Dear Dan A. Turner,
May I call you Dan A. Turner? I’d like to call you “unsympathetic monster” or “bad father” or “rape apologist”, but since you signed off on your ridiculous, worthless attempt at humanizing your steak-loving, fast swimming, rapist of a son as Dan A. Turner, I’ll stick with that.
I don’t have a child, Dan A. Turner. I hope to one day, though. And I understand that a father’s love (or a parent’s love, for that matter) is essentially unbreakable. I can’t understand how it felt for you, a person who loves your child unconditionally, to find out that your son assaulted a drunkenly unconscious woman. I am sure you were terrified, angry, upset. Confused. I’m sure your emotions were all over the place. But I understand that as a father, you have to love your son regardless. That you have to be by his side through his biggest victories and his most horrendous mistakes.
What I don’t understand, Dan A. Turner, is how you were able to write a letter to the judge, begging and pleading for him to not give your son jail time. You have to understand that homesickness and love for pretzels and swimming times are not adequate arguments against being punished for rape. You have to understand that no amount of remorse can take away what he did to his victim. You have to understand that the fact that this was his first offense, that this was the first unconscious woman he assaulted behind a dumpster, does not and should not grant him leniency. A woman’s body is not a speed limit sign – you don’t just walk away with a warning for violating it.
Have you even thought of your son’s victim, Dan? Have you wondered if she struggles to eat her favorite foods anymore? Have you wondered if everything she’s worked for is gone? Have you thought that your son’s revoked swimming scholarship and admission to Stanford is anything at all in comparison to the fear and terror and confusion that she feels every single day? Because your son didn’t wake up on a gurney to the news that he had been raped the previous night. Your son wasn’t rescued by two passerby’s who had to pull someone off of him. Your son didn’t go out with his sister and end up being assaulted while unconscious behind a dumpster. Your son is not the victim, he is the victimizer. He is the assailant, he is the criminal. Any negative side effects that come from him sexually assaulting someone could have and would have been entirely avoided had he chosen not to sexually assault someone. He is not who we feel bad for in this story. He is not the victim.
Your son did not get 20 minutes of action, unless you want to call it one-sided, forceful and criminal action… In which case, we just call it assault. Your son was violent. Your son was not a victim of college party culture and sexual promiscuity, your son is a rapist who preyed on a drunk, unconscious woman. Alcohol did not penetrate the victim without consent. Alcohol did not tear her clothes off. The two passerby’s did not pull alcohol off of her. Alcohol wasn’t the problem here, your son was. Plenty of people drink in college, get drunk every weekend, and haven't raped even one unconscious woman behind a dumpster. That was your son. And to be quite frank with you, no one gives a sh*t what his swimming times or favorite meal or personality was like before this. He could have avoided this by simply not assaulting her. This wasn't the victim's fault – her pain, her terror, her constant fear is a direct result of your child. And you don’t seem to realize that.
You can humanize your son all you want, Dan. You can make us watch adorable home videos or tell us embarrassing middle school stories. You can tell us about his personality and academic and athletic achievements. But none of those things matter in this situation. The only bit of Brock’s live that matters now is the fact that he assaulted an innocent young woman and robbed her of her independence, sense of security and so much more. Your son’s retracted scholarships and admissions are nothing compared to what he took from her that night. So enjoy eating your pretzels and chips without your happy-go-lucky, kind, athletic, intelligent sexual assailant stealing them from you, because any emotional consequences he reaps from this situation are entirely his fault.
In 3-6 months, you’ll enjoy your son again. The worst will be over, his sentence will be complete and he will be able to build his life back up again. In three to six months, your son may start eating that steak again and being more like his usual self. In three to six months, that “20 minutes of action” will begin to fade into the distance, and you’ll both care even less about the victim than you already do. Because while Brock’s consequence for sexual assault is three to six months, his victim’s terror, confusion and struggle to become who she once was will last 25 to life.
Very angrily,
Sara A. Petty
