“I didn’t do anything wrong. I was innocent. He just picked the wrong lady to stop that night”, said Ligons.
Advertisement
On December 11, 2015, piece of human garbage, former Oklahoma City Police Officer Daniel Holtzclaw, was found guilty in 18 out of the 36 charges against him.
After the verdict was announced, he stood up and shook his head and mouthed towards his family, “I didn’t do it”.
“I am ashamed at the lack of coverage”, said Tezlyn Figaro, a former Oklahoma City resident and a media consultant who helped raise the profile of the trial. News storiesdisplayed here appear in our category for US Headlines and are licensed via a specific agreement between LongIsland.comand The Associated Press, the world’s oldest and largest news organization.
According to prosecution, Daniel targeted 13 women of African-American origin from the poorest regions of Oklahoma City over a 6 months time frame. Black women, and particularly black women who have other vulnerabilities, continue to be left out of the mainstream view of who is victimized by rape … Holtzclaw is scheduled to be sentenced in January.
Holtzclaw was convicted Thursday night of preying on the teenager and other women he met on his police beat in a minority, low-income neighborhood.
“It may mean that we didn’t meet our burden (of proof) in those counts”, he said. He questioned several women at length about whether they were high at the time, and noted that most didn’t come forward until investigators identified them as possible victims. He faces up to 263 years in prison, including 30-year sentences on each of four counts of first-degree rape.
Prosecutors identified a clear pattern of Holtzclaw pulling over women in his capacity as a police officer, then using coercion and threats to sexually assault or rape them.
Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Mark Opgrande said Friday that Daniel Holtzclaw is in special protection inside the jail as a precaution because of his demeanor after the trial.
Attorney Benjamin Crump, representing 5 of the 13 victims said when the police is indulging in a criminal or nefarious act, where can one go. “How was he able to run people’s names for warrants, finding out if they warrants, but never show up at the police station with them?” She wrote to Broadly in an email, explaining the horror of Holtzclaw’s case and the prevalence of sexual assault in the United States. “I was scared. I felt like I was in survivor mode, so I had to do what he was making me do”. The jury did not convict on Hill’s allegations, and her father, Tyral Muhammad, said Holtzclaw’s supervisors and others should have caught him sooner.
Looking somber but resolute at an emotional news conference outside the Oklahoma County District Courthouse, the women described their fear and shock during the assaults and their struggle to come forward. Brown was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.
After Sandra Bland died in police custody in Texas in July, a social-media movement sprang up to bring awareness to the experiences of Black women. “What kind of police do you call on the police?” she asked. Many were dismayed that the 12 selected members of the jury were all white.
Advertisement
Holtzclaw was accused of assault by 13 women. Although sexual assault by police officers is a real problem throughout the US, some activists have said Hotlzclaw’s case is a milestone in a long history of black women as victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse – who have with far fewer allies and see less justice than their white counterparts.
