This week, one story preempted the news cycle in Philadelphia, permeating into the national media: the Penn State sex-abuse scandal.
Last Saturday, police arrested Jerry Sandusky, ex-defensive coordinator for Penn State’s football team, on 40 counts of child sex-abuse charges. Police also arrested PSU athletic director Tim Curley and senior vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz for not reporting the incidents to authorities.
Earlier this week, head coach Joe Paterno — who also knew about the abuse and failed to report it to police — announced he would retire at the end of this season.
Some have called for the resignation of university president Graham Spanier, arguing that he should have done more to respond to the incidents.
According to the grand jury report, Sandusky is alleged to have abused eight preteen and teenage boys from 1994-2008. A ninth came forward this week.
At least twice, according to the report, university employees saw Sandusky engaged in sexual abuse in the showers of the Lasch Football Building at PSU after he retired in 1999.
According to the report, university and State College police and the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare investigated Sandusky in 1998; the Centre County attorney general closed the case without filing charges.
In 2002, after a graduate assistant witnessed abuse, Sandusky’s keys to the Penn State locker room were taken away, but authorities are not contacted.
In 2008, Sandusky is barred from Clinton County school district after one victim’s mother reported abuse to her son’s school and the school called authorities.
Also in 2008, the charity Sandusky founded in 1977 for at-risk youth, The Second Mile, separated him from programs involving contact with youth after it learned he was under investigation.
The case is disturbing on many, many levels. But there are several questions that have yet to be answered.
Why did authorities — State College police, university police, the county district attorney and the attorney general — take so long to bring charges against Sandusky? Even if the 2008 case is the only case considered, it has still been more than three years since the incident.
When any crime is in progress, isn’t it standard to arrest the alleged perpetrator right away? Isn’t there a higher standard when it comes to child abuse?
Though Sandusky no longer had direct access to youth at The Second Mile after 2008, who is to say he had no contact with youth?
After years of Penn State employees turning a blind eye — protecting one of their own or their precious reputation, it matters not — why didn’t state authorities act sooner?
If the attorney general’s office — Gov. Corbett was AG at the time — began investigating the case in early 2009, why did it take so long to arrest Sandusky, who could have gone on to violate other minors?
Did Sandusky receive special treatment because of who he was?
Unfortunately, this case of a serial child sex abuser reeks of another old boys’ club: the Catholic Church.