It seems everyone connected to Stanford rapist, Brock Turner, is drawing the wrath of social media. The judge at the trial is receiving death threats and a recall campaign for what many see as an unfairly light sentence, and Turner’s father is getting barraged with hate for an incredibly tone deaf letter to the judge.
Perhaps most surprising, though, is the level of harassment coming at Turner’s childhood friend and character witness, Leslie Rasmussen. The 20-year-old has been branded a rape apologist and dogpiled on social media. What’s more, her indie band has been kicked out of multiple upcoming festivals.
Rasmussen wrote a letter to the judge in Turner’s case with the expectation of privacy, defending her friend saying that he was not a monster and blaming the drinking culture on campus for the assault. She called on the judge to “stop worrying about being politically correct every second of the day and see that rape on campuses isn’t always because people are rapists.”
The letter was leaked to the media, sparking widespread social media outrage.
Angry people online began targeting Rasmussen’s band, Good English, inundating their social media pages with outrage. The band deactivated its Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Soundcloud pages and shut down its website.
The internet mob even threatened to boycott their upcoming festivals unless the venues dropped the band.
https://twitter.com/book_listener/status/739921500153614336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Northside Festival and Dayton Music Art & Film Festival capitulated to the demands.
Due to recent information brought to our attention, Good English is no longer playing Northside Festival.
— Northside Festival (@NorthsideFest) June 7, 2016
The harassment even went so far as to target a person that shares Rasmussen’s name, ironically enough a professor of social media ethics at Xavier University. The professor feared for her safety after her Twitter and email was blown up with threatening messages.
Rasmussen also put out a statement on Facebook — since taken down — only digging herself a deeper hole by doubling down on the narrative that alcohol is the major culprit in the case.
You can read it below.
Two months ago, I was asked to write a character statement for use in the sentencing phase of Brock Turner’s trial. Per the request of the court, I was asked to write this statement in an effort to shed light on Brock’s character as I knew it to be during my childhood, adolescence and young adulthood when I interacted with him as a classmate and friend. I felt confident in my ability to share my straightforward opinion of him and how I knew him. I also felt compelled to share my deep concern over the misuse of alcohol that was a well-established contributor in this case. Beyond sharing my personal experience with Brock, I made an appeal to the judge to consider the effect that alcohol played in this tragedy.
I understand that this appeal has now provided an opportunity for people to misconstrue my ideas into a distortion that suggests I sympathize with sex offenses and those who commit them or that I blame the victim involved. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and I apologize for anything my statement has done to suggest that I don’t feel enormous sympathy for the victim and her suffering.
Perhaps I should have included in my statement the following ideas that explain my perspective on the complexities of what may have happened. As a young female musician who has spent years (since I was in fourth grade) performing as a drummer in live music venues, clubs, and bars with my two sisters, I have had the unique opportunity to observe over 10 years of public American drinking culture and the problems that invariably arise through alcohol misuse. I have watched friends, acquaintances and complete strangers transform before my eyes over the course of sometimes very short periods of time, into people I could barely recognize as a result of alcohol over-consumption. I am currently 20 years old. I have made these observations through sober eyes. I have been repeatedly reminded by my family and coached by police to hold my personal sobriety closely and seriously because of the industry I work in and the risks to my own life that I could face as a young woman playing regularly in venues across the country where alcohol is served.
Additionally, I have grown up and currently reside in a university town that is affected every year by the tragic consequences resulting from undergraduate students’ excessive enthusiasm for binge drinking. Student arrests, violence, injuries, and sexual assaults occur with some regularity, and I have often wondered why this culture continues to thrive seemingly unquestioned and unchecked.
There is nothing more sad than the unnecessary, destructive and enormous toll that overuse, misuse and abuse of alcohol and drugs play in people’s lives, and I don’t think my effort to point this out in confidence to a judge while commenting on Brock Turner’s character, as the sober person I knew him to be, was an irresponsible or reckless decision. Unfortunately, due to the overzealous nature of social media and the lack of confidence and privacy in which my letter to the judge was held, I am now thrust into the public eye to defend my position on this matter in the court of public opinion. Now, my choices to defer college to write and play music, to finally introduce 10 years of hard work to a national audience while working consistently and intentionally on my own personal and professional integrity, has led to an uproar of judgement and hatred unleashed on me, my band and my family.
I know that Brock Turner was tried and rightfully convicted of sexual assault. I realize that this crime caused enormous pain for the victim. I don’t condone, support, or sympathize with the offense or the offender. I was asked by a court in California to provide a character statement as a standard and necessary part of the sentencing process. I believe that Brock’s character was seriously affected by the alcohol he consumed, and I felt that the court needed to consider this issue during their sentencing deliberations.
