After a social media firestorm, authorities finally released the mugshot of Brock Turner, the Stanford University swimmer who was convicted of sexually assaulting a young woman. In January 2015, two witnesses reportedly saw Turner on top of the unconscious woman outside of a fraternity house and behind a dumpster. As part of a sentencing hearing, his victim read a powerful statement in court last week in which she talked about the pain she had suffered.
“You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today,” she said.
The 7,100 word letter has gone viral. Since then, there has been a growing social media movement using the hashtag #NoMugshot urging the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Department to release Turner’s photo. Many were upset that media outlets reported on the sentence using his smiling photo or showing him in a suit instead of the unflattering mugshot.
Here is a sampling of the twitter outrage:
@courtneymilan re Brock Turner, trying to mobilize as many ppl as possible on #NoMugShot thx to @xoamelia so @SCCoSheriff can’t ignore us.
— Melanie Marchande (@MellieMarchande) June 6, 2016
And by all means @washingtonpost, please use a smiling photo of the man convicted of attempted rape. #nomugshot https://t.co/rmzAbb3NfV
— Mickey Gomez (@mickeygomez) June 6, 2016
Affluenza strikes again #WhitePrivilege #NoMugShot https://t.co/qfGVn7eIiQ
— Karen King (@kdking97) June 5, 2016
When LawNewz.com called the Stanford University Department of Public Safety, they, too, told us the mugshot was not being released as it was under review by “counsel.” We were told that officials release mugshots on a “case by case” basis. The Cut reports : “The two departments seemed to be volleying the responsibility for releasing the mug shot back and forth until around 4:30 p.m. today, when James Jensen of the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Department finally emailed it to us.”
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