Miscarriage of Justice in Brock Allen Turner Rape Case

Brock Turner’s mugshot from the night of his arrest in January 2015. (Stanford University Police)

I woke up early this morning and read the 13-page statement from the Brock Allen Turner rape victim. I honestly didn’t know the details of the case until this morning. It angered and inspired me to write about it. Her letter was a long read, but I couldn't stop once I started. It is one of the most powerful and heartbreaking pieces of personal narrative every written. It genuinely moved me, enraged, sadden, repulsed and sickened me. Click below to read the statement:

13 Page Statement of Turner Rape Victim

It made me wonder how many rape victims wish they had the will to put into words the unbelievable pain and shame she so eloquently and tragically described.
 
The justice system failed in this case, no one in his or her right mind would disagree. The judge that give this disgraceful 6-month jail sentence should be removed from the bench permanently. I'm glad so many people have called for his removal. He should serve some time in jail too for being such an incompetent and insensitive moron.
 
Part of the reason I became a Police Officer was because I wanted to serve and protect people. Call me old fashioned but I believe our country is a country of laws not of men. When laws are broken and a serious crime, such as a felony rape or any serious crime for that matter, is perpetrated on a helpless victim there must be justice and consequences. I've believed this all of my life; it didn't just start when I put on a badge and gun.

One of the reasons my personality was molded into what it has become was because I was a victim of severe bullying as a young child and was also a child of an alcoholic father. At an early age I had low self-esteem and felt powerless to control what was happening in school or at home. I learned early in life to have an intense hatred for bullies.
 
My curse was I had to wear thick glasses from the time I was 3 years old. I remember walking home from the first day of school as a 1^st grader when for no reason other than being different looking I was chased down, tripped and beaten by the biggest boy in my class. When he tripped me my glasses fell off of my face and as I went to the ground I fell on top of them breaking them in half. Thankfully no one else was around to see the indignity, shame and the embarrassment I felt in that moment.

From then on my childhood innocence was gone and I become very self-conscious about my glasses. A lot of the kids in school give me funny looks when they laid eyes on me, teased me and called me names. It seemed like every other day in school I was in a fight with some kid, mainly because I was just “weird” looking.

It wasn’t until I was sophomore in high school when things changed.  I got into a fight one day in the school swimming pool when one of the biggest boys in the class came up behind me and dunked me in deep water. I went into a blind rage and immediately punched him in the face maybe 10 times before he realized what was happening. It took 4 guys to get me off him. After that I no longer heard any more comments about my glasses, at least to my face anyway and the bulling and the fighting stopped in school.

The fight didn’t stop my me from feeling different about myself because every morning when I got up I still had to put on my thick glasses to see. It took years for me to finally understand that my glasses didn’t define me nor was I weird or ugly for wearing them.

What that fight did do for me was give me a sense of empowerment in my life when I didn’t think I had any. As a young adult I started to believe that I was the captain of my own ship and I didn’t have to take crap about what I looked like from anyone nor when I knew I was right about something.

Today I wouldn’t change a single thing about my childhood because it’s helped me to become the tough and sensitive man that I’ve become. It drove me to become an over achiever at work and at play. At the same time, it gave me an overwhelming need to control too many things that are beyond my control and that’s been one of the personality defects I’ve had to work to change.

The White Horse mentality and getting into fights to correct what my ego considers wrongs has consumed me at times. I feel a strong personal desire to stand up to bullies, support the underdog or win a political debate when I know I’m on the right side. I’ve had to learn that sometimes being right doesn’t justify dying on a hill for it.

But here in this particular instance this is a hill worth dying on. This is unacceptable behavior and the crime should not be excused or apologized away because he was drunk, too young to know any better, came from a good family or went to a prestigious school like Stanford. It doesn’t matter that he had no criminal record prior to the rape, he deserved the harshest punishment available under the law.  

His Father made this statement aloud in court. “His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.” This is one of the most contemptable statements I’ve ever heard after a felony rape conviction. What about her life, and the price she paid?

No matter where she goes or what she does the rest of her life this violation with haunt her.  I send her and her family my prayers and I hope she’ll be able to find the coping skills to have a happy life.