Oklahoma city police officer convicted of rape

Holtzclaw, 29, was an Oklahoma City police officer up until January 2015 when allegations of rape and sexual abuse came from over a dozen Black women around the northeast area of the city.

A former Oklahoma City police officer was found guilty of rape and sexual battery by a jury on Thursday. In what felt like a unique moment, justice was not fooled by the aggressive defense mounted by Holtzclaw’s attorney, Scott Adams, which exploited racist stereotypes, class bias and fears about the majority-black east side community from which Holtzclaw culled his victims.

While the defendant broke down as the verdicts were read, the families of his victims say they are already looking ahead to his sentencing next month.

“If an all-white jury in Oklahoma City would convict a policeman of this amount of grievances, of charges, then it gives us hope that our marching and continued organizing is not in vain”, Sharpton said. I couldn’t even believe it. I was speechless, scared, and I didn’t know what to do. A middle-class woman, she was passing through the neighborhood where Holtzclaw stopped her but did not live there.

The victims tend to be juveniles, drug addicts and women in custody. He could spend the rest of his life in prison, based on the jury’s recommendation he serve 263 years.

A former college football star, Holtzclaw joined the police force after a brief attempt at pursuing an NFL career. Some said that Holtzclaw assaulted them in their homes while wearing his police uniform and with his department-issued gun holstered at his side.

“The only thing I could say was, ‘Thank you, sir”. Holtzclaw was found guilty of 18 of the 36 counts. The all-white jury contrasted in demography from the 13 black victims who testified.

The woman whose report launched the police investigation into Holtzclaw was the first witness to testify.

Thousands of tweets described Holtzclaw as a vile subhuman while he cried in the courtroom, but one person boldly declared black men should carry some of the blame. He’s a police officer.

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.

On Wednesday morning, eight men and four women filed into an Oklahoma courtroom and began their third day of deliberations.

Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater said after the verdict that Holtzclaw’s attorneys were responsible for eliminating black jurors from the case and ensuring the case was heard by an all-white jury.

They were on A.’s mom’s porch when Holtzclaw allegedly told her he had to search her. He allegedly groped her underneath her clothes and inserted his fingers into her genitalia.

Prater said Thursday that he wanted a jury that was a “good cross-section of our community”, but defense attorneys eliminated every potential black juror during the selection process. Citty fired him before trial. “Lastly, we were disappointed to find out that numerous victims didn’t have proper representation or support to help them navigate the confusing and complicated legal proceedings”.

It shouldn’t be this way, and until more victims are believed and more rapists are convicted, it will continue to be this way, but those 13 women have given me a peace I thought was out of reach.

The youngest of his victims, a 17-year-old girl, was the last to testify.

Holtzclaw pulled over another woman and accused her of drunk driving before ordering her to pull down her trousers.