The Oklahoma City Sex Crimes Unit found the women whose names Holtzclaw had run through the department multiple times.
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The Oklahoma City Police Department backed the detectives who investigated Holtzclaw and the jury that convicted him.
Daniel Holtzclaw, right, cries as the verdicts are read in his trial in Oklahoma City, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015.
The guilty verdict of Oklahoma City officer Daniel Holtzclaw rendered emotional responses from the victims and their supporters Thursday evening. At left is defense attorney Robert Gray. “He picked the wrong lady to stop that night”, she said. “I kept begging, ‘Sir, don’t make me do this, don’t make me do this, sir”. Prosecutors identified a pattern to Holtzclaw’s behavior, arguing that Holtzclaw backgrounded his victims and specifically targeted African-American women who had previous arrests or a history of drug possession, in the hopes that their allegations would not be believed. It reported that black women were disproportionately assaulted because they were often assumed to be promiscuous and to be less likely to report the crime.
Daniel Holtzclaw, 29, was found guilty of rape and sexual assaults against eight of his 13 female accusers.
“There has to be a conversation about sexual assault, about rape, and about the specific care that black women and women of color need when these situations happen”, Franklin said. He faces up to 263 years in prison, including 30-year sentences on each of four counts of first-degree rape. “I was a victim, I was traumatized, I went to therapy…I still live with this day after day”.
Another victim told investigators, “I was shocked and I didn’t know what to think and I didn’t know what to do, like, what am I going to do, call the cops? He did things to me that I didn’t think a police officer would do”, says Ms Ligons.
Two of Holtzclaw’s victims also spoke at the press conference.
A person chooses to become a police officer knowing that it’s a position of honor and trust.
The AP’s finding is undoubtedly an undercount, as not every state has a process for banning problem officers from re-entering law enforcement, and states that do vary greatly in how they report and prosecute wrongdoers.
He sexually assaulted a series of women until one courageous victim said “enough”.
The trial was encompassed by questions of race.
All of the accusers were black. Many were dismayed that the 12 selected members of the jury were all white.
Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Mark Opgrande says Holtzclaw is being held in a single cell inside the county jail and is under 24-hour surveillance by a jailer.
Holtzclaw was finally stopped when he forced a 57-year-old grandmother to have oral sex.
In June 2014, Holtzclaw drove a 17-year-old girl to her mother’s house, prosecutors said. The jury also convicted him of forcible oral sodomy, second-degree rape, sexual battery and procuring lewd exhibition.
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“There was liberation and there was vindication”, T. Sheri Dickerson, an associate minister at Expressions Community Church who supported the officer’s victims, said in a phone interview with Reuters. As The Washington Post reports, several characteristics set this woman, now identified in the media as Janie Liggins, apart from the rest: “She was not from the mostly low-income neighborhood where he patrolled. It’s my word against his because I’m a woman and, you know, like I said, he’s a police officer”, said one of the victims, according to court documents reported on by Buzzfeed. That woman said he followed her into her bedroom and raped her, telling her, “This is better than county jail”.
