Two Swedish Students Who Stopped Brock Turner Rape Describe The Incident
The 23-year-old victim of a campus sex attack says that she hasn't met the two cyclists who stopped her rape and apprehended the attacker, ex-Stanford swimmer Brock Turner. But she sleeps with a picture she drew of two bicycles taped above her bed, "to remind myself there are heroes in this story."
Among all the media attention and hand wringing involved with the Turner rape case, many forget that the story could have been a lot worse. Turner had been attacking his female victim behind dumpsters on the Stanford campus for approximately 15 minutes when two students happened to be riding by on bicycles.
Those guys would be Swedish post-graduate students Carl-Fredrik Arndt (left, above) and Peter Jonsson, who quickly figured something wasn't right, and stopped the rape. They were interviewed by the Swedish news site Expressen on Tuesday, with Arndt recalling the moment he and Jonsson approached Turner.
"When he [Turner] got up we saw that she still wasn't moving at all, so we walked up and asked something like, 'What are you doing?' "
To CBS News:
"She was unconscious. The entire time. I checked her and she didn't move at all. We called 911."
The police report states that the two held Turner until police arrived.
Jonsson and Arndt talked about it and thought it was a mutual interaction at first and continued riding. However, Jonsson said as he kept riding by, he noticed the female on the ground was not moving and that something seemed weird about the situation.
When asked to elaborate what was weird, he just said he got a weird feeling about it because it looked like the female was asleep or unconscious. He started riding slower and began looking intently at the male and female. He could tell the female appeared not to be moving at all and he was sure something was wrong. Jonsson told Arndt they needed to check and make sure everything was OK.
Turner panicked as the two began questioning him, and tried to run. But Arndt chased him and tackled him within 35 feet, and after Jonsson checked to make sure the woman was still breathing, he followed and helped hold Turner.
In a lengthy, eloquent letter to the court describing her ordeal, the victim called the two heroes. Excerpt:
Thank you to the two men who saved me, who I have yet to meet. I sleep with two bicycles that I drew taped above my bed to remind myself there are heroes in this story. That we are looking out for one another. To have known all of these people, to have felt their protection and love, is something I will never forget.
Palo Alto judge Aaron Persky, himself once a Stanford athlete (lacrosse), handed down a controversial 6-month jail senence to Turner, of which he will likely only serve three months. Prosecutors had recommended six years in prison. His offense carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
A petition to remove Persky from the bench has garnered more than 100,000 signatures, but the judge is unlikely to be ousted. He ran unopposed in Tuesday's California Primary, as it was too late to recruit someone to run against him.
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