If you haven’t heard of Brock Turner yet it means two things. First, you're lucky since in this case knowing about it won’t bring any sunshine to your life. Second, you must be from out of town. It’s the case of the Stanford swimmer raping an unconscious girl and only spending three months in jail for “good behavior.” It was a case with a sentence that was a joke and not the funny kind.
I’ve held my tongue on the topic for a while now, quietly gathering all the information on the subject, reading all the articles. But the more I read the angrier I become. For his father to define it in his letter to the judge, as “20 minutes of action” is sickening and proof of where the lack of respect for women originated in that family. For his mother to write to the judge about his swimming career and how jail time will ruin his future is absolutely ridiculous. That same 20 minutes of his life that could ruin his career had a more lasting effect in the victim’s life in much more serious and damaging ways than his measly three months behind bars.
Your athletic career should never play a factor in a court setting that has nothing to do with sports. I don’t care if you run faster that Usain Bolt, have more Olympic potential than Michael Phelps or can do more flips before you hit the floor than anyone else in the world. If you put your hands on a woman, rape a woman or God forbid rape an unconscious woman, you deserve to be punished fully. By fully I mean you better get more than six months for what you thought was acceptable treatment of not only a woman but also another human.
That judge may have let you off easy, but the rest of the world won’t. This will hang over your head the rest of your life, as it should. The world learned a valuable lesson from you and I am sure the next man who thinks he can take advantage of a woman won’t be so easily freed. You can try to live a quiet life somewhere off the beaten path, but the world knows who you are Brock Turner. I hope you see the error of your ways and can honestly and whole-heartedly apologize for the horrible thing you did. Until then, I hope I never hear your name again.
