Victims Of Ex-Oklahoma Cop Convicted Of Rape Speak Out

Holtzclaw was accused of assault by 13 women. “There is a tendency not to believe black women”. She was not from the mostly low-income neighborhood where he patrolled. Some of the women had previous run-ins with law enforcement. As numerous victims pointed out during their press conference on Friday morning, the trial may be over, but justice is still in deliberation.

They are vulnerable because they are among the least likely to have their voices heard, let alone to have their voices be believed.

“The number one concern of survivors we work with is fear of not being believed, or not being taken seriously”, Layden continued.

Holtzclaw would stop women on the street. “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?”

The “he said-she said” nature of such cases make them even more hard when officers are accused. He usually asked them to lift their shirts so he could “search” them for drugs, and then groped them, forced them to perform oral sex on him, or raped them. “When you think about statutes that did not criminalize the rape of black women, it promoted the notion that we don’t have any virtue to protect”.

“I didn’t do anything wrong”. “I don’t understand how this officer could operate for months [with] it going unnoticed by somebody above him”.

Buzzfeed reported the testimony of his victims in full. They anxious Holtzclaw would tell neighbors they were a snitch or they would end up in jail themselves. “First-line supervisors are responsible for making sure officers are performing their duties and not abusing their police powers”.

“I didn’t think that no one would believe me”, one woman testified.

“I was scared I felt like I had to do that…”

Once there, Holtzclaw raped her while she was handcuffed to a hospital bed, telling her to keep still so her heart monitor wouldn’t activate.

They have many questions for Holtzclaw’s former superiors.

From there, Detective Kim Davis investigated, BuzzFeed reported. To Davis, the account sounded remarkably similar to another assault complaint from about five weeks earlier – perhaps the same police officer was responsible.

“The City of Oklahoma City was negligent in that…the City was aware of some, if not all the assaults, weeks prior to the Plaintiff’s assault” by Holtzclaw, the lawsuit reads.

“It shows that there is a hope for our country, there is hope for society and there is hope for all our sisters, mothers, wives, daughters, who are victims of rape, no matter what race they are, what ethnicity they are, what social-economic class and status they’re in”, said Benjamin Crump, a lawyer who plans to sue the city on behalf of some of the women.

Holtzclaw had faced a total of 36 counts.

The youngest victim was 17-years-old. An Associated Press investigation found that roughly 1,000 police officers lost their badges within a six-year period because of sexual misconduct. Others, however, assume their position grants immunity. The fact that this jury chose to convict Holtzclaw shouldn’t be notable, but it is. She came forward as a victim after reading a news item about Holtzclaw on Facebook a year ago, she said. The defense questioned their credibility…arguing Holtzclaw was an honest cop who tried to help drug addicts and prostitutes.

Then came the court case. The sad truth is that violence against women, particularly sexual violence and particularly against Black women, just isn’t seen the same way as violence against men.

Holtzclaw will be sentenced in January, and faces up to 263 years.