfish little shits talk about how Paterno shouldn’t be punished because he did what was required of him, and because “he gave so much to Penn State” makes me so angry. Guess what, kiddies? He didn’t give Penn State a fucking thing. They paid him for everything he did. It was a job. It wasn’t a gift.
This is not that hard of a story to understand. The people in charge of Penn State and its football program valued their “legacy” and jobs more than they valued the safety of the children. Their cowardice condemned, god knows, how many more children to additional abuse and all for nothing. Penn State is now known as Pedo State. The leaders of Penn State have lost their jobs and some will being going to jail. If the Penn State administration had done the right thing in 2002 , Joe Paterno would probably have lost his job(Penn State’s football program was slumping) and he would never have become the winning-est coach in history but he would still have his soul. Now he has lost it all.