Holtzclaw’s mother and father, Eric and and Kumiko Holtzclaw, were in attendance while the verdict was being read.
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Holtzclaw was convicted of assaults on eight victims, including a grandmother in her 50s and a 17-year-old.
A jury has convicted a former Oklahoma City police officer of 18 of the 36 charges he faced related to allegations that he assaulted or victimized 13 women on his beat.
The case garnered the attention of the Black Lives Matter movement and other activists. “It mattered just as if this were a group of 13 white women”.
That former Oklahoma City police Officer Daniel Holtzclaw was found guilty of 18 counts of charges ranging from rape to sexual battery to forced sodomy is therefore a victory for survivors everywhere. There, she said, he pulled down her shorts and raped her. Because I’m like – he knows my condition, so he know that I’m not trying to show it to him. I was traumatized. I went to therapy and had a stroke. “First-line supervisors are responsible for making sure officers are performing their duties and not abusing their police powers”. 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 feel like justice has been served today”, she said.
As KGOU reports, it was that woman’s decision to act that broke the case open for investigators: “Unlike most of the other women he assaulted, she immediately reported the crime to police”.
Prosecutors said in their closing arguments that numerous accusers have had troubled lives but that the law protects them as much as anyone else.
“He is the police”, one of the victims told the jury. All the women testified against Holtzclaw in court. “In those counts where the not verdicts came back, they determined that we didn’t prove those cases beyond a reasonable doubt”.
Holtzclaw reportedly raped and sexually assaulted some of the women during traffic stops.
She was sitting in his patrol vehicle when he unzipped his trousers and moved toward her. “No sir”, she pleaded.
During the trial, defense attorneys tried to challenge the victims’ credibility by emphasizing their criminal records to the jury and asking about their past drug use.
“You were never alone”, Figaro told one of the victims in the case, who then gave her a hug. Among the charges he was convicted on included four counts of first-degree rape and four of forced oral sodomy. She accused him of escorting her to the front door of her mother’s house.
Several of Holtzclaw’s accusers had been arrested or convicted of crimes, and his attorney made this a cornerstone of his defense.
Other accusers told similar accounts of Holtzclaw forcing sex upon them on the threat of arresting them for outstanding warrants or drug possession.
Another woman, who said she was prostituting herself when Holtzclaw approached her, testified that he followed her inside her home and raped her, saying: “This is better than county jail”. Together, this jury panel spent 45 hours weighing, questioning and deciding.
Adams declined to comment after the verdict was read.
Relief… Supporters of the victims of former policeman Daniel Holtzclaw pray after the verdicts were read.
Holtzclaw was sacked before the trial began.
Questions of race surrounded the trial. This was an all-white, Jim Crow jury, and all prospective Black jurors were rejected. We need to find out how this could happen so many times, and nobody saw what was going on.
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Merchant reported from Dallas.
