BobbyLayne
Footballguy
No Easy Answers for Mike McQueary
Some interesting discussion from an FBI agents who specialized in interrogating pedophiles.
ETA: add relevant spoiler quotes
Some interesting discussion from an FBI agents who specialized in interrogating pedophiles.
Just after 9:30 on the night of March 1, 2002, Mike McQueary walked into the Lasch Football Building to drop a pair of gym shoes in his locker and pick up some recruiting tapes. According to the grand jury report, McQueary heard rhythmic slapping sounds in the shower that he said sounded like sexual activity. When McQueary went to see what was happening, he found Sandusky raping the boy, according to the report.
In the grand jury report, McQueary was described as "distraught." But until we hear from him, we'll never know what he was thinking, feeling or experiencing at that moment. There are few people in the world who can relate. Few who can truly say they know how they'd respond.
Jane Turner is one of them. For 25 years she worked for the FBI as a psychological profiler and an expert in child crimes. She would get child molesters to crack and confess. Law enforcement agencies would bring her in to teach investigators criminal profiling, crime scene assessment, the profiling of sexual offenders and how to interview child victims.
In 1999, she blew the whistle on a series of failures in the bureau to provide protection for child sex crime victims on North Dakota Indian reservations. Her allegations included the cover-up of a rape of a 2-year-old child by declaring her injuries the result of a car accident, and failure to follow-up on evidence that a television personality was sexually molesting children on the reservation. She also caught a fellow agent inappropriately touching a boy at an FBI firing range.
The moment she took her claims to her boss, her life forever changed. She now observes what McQueary is going through as eerily similar.
"Whether you have Penn State, the Catholic Church or the FBI, it's the same phenomenon," said Turner, now a featured speaker for the whistleblowers center's speakers bureau. "An insular culture and a hierarchy where the reputation of the institution is often more important than anything else.
"All of them give you a tremendous amount of power, adulation and glory. There was nothing better than to flash my creds and say 'FBI.' [McQueary] had the same things. The power. The glory. People think you're something special. And it becomes your family. The FBI was my substance, my identity. It was everything. He had the exact same thing."
While it isn't known what happened in the shower between McQueary and Sandusky, Turner said that given her expertise it would have been "100 percent normal" for McQueary to freeze, panic and shut down after seeing what he said he saw.
Turner said most adults have never even seen a photo of a man having sexual relations with a young boy, much less witnessed it. Further complicating things, Turner said, was the fact that Sandusky was seen as a role model in the community and someone McQueary had known nearly his entire life.
"You're trying to comprehend something your brain can't handle," Turner said. "You can't rationalize it. Compute it. Handle it. Most people turn around and walk away. And then they try to figure out, 'Oh my God. What the hell did I just see?' The people who say they would go in there and break it up? They're wrong. Nine times out of 10, that's just not how the human brain works."
In Turner's case, when her superiors disregarded her claims about her colleagues, she took them higher and higher up the FBI ladder, all the way to then-director Louis Freeh. According to the grand jury report, McQueary told Paterno, Curley and Schultz but stopped there. He was never questioned by police. And there is no mention in the report of McQueary approaching the police on his own. Tuesday, The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa., reported that McQueary e-mailed a friend that he "did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of the police."
It also has been reported that even after the incident, McQueary continued to be a supporter of Sandusky at various charity events. Despite all the uncertainty, questions and criticism, Turner understands why a whistleblower might choose to go silent.
"As time passes, you're not going to rock the boat. You're not going to do that. It's your family. Your life. Your career. Your self-identity. Put it on the line and you're going to get destroyed," Turner said. "You walk away from everything. How many people have a moral compass in which they are truly willing to do that? Damn few. Because they get vilified."
The Pennsylvania Child Protective Services Law, instituted in 1975, declares that any individual who comes in contact with children in the course of his her work and believes that a child has been abused is required to notify a person in charge, but not the police. Corbett, Pennsylvania's governor, has said in the wake of this scandal he'd like to see the law strengthened to require witnesses to contact police.
McQueary is believed to have whistleblower protection, which likely is one of the reasons Penn State has placed him on paid administrative leave rather than firing him.
Turner was fired from the FBI in 2003 and four years later won a $1.4 million settlement against the bureau that included back pay and her lawyer's fees. With the information that has been made available to the public thus far, Turner said she doesn't view McQueary as a hero or a villain. Like many whistleblowers, she said, the answer is somewhere in between.
"He's a whistleblower with feet of clay," she said. "He's not perfect. He's not a saint. He's a human being. And he has to live with that."
Turner did give McQueary credit for testifying before the grand jury knowing the potential fallout.
"He had to know that day, sitting in that room, that this ride was going to be a bumpy one," she said. "And now he's learning that."
In the grand jury report, McQueary was described as "distraught." But until we hear from him, we'll never know what he was thinking, feeling or experiencing at that moment. There are few people in the world who can relate. Few who can truly say they know how they'd respond.
Jane Turner is one of them. For 25 years she worked for the FBI as a psychological profiler and an expert in child crimes. She would get child molesters to crack and confess. Law enforcement agencies would bring her in to teach investigators criminal profiling, crime scene assessment, the profiling of sexual offenders and how to interview child victims.
In 1999, she blew the whistle on a series of failures in the bureau to provide protection for child sex crime victims on North Dakota Indian reservations. Her allegations included the cover-up of a rape of a 2-year-old child by declaring her injuries the result of a car accident, and failure to follow-up on evidence that a television personality was sexually molesting children on the reservation. She also caught a fellow agent inappropriately touching a boy at an FBI firing range.
The moment she took her claims to her boss, her life forever changed. She now observes what McQueary is going through as eerily similar.
"Whether you have Penn State, the Catholic Church or the FBI, it's the same phenomenon," said Turner, now a featured speaker for the whistleblowers center's speakers bureau. "An insular culture and a hierarchy where the reputation of the institution is often more important than anything else.
"All of them give you a tremendous amount of power, adulation and glory. There was nothing better than to flash my creds and say 'FBI.' [McQueary] had the same things. The power. The glory. People think you're something special. And it becomes your family. The FBI was my substance, my identity. It was everything. He had the exact same thing."
While it isn't known what happened in the shower between McQueary and Sandusky, Turner said that given her expertise it would have been "100 percent normal" for McQueary to freeze, panic and shut down after seeing what he said he saw.
Turner said most adults have never even seen a photo of a man having sexual relations with a young boy, much less witnessed it. Further complicating things, Turner said, was the fact that Sandusky was seen as a role model in the community and someone McQueary had known nearly his entire life.
"You're trying to comprehend something your brain can't handle," Turner said. "You can't rationalize it. Compute it. Handle it. Most people turn around and walk away. And then they try to figure out, 'Oh my God. What the hell did I just see?' The people who say they would go in there and break it up? They're wrong. Nine times out of 10, that's just not how the human brain works."
In Turner's case, when her superiors disregarded her claims about her colleagues, she took them higher and higher up the FBI ladder, all the way to then-director Louis Freeh. According to the grand jury report, McQueary told Paterno, Curley and Schultz but stopped there. He was never questioned by police. And there is no mention in the report of McQueary approaching the police on his own. Tuesday, The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa., reported that McQueary e-mailed a friend that he "did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of the police."
It also has been reported that even after the incident, McQueary continued to be a supporter of Sandusky at various charity events. Despite all the uncertainty, questions and criticism, Turner understands why a whistleblower might choose to go silent.
"As time passes, you're not going to rock the boat. You're not going to do that. It's your family. Your life. Your career. Your self-identity. Put it on the line and you're going to get destroyed," Turner said. "You walk away from everything. How many people have a moral compass in which they are truly willing to do that? Damn few. Because they get vilified."
The Pennsylvania Child Protective Services Law, instituted in 1975, declares that any individual who comes in contact with children in the course of his her work and believes that a child has been abused is required to notify a person in charge, but not the police. Corbett, Pennsylvania's governor, has said in the wake of this scandal he'd like to see the law strengthened to require witnesses to contact police.
McQueary is believed to have whistleblower protection, which likely is one of the reasons Penn State has placed him on paid administrative leave rather than firing him.
Turner was fired from the FBI in 2003 and four years later won a $1.4 million settlement against the bureau that included back pay and her lawyer's fees. With the information that has been made available to the public thus far, Turner said she doesn't view McQueary as a hero or a villain. Like many whistleblowers, she said, the answer is somewhere in between.
"He's a whistleblower with feet of clay," she said. "He's not perfect. He's not a saint. He's a human being. And he has to live with that."
Turner did give McQueary credit for testifying before the grand jury knowing the potential fallout.
"He had to know that day, sitting in that room, that this ride was going to be a bumpy one," she said. "And now he's learning that."
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If the University knew of Sandusky's issues you don't think it's a problem if they sold him land so he could build a campground for kids?
missed it.
