Judge Timothy Henderson read each of the 36 counts, a visibly shaken Daniel Holtzclaw bowed his head, sobbed and looked at both his family and the jury. Of 36 total charges, he was found guilty of five counts of rape and 13 counts of sexual assault, BuzzFeed reported Thursday evening, and faces life in prison when he is sentenced in late January.
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Even though Holtzclaw’s victims testified in court about their disturbing experiences with him and Global Positioning System data corroborated their claims, a preponderance of evidence does not always lead to a guilty verdict when it comes to police officers, especially when the victim is a person of color.
The jury convicted Holtzclaw of first-degree rape, second-degree rape and sexual battery in the girl’s case.
The jury has been deliberating since Monday night. Final sentencing is scheduled for January 21. Mya Hall, a black transgender woman, was shot to death by officers after the vehicle Hall was driving crashed into a security gate and a police cruiser.
Gross, who regularly writes about “homicidal police violence” perpetrated against Black women, such as Tanisha Anderson, Yvette Smith, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Rekia Boyd and Natasha McKenna adds: “For so long Black women have been victims of a politicized protection that has excluded Black women from protection, while in turn subjecting them to the harshest criminal justice outcomes”. Seven armed deputies were stationed around the room. The Oklahoma City officer who extorted sex from women he pulled over for traffic stops.
Holtzclaw’s lawyer, Scott Adams, declined to comment after the verdict was read. “In those counts where the not guilty verdicts came back, they determined that we didn’t prove those cases beyond a reasonable doubt”.
Prosecutors said Holtzclaw coerced the majority of his 13 victims – all of whom reportedly had histories of drug abuse or prostitution – into performing sexual acts by promising to drop charges against them.
“I feel like justice has been served today”, she said. “It’s brutal, but I think justice was served”.
And because it’s clear Holtzclaw went after women seemingly without a voice, Black women throughout the nation have driven thought-leadership around this case so the world would know somebody was watching, and somebody cared.
“He didn’t choose CEOs or soccer moms; he chose women he could count on not telling what he was doing”, McConnell said of the former police officer during the closing arguments of a trial that drew national attention, according to Reuters. The officers called an ambulance for her. At a nearby hospital, S.H. was given a drink to help her come down from the drugs. Her DNA was later found on his trousers.
The woman, a grandmother, hugged others beside her in the courtroom and cried with her supporters. She was the last to testify at Holtzclaw’s trial.
One of the victims, only 17 years of age, highlighted the dilemma she had faced after the assault when she was asked during the trial why she had not immediately called police: “What am I going to do?” she asked. Holtzclaw drove her home and walked her to her door, where he told her he had to search her. She said he grabbed her breasts, then pulled down her shorts before forcing them off and raping her.
In just 2015 alone, six black women have been killed during encounters with police.
But despite the number of victims, the case presented prosecutors with several challenges.
On 18 of the counts, he was found not guilty.
Holtzclaw allegedly groped her two more times.
Ultimately, that approach did not sway the jury to dismiss the women’s stories. On Thursday, he was convicted of 18 of those crimes arising from the assaults of eight of the 13 women, according to The Associated Press.
The majority of those who said they’d been abused by Holtzclaw were middle-aged women with criminal records, though the youngest was just 17.
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That is a suitable reaction to every aspect of the Daniel Holtzclaw case.
