Two Swedish students at Stanford University, who found Brock Turner sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, are speaking out for the first time since the victim read a powerful courtroom letter to her attacker.
Carl-Fredrik Arndt and Peter Jonsson, who the victim described as “heroes,” spoke about the night in January 2015 when, as they were biking to a party on Stanford’s campus near the Kappa Alpha fraternity house, they saw Turner on top of a woman behind a dumpster.
READ MORE: ‘You took away my worth’: Stanford rape survivor pens powerful letter to attacker
“We can see that she isn’t moving at all but he is moving a lot. So we stop and think that there is something strange going on,” Arndt told the Swedish news outlet Expressen, in an interview translated by BuzzFeed News.
“Peter walks over and asks what he is doing and I am following him. When he stand up we see that she still isn’t moving, even the slightest, so we approach and ask something like: ‘What the hell are you doing?’”
Arndt said Turner began to run and Jonsson tackled him before the two held down the attacker until police arrived.
The 20-year-old was sentenced last week to six months in jail for three counts of sexual assault, sparking outrage from critics who say the sentence for the star athlete was too lenient. A letter from Turner’s father pleading for leniency said his son paid “a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action.”
READ MORE: Stanford rapist Brock Turner’s dad defends son’s ’20 minutes of action’
Turner’s victim, a 23-year-old Stanford student, read a heart wrenching 12-page letter to her attacker in a packed California courtroom that brought international attention.
“You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today,” she read in a victim impact statement. “I am a human being who has been irreversibly hurt, who waited a year to figure out if I was worth something.
“You cannot give me back the life I had before that night.”
The woman also spoke about the “two guys on bikes” who tackled Turner, whom she described as “heroes.”
“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,” she said in court. “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.”
Arndt, a PhD student in computational and mathematical engineering at the time, and Jonsson, who was studying management science and engineering, said they were moved by the victim’s letter and happy they could have helped her.
“Thanks to everyone, friends and strangers, for all the encouragement and support over the last days and months,” Jonsson wrote on Facebook, adding that he would not comment on the outcome and asked everyone to read the victim’s letter.
“To me it is unique in its form and comes as close as you can possibly get to putting words on an experience that words cannot describe.”