Police Brutality Goes Hand In Hand With Sexual Assault For Some Black Women

The decision was reached on his 29th birthday.

After four full days of deliberation, former Oklahoma cop Daniel Holtzclaw was found guilty of rape and sexual battery Thursday. Holtzclaw sobbed relentlessly after an all-white jury convicted him on 18 of the 36 charges he faced, which included six first-degree rape counts and a slew of sexual battery charges.

The verdict came after weeks of harrowing witness testimonies, egregious tactics by defense attorneys and pleas from prosecutors who said Holtzclaw preyed on black women with criminal records and substance abuse problems because he thought they wouldn’t speak up.

Holtzclaw was wrong. They did. 

Picture of Holtzclaw pleading and begging at court, looking for sympathy that the good do not have.

Holtzclaw carried out calculated attacks of sexual violence against one of America’s most marginalized and mistreated groups: black women. Yet his lewd acts are just one example of brutality and sexual assault cases against black women by police that too often go ignored.

"What kind of police do you call on the police?" A quote from a 17-year-old victim who testified about her rape by Holtzclaw

For seven months, Holtzclaw patrolled one of the state’s poorest black neighborhoods and individually sought out black women with criminal records and/or a history of drug use.

Prosecutors said Holtzclaw specifically targeted these victims because he believed them to be too vulnerable or fearful to do or say anything against a criminal cop acting under the color of authority. Ultimately, he believed that his gender, race and policeman status would intimidate his victims enough to protect his purported innocence. Again, he was wrong.

The youngest victim was a 17-year-old girl who said Holtzclaw raped her on her mother’s porch and whose DNA was found in the crotch area of his uniform pants, one expert testified. "What kind of police do you call on the police?" the victim asked in court. A 57-year-old grandmother sparked an investigation after she reported her assault by Holtzclaw to authorities last year. She told them Holtzclaw forced her to perform oral sex during a traffic stop.

In court, Holtzclaw’s defense attorney Scott Adams used the background of these women as ammunition to paint victims as violators of the law who “want to work forward their own agenda” and “don’t care about the truth.” 

But the real truth is:

THIS is what rape culture looks like;

THIS is what police brutality can look like against black women.