How deep did coverup go in Penn State child sex abuse case?

I wonder how long it took him to learn to say all of that **** about how clean and wonderful the place was, and not see Coach Jerry ******* some poor kid in the showers in his head..

Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Jack Raykovitz, who for 28 years headed the social-services agency founded by a Penn State University football coach accused of child sex abuse, has resigned, the Second Mile foundation said in a news release.

The board accepted the resignation of Raykovitz yesterday and said in the release that “both Dr. Raykovitz and the board believe this is in the best interests of the organization.”

“I have submitted, and the board has accepted, my resignation as president/CEO of the Second Mile,” Raykovitz said in a written statement released at the Second Mile office in State College. “Providing any statement beyond that sentence takes the focus from where it should be -- on the children, young adults and families who have been impacted.”

According to the grand jury report, the graduate assistant said he saw a boy, whose age he estimated at 10 years old, "being subjected to anal intercourse" by a naked Sandusky in a shower at the Penn State football building in March 2002. The graduate assistant left "immediately," was "distraught" and called his father, according to the presentment. His father told him to leave the building and come to his home, according to the presentment.

In the email obtained by The Morning Call, dated Nov. 8, McQueary said "I did stop it, not physically, but made sure it was stopped when I left that locker room."

"No one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30-45 seconds," McQueary wrote. "Trust me."

I can imagine at least one ten-year-old boy who wouldn't have minded trading places with you, Mike

The State College police chief said Wednesday that former Penn State graduate assistant Mike McQueary never reported allegations of child sex abuse against Jerry Sandusky to the department.

"Absolutely not," State College Police Chief Tom King told NBC News when asked if McQueary had ever come to them with allegations concerning Sandusky, a former defensive coordinator for the Penn State football team.
"We don't have any records of him coming to us," King said.

McQueary, now an assistant football coach, wrote in a Nov. 8 email to a friend that he stopped an alleged sexual assault by Sandusky on a 10-year-old boy in 2002 and discussed it with police afterward.
"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 .... no one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30-45 seconds ... trust me," he wrote

Penn State and the 'Bystander Effect': Would you have done more?

How do you explain the failure of college officials to report the alleged sexual abuse of boys by a Penn State coach? People are really good at self-deception, writes David Brooks. We inflate our own virtues and predict we will behave more nobly than we actually do.

By David Brooks
Syndicated columnist

First came the atrocity, then came the vanity. The atrocity is what Jerry Sandusky has been accused of doing at Penn State. The vanity is the outraged reaction of a zillion commentators over the past week, whose indignation is based on the assumption that if they had been in Joe Paterno's shoes, or assistant coach Mike McQueary's shoes, they would have behaved better. They would have taken action and stopped any sexual assaults.

Unfortunately, none of us can safely make that assumption. Over the course of history — during the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide or the street beatings that happen in American neighborhoods — the same pattern has emerged. Many people do not intervene. Very often they see but they don't see.

Some people simply can't process the horror in front of them. Some people suffer from what the psychologists call Normalcy Bias. When they find themselves in some unsettling circumstance, they shut down and pretend everything is normal.

Some people suffer from Motivated Blindness; they don't see what is not in their interest to see. Some people don't look at the things that make them uncomfortable. In one experiment, people were shown pictures, some of which contained sexual imagery. Machines tracked their eye movements. The people who were uncomfortable with sex never let their eyes dart over to the uncomfortable parts of the pictures.

As Daniel Goleman wrote in his book "Vital Lies, Simple Truths," "In order to avoid looking, some element of the mind must have known first what the picture contained, so that it knew what to avoid. The mind somehow grasps what is going on and rushes a protective filter into place, thus steering awareness away from what threatens."

Even in cases where people consciously register some offense, they still often don't intervene. In research done at Penn State and published in 1999, students were asked if they would make a stink if someone made a sexist remark in their presence. Half said yes. When researchers arranged for that to happen, only 16 percent protested.

In another experiment at a different school, 68 percent of students insisted they would refuse to answer if they were asked offensive questions during a job interview. But none actually objected when asked questions like, "Do you think it is appropriate for women to wear bras to work?"

So many people do nothing while witnessing ongoing crimes, psychologists have a name for it: the Bystander Effect. The more people are around to witness the crime, the less likely they are to intervene.

Online you can find videos of savage beatings, with dozens of people watching blandly. The Kitty Genovese case from the '60s is mostly apocryphal, but hundreds of other cases are not. A woman was recently murdered at a yoga clothing store in Maryland while employees at the Apple Store next door heard the disturbing noises but did not investigate. Ilan Halimi, a French Jew, was tortured for 24 days by 20 Moroccan kidnappers, with the full knowledge of neighbors. Nobody did anything, and Halimi eventually was murdered.

People are really good at self-deception. We attend to the facts we like and suppress the ones we don't. We inflate our own virtues and predict we will behave more nobly than we actually do. As Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel write in their book, "Blind Spots," "When it comes time to make a decision, our thoughts are dominated by thoughts of how we want to behave; thoughts of how we should behave disappear."

In centuries past, people built moral systems that acknowledged this weakness. These systems emphasized our sinfulness. They reminded people of the evil within themselves. Life was seen as an inner struggle against the selfish forces inside. These vocabularies made people aware of how their weaknesses manifested themselves and how to exercise discipline over them. These systems gave people categories with which to process savagery and scripts to follow when they confronted it. They helped people make moral judgments and hold people responsible amid our frailties.

But we're not Puritans anymore. We live in a society oriented around our inner wonderfulness. So when something atrocious happens, people look for some artificial, outside force that must have caused it — like the culture of college football, or some other favorite bogey. People look for laws that can be changed so it never happens again.

Commentators ruthlessly vilify all involved from the island of their own innocence. Everyone gets to proudly ask: "How could they have let this happen?"

The proper question is: How can we ourselves overcome our natural tendency to evade and self-deceive. That was the proper question after Abu Ghraib, Bernie Madoff, the Wall Street follies and a thousand other scandals. But it's a question this society has a hard time asking because the most seductive evasion is the one that leads us to deny the underside of our own nature.

David Brooks is a regular columnist for The New York Times.

More fodder for discussion ...

Penn State and the 'Bystander Effect': Would you have done more?

How do you explain the failure of college officials to report the alleged sexual abuse of boys by a Penn State coach? People are really good at self-deception, writes David Brooks. We inflate our own virtues and predict we will behave more nobly than we actually do.

By David Brooks
Syndicated columnist

First came the atrocity, then came the vanity. The atrocity is what Jerry Sandusky has been accused of doing at Penn State. The vanity is the outraged reaction of a zillion commentators over the past week, whose indignation is based on the assumption that if they had been in Joe Paterno's shoes, or assistant coach Mike McQueary's shoes, they would have behaved better. They would have taken action and stopped any sexual assaults.

Unfortunately, none of us can safely make that assumption. Over the course of history — during the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide or the street beatings that happen in American neighborhoods — the same pattern has emerged. Many people do not intervene. Very often they see but they don't see.

Some people simply can't process the horror in front of them. Some people suffer from what the psychologists call Normalcy Bias. When they find themselves in some unsettling circumstance, they shut down and pretend everything is normal.

Some people suffer from Motivated Blindness; they don't see what is not in their interest to see. Some people don't look at the things that make them uncomfortable. In one experiment, people were shown pictures, some of which contained sexual imagery. Machines tracked their eye movements. The people who were uncomfortable with sex never let their eyes dart over to the uncomfortable parts of the pictures.

As Daniel Goleman wrote in his book "Vital Lies, Simple Truths," "In order to avoid looking, some element of the mind must have known first what the picture contained, so that it knew what to avoid. The mind somehow grasps what is going on and rushes a protective filter into place, thus steering awareness away from what threatens."

Even in cases where people consciously register some offense, they still often don't intervene. In research done at Penn State and published in 1999, students were asked if they would make a stink if someone made a sexist remark in their presence. Half said yes. When researchers arranged for that to happen, only 16 percent protested.

In another experiment at a different school, 68 percent of students insisted they would refuse to answer if they were asked offensive questions during a job interview, but none actually objected when asked questions like, "Do you think it is appropriate for women to wear bras to work?"

So many people do nothing while witnessing ongoing crimes, psychologists have a name for it: the Bystander Effect. The more people are around to witness the crime, the less likely they are to intervene.

Online you can find videos of savage beatings, with dozens of people watching blandly. The Kitty Genovese case from the '60s is mostly apocryphal, but hundreds of other cases are not. A woman was recently murdered at a yoga clothing store in Maryland while employees at the Apple Store next door heard the disturbing noises but did not investigate. Ilan Halimi, a French Jew, was tortured for 24 days by 20 Moroccan kidnappers, with the full knowledge of neighbors. Nobody did anything, and Halimi eventually was murdered.

People are really good at self-deception. We attend to the facts we like and suppress the ones we don't. We inflate our own virtues and predict we will behave more nobly than we actually do.

As Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel write in their book, "Blind Spots," "When it comes time to make a decision, our thoughts are dominated by thoughts of how we want to behave; thoughts of how we should behave disappear."

In centuries past, people built moral systems that acknowledged this weakness. These systems emphasized our sinfulness. They reminded people of the evil within themselves. Life was seen as an inner struggle against the selfish forces inside.

These vocabularies made people aware of how their weaknesses manifested themselves and how to exercise discipline over them. These systems gave people categories with which to process savagery and scripts to follow when they confronted it. They helped people make moral judgments and hold people responsible amid our frailties.

But we're not Puritans anymore. We live in a society oriented around our inner wonderfulness.

So when something atrocious happens, people look for some artificial, outside force that must have caused it — like the culture of college football, or some other favorite bogey. People look for laws that can be changed so it never happens again.

Commentators ruthlessly vilify all involved from the island of their own innocence. Everyone gets to proudly ask: "How could they have let this happen?"

The proper question is: How can we ourselves overcome our natural tendency to evade and self-deceive. That was the proper question after Abu Ghraib,

Bernie Madoff, the Wall Street follies and a thousand other scandals. But it's a question this society has a hard time asking because the most seductive evasion is the one that leads us to deny the underside of our own nature.

David Brooks is a regular columnist for The New York Times.

Sandusky case triggers pain well beyond campus
As adults, men suffer nightmares, anger, anxiety from childhood abuse





By Kari Huus
Reporter

msnbc.com
updated 11/16/2011 2:01:09 PM ET


As the Penn State sex abuse scandal unfolds — ghastly detail by detail — on front pages, the airwaves and Twitter accounts, the news can be especially devastating for one group in particular: former victims of sexual abuse.

“Another night of triggers and flashbacks,” writes a forum member on MaleSurvivor.org, a website devoted to healing male victims of sexual abuse. “… I felt him all over me and my arms are scratched as I try to get the feeling of his hands off me. … I think all the (Penn State) news set the triggers off, and now I am like a zombie, trying to recover and move forward today.”

“I never met Jerry Sandusky, but feel I know him all too well,” writes another member of the forum, referring to the university’s former defensive coordinator who stands accused of sexually molesting at least eight young boys. “I dealt with my own ‘Jerry’ when I was 12 or 13. … Now that he is sated and I am long forgotten, I'm still picking up the pieces.”

“This whole thing is devastating me. These boys are lost in the details ... just as most of us here were,” the member added.

Psychologists say that any sex abuse victim — man or woman — may find that news of the Penn State case sparks painful memories. But the way this case is unfolding strikes an especially deep chord with men.

“It can be very triggering of either their own memories — they may get flashbacks — or they may get angry again,” said Richard Gartner, a psychologist and psychoanalyst in New York, and spokesman for Malesurvivor.org. Some men may have to limit their news consumption, and maybe avoid watching football to avoid a panic attack or bout of depression, he said.

“It is re-traumatizing for them — more so to the extent that they believe that this is being handled wrong … and ignoring the needs of the victims.”

Different experience for boys
Sexual abuse has a different impact on boys than on girls, and they deal with it differently because of socialization, experts say.

“Men aren’t supposed to be victims. Men are supposed to be strong,” said Jim Hopper, clinical instructor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. “A man says I’m not a real man, because I let someone do this to me. I should have been tougher. Even after years of therapy they say this.”

Girls who are abused by men are psychologically damaged, to be sure, experts say, but boys abused by men often come to question their sexual identity and orientation.

“If they were sexually abused by a man, there’s this whole stigma — does that mean I’m gay, or did he do it to me because I look gay?” says Hopper.

Another difference: Boys who are forced into sexual acts may have an erection — a physiological response which makes them all the more confused and ashamed of the encounter, Gartner says.

The women’s movement helped bring sexual assault of females into the public eye — and led to tougher penalties against attackers, more policy aimed at prevention and better access to care for victims. The focus on sexual abuse of boys came nearly 20 years later, when hundreds of childhood victims went public with stories of abuse by Catholic priests, according to Gartner.

Shame, silence, secrecy
Still, the shame and stigma makes it less common for boys to report abuse and seek help than girls, studies show.

“Men tend to come into treatment much later in life,” said Gartner. “Usually they are in their 30s, 40s or 50s — occasionally in their 70s — never having spoken about this.”

Their reluctance to talk about abuse is partly to blame for the perception that sexual abuse of boys is rare, Gartner said.

Research shows that about one in six boys are sexually abused before they are 16 years old, according to Hopper, a founding board member of the nonprofit organization 1in6, which aims to help men deal with abuse they experienced as children, and provides comprehensive resources on 1in6.org.

The number for girls is one in four. The statistics do not include verbal harassment or other forms of non-physical sexual abuse, such as forcing a child to watch a sexual act.

Reports of sexual abuse by boys are still more likely to be dismissed, researchers say, which can intensify the victim’s pain and difficulty later in life.

"Boys who are sexually abused are mostly disbelieved, or it is minimized," said Gartner. "They're told, 'just get over it'."

"They learn that nobody’s safe," said Hopper. "That’s really devastating. … that people who were supposed to protect me are not going to help me, they are blaming me!"

That perception by a child can lead to a wide array of problems as they grow older, including depression, anxiety, emotional numbing, substance abuse, and difficulty forming healthy relationships.

PTSD in high gear
Robert Brown, 51, who is now open about his story, was repeatedly sexually assaulted over the course of seven years when he was a child. He says the perpetrators were older boys who were favored because they were top athletes in his small New Hampshire town, while his plight was ignored by adults.

Brown did not acknowledge the problem to anyone until four years ago, when he was blindsided by a severe bout of post-traumatic stress.

Now he is a child protection activist, and shares his story with other members on the MaleSurvivor.org forum, many of whom keep their abuse secret. He also gives talks on the issue.

“In my lifetime and in my time with all other survivors that I know, the Penn State case is the most earth-shattering one for us to face,” Brown said in an interview.

“Probably because of the authority abused and the trust abused by the sports program and by Jerry Sandusky. It gets worse when we see that it’s underprivileged kids being so badly abused as if they are throwaway people," he added.

“We identify very, very strongly with these boys. And we identify with the poor handling of this. To think there are 15-year-old cases that have never been dealt with," Brown said. “It kicks off the (post-traumatic stress) into high gear — nightmares, flashbacks, extreme depression. It’s been some of the worst few days of my life emotionally.”

Gartner said that while the Penn State case has clearly caused pain and anguish for men struggling with the aftermath of abuse, it does demonstrate that perceptions have changed since the 1980s, when he started treating sexually abused men.

“Before the (Catholic) church scandal, even in professional meetings, people rolled their eyes, feeling that (sexual abuse of boys) happened rarely,” said Gartner. “Now, nobody seems to be saying it doesn’t happen. It does give people courage to come forward and disclose and get help, and that’s positive.”

I'm about to look like a dummy. My purpose in posting the David Brooks column was to encourage more discussion in this thread. I was not endorsing the column. I actually disagree with Brooks on a number of points, but I don't have time to say what they are. So, again, I'm the dummy of this thread.

I'm about to look like a dummy. My purpose in posting the David Brooks column was to encourage more discussion in this thread. I was not endorsing the column. I actually disagree with Brooks on a number of points, but I don't have time to say what they are. So, again, I'm the dummy of this thread.

Hopefully Paterno stays alive long enough to help get to the bottom of what really happened here.

Was he a witness?? I think not.

Was he a witness?? I think not.

It looks very clear that Sandusky was pushed out, and it would have to have been Paterno who did it. We need to know why. Did Paterno think that Sandusky was too goofy, not dedicated enough to football, and abuser of kids? a creeper?

Paterno needs to explain.

Paterno needs to explain

Quote:

Paterno needs to explain

Paterno owes the collective an explanation, if he does not do it then he will have failed us.