Penn State Scandal: What if McQueary DID go to the police?

A day after Jerry Sandusky gave an interview that has the wires buzzing, accuser Mike McQueary has written an email to friends which has surfaced, and in which he claims that he is being unfairly vicitmized byt hose claiming he didn’t do enough,and particularly by those who say he did not stop the assault and/or contact the police.  According the email, McQuear maintain:  “I did stop it, not physically … but made sure it was stopped when I left that locker room … I did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police,” McQueary said in the email dated Nov. 8. He added, “no one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30-45 seconds … trust me.”

If true, the question becomes — so when you talked to Paterno the next day, did you tell him that you’d already talked to the police – because presumably if you “made sure it stopped when I left that locker room” but did not stop it physically, that must mean you contacted the campus police right away, right?

And if that’s the case, how does that affect Paterno’s posture?

If McQueary told Paterno on Saturday that he’d already talked to the police, wouldn’t that change the view of Paterno’s alleged inaction.  Under such a scenario, Paterno’s role was reduced to facilitating the administrative response — because the legal/police response had already been set in motion by McQueary was was, after all, the witness who saw it (crucial, of course, in a legal sense).

But if that’s the case, why didn’t Paterno say so in his Grand Jury testimony?  Is it that no one asked him the question: “Did you consider going to the police?”

Meanwhile, Penn State campus official and State College police are completely stonewalling any journalists looking for public record documents on the case.  Isn’t that interesting?  Because …. if he went to them — and they didn’t investigate.  Amazing.

My own reaction to the fairness or unfairness of the abrupt firing of Paterno is swinging back and forth like a pendulum.  First I thought it was unfair because he did report it up the chain of command and he didn’t know much about it.  Then it began to look like he had to know a lot more than he was letting on (the 1998 incident and Sandusky’s abrupt retirement thereafter, etc) and I thought maybe the Board of Trustees had good information about that.

But this new info, if verified, would once again make it look like the board acted hastily.  If MQueary had already talked to the police – it’s a game changer in terms of JoePa’s culpability.

UPDATE:  State College police chief Tom King has just been quoted as saying that  Mike McQueary did not report his allegations of child sexual abuse gainst Jerry Sandusky to the State College police department.