Oklahoma Ex-Cop Found Guilty of Raping Vulnerable Women While on Duty

His case brought new attention to the problem of sexual misconduct committed by law enforcement officers, something police chiefs have studied for years.

Supporters of the victims pray after the verdicts were read for the charges against Daniel Holtzclaw.

A former Oklahoma police officer was found guilty Thursday of sexually assaulting and abusing several women from the low-income neighborhood he patrolled. Combine that with the ability of trouble cops to easily find employment at other departments, derogatorily dubbed “gypsy cops”, the benefit of the doubt given to those with a badge, it becomes nearly impossible to fire an officer, much less indict one. In 44 states, police officers are licensed by the state, and in those states they can be removed from law enforcement, they can be decertified from their licenses for various forms of police misconduct. Like so many other predators, Holtzclaw figured he could his victims with impunity, calculating that they would not report him for fear they would not be believed. And that’s exactly who authorities accused Holtzclaw of targeting. The youngest victim was 17 years old at the time of the assault.

Meanwhile, it should be noted that there has been silence from women’s groups throughout this trial, and no rallying to the defense of these women who were victimized by a violent cop and a coldblooded, cold-hearted system.

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”.

Another victim, Shardayreon “Sharday” Hill, told reporters that she was handcuffed to hospital bed when Holtzclaw “started to manipulate me”. Another said Holtzclaw told her would get rid of a drug charge against her if she cooperated with him. Her DNA was found on his uniform pants.

But Holtzclaw let her go.

“You were wrong. You know you were wrong”, said one of Holtzclaw’s accusers, Shardayreon Hill.

In addition to multiple counts of first-degree rape, the 29-year-old convicted rapist, was found guilty on charges of second-degree rape, forcible oral sodomy, sexual battery and procuring lewd exhibition. That woman said he followed her into her bedroom and raped her, telling her, “This is better than county jail”. “I was innocent. He just picked the wrong lady to stop that night”, she says. “It is a comfort to us all”.

The AP did not identify the mom, so as not to name the daughter as a casualty of a sex crime. As bad as one may feel for someone who is bawling their eyes out after realizing just what kind of life they will endure for decades to come, the victims are the ones to be remembered here.

Ultimately, that approach did not sway the jury to dismiss the women’s stories.

The grandmother was assaulted after Holtzclaw, who is mixed race Asian and white, pulled her over on 18 June 2014. “No nurses, nobody came to check on me”. And even when convictions are won in cases where rape was the most serious charge, 11 percent don’t go to prison. They also condemned defense attorney Scott Adams’s cross examination of the accusers, which focused a great deal on their criminal records and drug abuse. Eric Holtzclaw, left, holds his wife, Kumiko Holtzclaw, right, as the verdicts are read in the trial of their son, Daniel Holtzclaw, in Oklahoma City, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015.

His father – a police officer in Enid, about 100 miles northwest of Oklahoma City – his mother and sister were in the courtroom as the verdict was read.

Although the guilty verdict received widespread national and worldwide coverage, some critics claimed that interest in the case had been slow to develop because the charges involved sexual assault on black women.