Brock Turner, student, swimmer, rapist. The name of Brock Turner has been juggled around a number of times during the past few days. Long story short, a few months ago two teenagers called the police on Turner after they found him sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster in an alley, that’s right behind the dumpster in the filth. They tackled him to the ground and turned him over to the police. And to give you some perspective of the nature of the assault, one of the men who found Turner was crying so hard during the investigation because of what he saw that it was difficult for the police to properly interrogate him.
He was charged with three counts of sexual assault was facing 14 years in prison. But luckily for him and unfortunately for the rest of civilized society he was given a meagre slap on the hand of 6 months jail time. The Rapist~a title that I’m deliberately using to refer to him as I feel that he has been humanized for too long~ was released on a bail of 150,000 dollars. The reason behind such a verdict was given that the Judge felt that a harsher punishment to adversely affect his future. The arrogance is unbearable. One is forced to contemplate that did the Judge not once think of the girl, whose life was completely altered as a result of the monstrosity that took place by the hands of an over privileged white kid.
Whats even more disturbing is the letter his Father wrote to the judge in which he stated that he was “ only getting a piece of the action”. He also showed distress on the fact that his son was not eating his favourite rib-eyed steak and that his Mother could now not redecorate their house because of her son’s indictment.
An alarming situation arising in a country where approximately 300,000- 1.3 m women are sexually assaulted every year and where only 3% of rapists are convicted. Where you have a 1 in 4 chance of being raped even worse if your Native American and where 54% of cases don’t get reported. We talk about how our country is the saviour of women and anxiously condemn other countries on how they treat women while we remain ignorant of the hypocrisy brewing in our minds as a result of a deteriorating society.
On the bright side, Turner has been permanently banned by the USA swimming from ever competing in the Olympics and at the national level.