Oklahoma City Police Officer Daniel Holtzclaw
(sexual predator/serial rapist)
A white police officer has been found guilty by an all white jury on 5 counts of rape and 13 counts of sexual assault. All 13 of his victims are black women ranging in age from 17-57 at the time the cop abused them.
Their courage to end their silence and come forward to testify against police officer Daniel Holtzclaw is a victory for all women and all victims of violent assaults. No man is above the truth. He's just a man. One voice of truth can ignite a firestorm to burn down violence and deceit. Abuse in any form by anyone for any reason is wrong. And criminal laws are written to judge and punish such wrongs and abuse.
The name Daniel Holtzclaw should be highlighted by all news organizations today. Police nationally should show nothing but anger and disgrace toward their fellow officer for using his position of civic trust to victimize civilians he swore to protect. He has smeared the badge and honor of his police department.
At 6'2, 220 pounds, a former college football linebacker, Officer Holtzclaw is guilty of more than just being a predator who profiled black women as prey for his sexual assaults; he is guilty of breaking a law enforcement oath to protect and serve the community; the Entire community, not just one sector.
If Officer Holtzclaw did harbor some warped, supremacist idea that only a certain sector of the community was deserving of his protection and services, he had no right to victimize and abuse any other sector of the community. He's a sick man armed with weapons, a badge and the privilege of race. Praise the jury for hearing the evidence and not getting blinded by the uniform or race of the accused. This is what Justice should look like.
Take race out of the equation and you have this international headline:
Multiple Women assaulted and victimized at different times by one police officer because he believed he was above the law and could get away with it. One bad apple picked out of the bunch and exposed as a perpetrator.
Doesn't mean their aren't more bad apples in the barrel, not by a long shot. A year long Associated Press investigation illuminated the problem of rape and sexual misconduct committed by law officers in the United States, uncovering about 1,000 officers who lost their licenses from 2009-2014 for such incidents.
But we should be very careful not to indict all police officers on the reprehensible record of this guilty one and/or the others like him. A conservative count of all sworn law enforcement officers in the U.S. in 2014 was 900,000.
Just as Mr. Trump's fear of all muslims being potential terrorists is a dangerous phobia to spread, so to the accusation of all police being rapists, all blacks being criminals, all jews being money hungry, all italians being mobsters, all irish being drunks, all anybodies being anything. It's both inaccurate and dangerous to generalize/profile any group of peoples based solely on race, religion, color or duty.
Hopefully the prosecution and conviction of Officer Daniel Holtzclaw sheds light on one reason minority communities are reluctant to partner with police departments to help rid their neighborhoods of vice and crime; that reason being trust. More times than not, it's the minority neighborhoods who can spot a 'bad apple' best. It's time police and other civic leaders listen to them and others who've been silenced by threats and retaliations.
It's these same bullying tactics used by police officer Daniel Holtclaw, soon to be inmate ######, that have turned many citizens, both law-abiding and non-law-abiding, against trusting police officers in these United States. Unfortunately, one bad apple can rotten the reputation of the whole bunch.
One woman alleged that she was handcuffed to a hospital bed, high on PCP, when Holtzclaw forced her to perform oral sex on him. Another woman testified that Holtzclaw ran her name and found out she had city warrants, and then drove her to an abandoned school and raped her.
Another victim explained to the court that she didn’t tell anyone about Holtzclaw's alleged abuse because she’d "never been on the right side of the law." The last woman to testify, who was only 17 at the time of her alleged rape, summarized the group sentiment with one salient and heartbreaking question: "What kind of police do you call on the police?"
The most horricic cop rap case you've never heard of - 12/10/2015
How the rapist cop was caught - 9/05/2015
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