Of course if Curley or Schultz had known of allegations against Sandusky of prior criminal behavior, rather than just inappropriate activity, their understanding of McQueary's report probably would have been different. But the evidence in the Presentment is that they did not know.
The Grand Jury Presentment did not cite any law that requires the reporting of child abuse to the police, and I know of no such law. In the absence of such a law, reporting suspected child abuse to the police, except when the activity is actually in progress, or when there is a suspected crime scene to process, is probably just extra work for the police without any clear benefit to the child or anyone else. The law definitely requires child protective services to be contacted by certain persons if those persons suspect abuse, and child protective services knows well enough when to bring in the police.
McQueary and the Police.
Recent news reports claim that McQueary sent an email to a friend in which he said he did speak to police about the shower incident. The Grand Jury Presentment may support this claim indirectly, for it states the following:
Schultz testified that " he believed that he and Curley asked "the child protection agency" to look into the matter [McQueary told them about]. Schultz testified that he knew about an investigation of Sandusky [regarding alleged victims 6 and B.K.] that occurred in 1998, [an investigation] that the "child protection agency" had done, and he testified that he believed this same agency was investigating the 2002 report by the graduate assistant. (Additions in brackets.)
Now this testimony by Schultz was given about nine years after the incident, and Schultz also testified that his memory of what McQueary said regarding the incident was imperfect. It is not beyond reason, then, to speculate that Schultz's memory about who reported the matter to child protective services is also hazy, and indeed, mistaken, and that in fact, McQueary spoke to police and mentioned this to Schultz, who then supposed that child protective services had also been notified, either by McQueary or the police. The Grand Jury Presentment says that they found no record of a report of the incident to the police or child protective services by McQueary or anyone else. But lack of a paper trial can be plausibly explained. Recall that according to the Presentment, McQueary's hearers at that time were hearing an indistinct report. Perhaps, then, the policeman with whom McQueary spoke also heard an indistinct report, dismissed the report as Sandusky merely repeating his old inappropriate-but-not-criminal behavior so exhaustively investigated in 1998, and remembered that the District Attorney had declined to prosecute. With this in mind, the policeman decided to keep no record of McQueary's report, and thus avoid yet another apparent waste of police resources. The policeman may have told McQueary he would look into the matter, causing McQueary to expect that the police would notify child protective services. But they did not do so.
If McQueary mentioned to Paterno, Curley, or Schultz that he had spoken to police, they would have had reason to believe that child protective services was investigating the matter, and thus would have had no reason to report the incident.
Allegations against Sandusky.
When evaluating the allegations against Sandusky, it is well to remember a few facts.
Getting on the bus. Some years ago someone installed cameras on a city bus and staged a collision. Immediately after the collision, several bystanders got on the bus and claimed they had been on the bus when the collision occurred and that they had been injured in the collision, all in hopes of receiving a monetary settlement.
Recovered memory. Some years back, many people, through the prompting of counselors, claimed to recover memories of child abuse years earlier by their parents or others. It was mostly or entirely bogus, of course, but prosecutors believed it anyway, and succeeded in putting no few innocent people in jail based on such evidence.
Big-dollar judgments. It has become common of late for adults to claim they were abused as children by persons working within large organizations, sue the organization, and win large judgments.
Now let us consider the Grand Jury's allegations against Sandusky.
The allegations regarding Victims 7, 6, B.K., and F.A are of inappropriate but non-criminal activity. One can only consider these allegations to be crimes if one presumes criminal intent, and it would be immoral and illegal to do that before Sandusky is convicted of child abuse for other activities.
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