About a dozen demonstrators, some of them apparently armed, gathered today outside former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner's family home in Ohio to protest his release from a California jail after serving half of his six-month sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman on campus.
Turner, 21, walked out of a jail in Santa Clara County, California, early Friday morning, and must now complete three years of probation and register as a sex offender.
Turner is believed to have stayed at a hotel with his mother in Mountain View, California, Friday night. His whereabouts were unknown Saturday.
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Turner is expected to return to his hometown in Greene County, Ohio. Within five days of coming home, Turner must go to the county sheriff's department to be photographed and registered as a sex offender. Postcards then will be mailed to alert nearby homeowners that a sex offender lives in the area, Greene County Sheriff Gene Fischer told ABC News.
A group of protesters from the Dayton, Ohio, area showed up outside the Turner family's residence in Sugarcreek Township on Friday. Some were carrying weapons, according to ABC affiliate WCPO-TV in Cincinnati. Ohio is a traditional open carry state.
The word "rapist" and other messages were scrawled in chalk on the sidewalk, driveway and the street in front of Turner's home. Meanwhile, police kept watch around the corner, according to WCPO-TV.
"He's not going to live some happy pleasant life," one protester told WCPO. "We're going to never let him forget what he did."
"If he is uncomfortable then he begins to receive at least some punishment that he deserves for his crime," another protester told WCPO.
Turner was found guilty in March of three felony charges: assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated/unconscious person, penetration of an intoxicated person and penetration of an unconscious person.
The January 2015 assault was stopped by two men on bicycles who noticed that Turner's victim wasn't moving, authorities said. Turner, then 19, fled the scene but the witnesses tackled him and held him until police arrived, according to the Santa Clara District Attorney's Office.
Turner was initially facing up to 14 years behind bars. Prosecutors asked for six years, but Judge Aaron Persky sentenced Turner on June 2 to six months in jail and three years of probation, as recommended by the probation department.
Information from ABC News was used in this report.
