paterno when he was fired just a few days after the jerry sandusky scandal began to unfold, so rodney erickson was asked this question by reporters at an intimate question-and-answer session after the announcement. he was asked the question, how could penn state officials, such as yourself, be caught so off guard when this was news that, you know, people in pennsylvania were talking about, and that was re-pubshed in several publications back in march. he said what he has said all along. he said, i did not know penn state was involved in this scandal until i read the grand jury report in november. he then refused to follow up a question about the patriot-news article in march. he went to another reporter. his press secretary basically said one more question and we re done. and we got one more question in and i asked him, did you actually read that story in march? and he said, no. he stepped back and he was gone. he got out of there right after we asked that question.
pennsylvania. sara, people think that excuse is pretty flimsy. reporter: yeah, don, what happened yesterday at the announcement for the new head football coach, the one that will replace interim coach tom bradley, who replaced joe paterno when he was fired just a few days after the jerry sandusky scandal began to unfold, so rodney erickson was asked this question by reporters at an intimate question-and-answer session after the announcement. he was asked the question, how could penn state officials, such as yourself, be caught so off guard when this was news that, you know, people in pennsylvania were talking about, and that was re-published in several publications back in march. he said what he has said all along. he said, i did not know penn state was involved in this scandal until i read the grand jury report in november. he then refused to follow up a question about the patriot-news article in march. he went to another reporter. his press secretary basically said one
that s unclear. police aren t really talking about the story. they didn t respond to my request for comment on this. they said only that, you know, investigations evolved, and it is true that this investigation took a significant amount of time. it took three years. the grand jury involved and that can sometimes slow down the process, but the governor who was the attorney general at the time that this investigation was happening has come under heat and questions about why it took three years and did it could it have gone faster, did it take too long, was it stalled in any way. if you look at some of his other pedophile investigations, over his time as the attorney general, there are several cases where arrests were made sooner, however, you know, every investigation is different. and it is not always a comparison that you can make, but that is something he s getting a lot of questions about lately. sarah ganim of the patriot news, thanks so much. we re two days away from the
chats and telephone obviously. so she s gotten more and more involved the better she gets. in other news, police investigating jerry sandusky may have gotten some of their biggest breaks by reading his book. the former penn state university coach s autobiography published in 2000 is called touched. joining me by phone is sarah ghanem, reporter for the patriot news in state college, pennsylvania. tell us how jerry sandusky s own words may have helped investigators. very interesting. i talked to the mother of victim six who was found because her son actually came forward in 1998 and made allegations with another boy against jerry sandusky about an incident in the shower of the penn state locker room. that case wasn t pursued by the district attorney in 1998, but fast-forward about ten years when police were looking into new allegations of assault, of sex assault, on one minor boy.
wounded including arizona congresswoman gabby giffords. today, she and so many others impacted are reflecting on the tragedy and the recovery. take a look right now at some live pictures. it is a dark room, but it is fitting of the somber atmosphere there on this one-year anniversary. the event will be called reflections and it is about to get started there on the university of arizona campus. it is honoring the lives of the shooting victims, the survivors and the citizen heroes who helped following those shootings that took place at that shopping center, at that safe-way parking lot. in a few minutes, we ll have a live report from thelma gutierrez there in tucson. about 100 soldiers are on lockdown at a military base in washington state. that means no one in, no one out. commanders at joint base lewis mccord are looking for anyone who may have possession of some sensitive military equipment that didn t turn up during an inventory last month. mt. rainier national park s gat