After a two-day preliminary
hearing, an Oklahoma state court judge ordered that Daniel Holtzclaw, an
Oklahoma City police officer, will stand trial for sexually assaulting 13
African-American women while on duty.
Holtzclaw is charged with 36
counts of sexual assault, including six counts of first-degree rape, and
multiple counts of forcible oral sodomy, sexual battery, and indecent exposure.
During the hearing, all 13
women gave testimony against the police officer, who is alleged to have used
his power as an officer to commit these crimes. One woman testified that she
was forced to perform sexual acts: “It was either that or the county jail.”
Another woman testified, “He was an officer. And I was scared. And I knew he
could hurt me.”
A 17-year old girl also offered
testimony that Holtzclaw, after threatening her with arrest, pulled down her
shorts and forced her to have sex with him on the front porch of her mother’s
home. “What am I going to do? Call the cops? He was a cop,” she testified. “I
was afraid of what could happen to me if I was snitching.” Prosecutors
introduced DNA evidence found inside of Holtzclaw’s pants matching that of the
girl.
Another woman testified that
Holtzclaw stopped her as she was walking through her neighborhood. The
52-year-old said the officer put his hands under her blouse, and when she
resisted, he put his hand in her pants. After this, she said Holtzclaw told
her, “OK, you don’t have anything in there. You can go.”
Police began investigating
Holtzclaw after one of the survivors reported an assault in June. The other 12
women had not reported Holtzclaw until they were contacted by detectives
investigating the June assault. Many of the women feared reprisal or that they
would not be believed.
“Who are they going to
believe?” the 17-year old told the court. “It’s my word against his. He’s a
police officer.”
In their written testimony to
the United Nations Committee Against Torture, the Black Women’s Blueprint
referenced the Holtzclaw case as symptomatic of a larger pattern of practice
among law enforcement officials in the US that most often plays out in
communities of color. In their report, they highlighted that despite the fact that
black women and racially-mixed black women are more often the victims of rape
than their white counterparts, they are much less likely to get a conviction
for a sex crime.
Holtclaw has pleaded not
guilty. He remains out on $609,000 bail. During the hearing on Tuesday,
protesters outside of the courthouse called on the court to rescind bail.
