Former Oklahoma City cop Daniel Holtzclaw is facing over two dozen charges including forcible rape, stalking, and sodomy against 13 black women. And while an all-white jury continues deliberations, we’re getting to hear from the victims in their own words.
Stories of Holtzclaw’s forced sexual assaults are disturbing, disgusting, and reprehensible. All of the women tell consistent recounts of Holtzclaw using his badge as an intimidation tool for rape, alongside forcing them into oral sodomy, groping, and more.
Buzzfeed compiled the testimony, taken from a preliminary hearing last November, into one report. Read an expert below:
He wasn’t touching me, but he was touching himself … had his hand down there touching himself.
After he made a comment like he said, ‘Damn, you got a big ass.’ Those are the exact words. And I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, he’s going to kill me.’ That’s what I kept saying to myself.
At this point, J. was still sitting in the backseat of Holtzclaw’s car. He was standing beside her, outside the car, when he allegedly exposed his penis through his fly and said “Come on.”
I was twirling my hands together I was so afraid. I said, “No, sir. Now, you’re not supposed to do this. You’re not supposed to do this, sir.”
He said, ‘Come on.’ He said, ‘I don’t have all night.’ He said, ‘ just got off of work.’
And I’m sitting there, ‘No, sir, don’t make me do this. Don’t make me do this.’ I said, ‘You’re going to shoot me,’ and I’m sitting there looking afraid. I try to bend my head down, but I was looking at that gun in his holster and I’m saying to myself when I bend down he’s going to shoot me in the head. I was really afraid.
I raised my head back up and I said, ‘Sir, please don’t make me do this. Don’t make me do this. You’re going to shoot me.’ Then … he said, ‘I’m not going to shoot you, I promise.’ I said, ‘You promise?’ And he kind of made a snicker sound.
A snicker, like a grin. He kind of grinned.
A laugh.
According to prosecutors, Holtzclaw preyed on women in lower-income communities with criminal records and in some cases substance abuse issues.
The women range from ages 17 to 57 at the time of the assaults, and in each case they were scared to come forward for fear that they wouldn’t be believed. As one woman testified: “I didn’t know what to think and I didn’t know what to do, like, what am I going to do, call the cops? He was a cop.”
Holtzclaw has denied the charges.
You can read the full testimony here.
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Photo: Oklahoma PD
