Time after time from the age of 5 until I was in my 20s
I was betrayed by men and women, family and so-called
friends. Around the age of 10 I became them and I’ve been
trying to hurt Them ever since I think.
—Brent Brents, April 22, 2005
From the book Diary of a Predator: A Memoir
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I still can’t wrap my head around that Kid killing all those Kids in Connecticut. Yes he is a Kid. It’s the same in ability to reason…The guy (young man) who did the killings in Aurora. What is it that allows a human being to disconect from humanity So severely. I didn’t plan anything Not that it makes me different…The human Brain is really fucked up.
Brent Brents 1-6-13
Filed under Brents' writings
If you had told me ten years ago that rape in the U.S. military would become a mainstream topic, I’d have laughed at you.
Decade after decade, after each sexual assault scandal such as Tailhook or the Air Force Academy, politicians would trumpet their outrage and military officials would swear they’d muster reform, like a hardened criminal making desperate, insincere promises to a parole board.
In 2003, while Miles Moffeit and I were researching for, “Betrayal in the Ranks,” our three-part series about military sexual assault and domestic violence, reporters in Kentucky called us with a cautionary tale of how their publisher pulled a similar story of theirs, axing it because the U.S. had invaded Iraq and it seemed unpatriotic to call the military to task.
Thankfully, that love affair is over.
Last January, a film premiered at Sundance called “The Invisible War.” It tackled the crisis of sexual assaults within the U.S. military and dissected it with a painstaking, surgical attention to detail.
The filmmakers invited me to attend the premier because I’m interviewed in the film about my work covering the issue of military sexual assault, primarily the series I coauthored with Miles called “Betrayal in the Ranks.”
Afterward, I listened to all the talk from the politicians and the military officials, inwardly rolled my eyes, and waited for the apathy to once again roll in.
Well, halleluiah, my cynicism has been smacked down.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta viewed the film on April 14, 2012. Two days later, Panetta ordered that all military sexual assault cases were to be handled by senior officers, ostensibly taking such cases away from potentially biased commanders who wouldn’t want the notoriety or disruption of a sexual assault investigation in their own unit.
Then over the summer, the Marines put together a new protocol for combating sexual assault. And just this month, President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for this fiscal year. This time, it included reforms aimed at the issue of military sexual assault, including policies to prevent retaliation against those who report.
Meanwhile, the public and the media have flung themselves fully into the fray, backing “The Invisible War” with enthusiastic reviews and using social media to propel the issue forward.
Now “The Invisible War” has oh so deservedly been nominated for an Oscar. As a result, I’m heartened that a whole new audience will now pay attention–and that someday, soldiering in the U.S. will no longer be associated with rape.
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Hey i got the card you sent me. You are a blessing to me Amy. I’m alive today because of you. You’ve taught me a great deal about being a good human being. I do struggle with some things, but i fight the good fight because you inspire me to do so.
-Brent Brents 12-25-12
Filed under Brents' writings
Note from Amy: I received the message below to this website, Diary of a Predator, earlier this week, after a viewer saw an interview with me regarding the case of Brent Brents featured on the show, “On the Case with Paula Zahn.”
Messages like this are always interesting to receive, and sometimes gratifying, especially when I asked the writer where he saw the Paula Zahn show: “Belgium.”
There are no borders when like-minded people relate to one another.
-Amy
Dear Amy,
“We are all connected and responsible for each other.” –Very well said. People sending hate mails to you are not in connection with themselves and do not understand the reason of our existence, the reason of our being. They keep the focus on the negative energy, thus enhancing this negative energy with all consequences for the future.
The negative energy hasn’t been neutralized or turned into positive energy, spiritually speaking. However you’ve at least neutralized the negative energy created by the acts of Brent. Universally speaking, you’ve taken a big step in order to try to understand Brent and by doing so you were faced with your own mirror.
Not many people have the strength and courage to do so. I don’t even know if I would have acted the same in your case. But in the present I understand your choice and your effort, even though I’m aware that my understanding might have been different if I had been a victim or relative of a victim.Today I just saw it for the first time: “On the Case with Paula Zahn.”
Indeed we are not the one to judge another, but I can understand that it is more difficult not to judge when you’re the victim or when you are closely related to the victims.
-Clarence
Time: Sunday December 23, 2012 at 12:59 pm
Filed under The story
Note from Amy: Someone asked me the other day if Brent Brents had trusted me from the very beginning.
In a word, no.
Here’s a letter he sent me early on in our correspondence, excerpted from the true-crime book, Diary of a Predator: A Memoir:
April 6, 2005
Amy,
Hi, It’s me . . . I have to tell you that every reporter so
far has tried to either bribe me, manipulate me, Make me
out to be a monster. Every one has only showed Thier greed,
selfishness, bitterness and hatred. Amy I don’t care if your
a greedy self centered bitch. What I do care about is This.
I am going to put me, my story Into your hands . . . I am
going to tell you my story truthfuly and I hope you will not
screw me over in the Long run like every woman I’ve ever
felt I could trust has . . . If your sincere then you’ll know That
we have to develop a sincere trust. A Relationship of Trust
. . . I am sure you have an opinion and probably some deep
feelings about what I did. If you would please tell me what
you think and feel about me and all the stuff I have done. Get
This Amy, The truth please no matter how harsh or painful
it may sound . . . You’ve been pretty superficial so far . . .
Show me the real you and show me I can trust your heart
and I’ll give you my story . . . Sencerely wanting to believe.
Brent.
Filed under The story
My jaw is still hurting. Not Much i can do there. I see the dentists each Friday until it’s healed. I wish i could make them feel what i feel. But i spent a lifetime making others feel what i feel. And we know how that worked out.
-Brent Brents 11-4-12
Filed under Brents' writings
I wish everyone would calm down about the CIA adulterous scandal and become enraged over a much more important issue: sexual assault, including sexual assault in the U.S. military.
-This is what I’ve been thinking for several days now, and then someone did an excellent job of putting that into words by writing about the stunning documentary, “The Invisible War,” a film about the crisis of sexual assaults within the U.S. military, giving it proper context over the latest salacious story about Paula Broadwell.
I’m on the email list for director Kirby Dick and producer Amy Ziering, the creators of that outstanding Sundance award-winning documentary, “The Invisible War,”, and they sent me the below link to the piece that ran Monday in the Huffington Post. I’m interviewed in the film because of my work covering the issue, primarily the series I coauthored at the Denver Post called “Betrayal in the Ranks.”
So please, take the time to read the story, and then forward the link to a friend. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta needs to turn his attention to “The Invisible War” and the issues it exposes, not media hype about emails and affairs.
From The Huffington Post: “The real scandal is that this type of behavior — stumbled upon via highly questionable investigative practices — is what garners nonstop media coverage and glaring headlines while a real military sexual scandal, our U.S. military’s horrific rape epidemic, affecting tens of thousands of our service members (annually!!), goes unreported and ignored.” Read more.
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“Violence ‘speaks’ of an intolerable condition of human shame and rage, a blinding rage that speaks through the body.” –James Gilligan, author of Violence: Reflections On A National Epidemic
When Margaret fought back I became almost overjoyed. I
literally could feel my Blood rushing into my head it sound
like a train roaring through my head . . . it was hitting her
in the back of the head that was getting me off . . . remember
seeing a meat cleaver on the counter and thought it would
realy feel good to smash her skull. Then I like woke up and
was totally different . . . how fucked up is that.
—From Brent Brent’s journal, as featured in Diary of a Predator: A Memoir
Filed under Brents' writings
Brent Brents often told me his greatest fear was not of being killed, or tortured, or injured in any way–but of being shamed.
“Please don’t make me look stupid,” he would repeatedly say to me regarding publishing his writings, and when I asked him why the fear of humiliation held so much power over him, he didn’t have an answer.
The very first time I interviewed him, Brents told me his final crime spree-where he raped three women and two children over the course of a weekend–was triggered by a police detective talking smack to him on the phone in an effort to get Brents, who had a warrant out for his arrest, to turn himself in. I write about it in Diary of a Predator: A Memoir.
“He called me a little punk. ‘Tell me where you’re at. I’ll come get you, you little punk,’” Brents told me. “I said, ‘Fuck you. Come get me.’”
Then, he said, “I worked myself into this rage, walked out of the coffee shop . . . [thinking] ‘You wanna play games? I can play games, too.’”
At the time, I thought it was a ridiculous excuse, and merely a way for Brents to avoid taking responsibility for his actions. And while he is indeed responsible for his actions, today I now understand the deep motivation that shame and humiliation play in inciting violence.
“I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed, and that did not represent the attempt to prevent or undo this ‘loss of face’–no matter how severe the punishment, even if it includes death,” writes James Gilligan in his excellent book, Violence: Reflections On a National Epidemic.
“The purpose of violence is to diminish the intensity of shame and replace it as far as possible with its opposite, pride…”
The more trivial the matter, Gilligan says, the deeper the humiliation: “…their very triviality makes it even more shameful to feel ashamed about them.”
Men who feel this way and act on it become violent because they feel they have no nonviolent alternative to boost their self esteem, Gilligan says. Also, with their sense of self threatened to be overwhelmed by shame, they lack the emotions of love and guilt that would normally prevent someone from becoming violent.
Again, it doesn’t excuse Brent Brent’s behavior–but it does help explain it.
Filed under The story
Many of Brent Brents' victims were prostitutes, women who are especially vulnerable to violence. Therefore, part of the proceeds from the sale of every edition of Diary of a Predator: A Memoir will go to Street's Hope, a Denver non-profit organization dedicated to helping women leave the sex-for-sale industry.
Diary of a Predator 