commentary by Patrick H. Moore
All sexual assaults are creepy and of course sex crimes against children go to the head of the class. But there’s another type of sex crime that is not far behind in terms of pure reprehensibility – this is when your neighborhood police officer bullies innocent women into providing him with sexual favors through a combination of intimidation and general cussedness.
Because I am very aware of this tendency on the part of some law enforcement personnel, one of my biggest worries is that my daughter, who is rather pretty, will get pulled over late one night by a patrolman who will decide to victimize her. I warn her about this possibility regularly and because she is of the age when teens tend to think they’re invincible, she probably pays no attention. Although I’m not quite to the point of lying awake at night waiting for her to get home safely, I wake instantly when I hear the blessed sound of the front door opening, breathe a sigh of relief, and head back to dreamland.
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Daniel Ken Holtzclaw was a football star in high school and later on in college at Eastern Michigan University.
Kristi Eaton and Ken Miller of the Associated Press write:
Holtzclaw was an all-state football player in his senior year at Enid, leading the team with 123 tackles. The Eastern Michigan football media guide in 2008 featured him at the top of its roster page — touting his weightlifting abilities and his starting in every game since his arrival on campus in 2005. He tried out for the Detroit Lions after he was not taken in the NFL draft, but was cut from the team.
Holtzclaw’s size, 6-foot-1, 246 pounds, may have worked against him making the pros as he’s a bit small for a linebacker which was apparently his position in college.
Therefore, Holtzclaw, who majored in Criminal Justice, decided to go into police work and landed a job with the Oklahoma City police force. Based on a flippant (and disturbing) remark he made last year in an interview with the Enid News & Eagle newspaper, he sounds far more interested in intimidation than in actually seeking justice. In the interview, was quoted as saying he wanted to join the police department’s anti-gang unit “where you knock and go in screaming.”
“The gang unit reminds me most of playing football. It reminds me of that adrenaline rush. You are going, going … chasing bad guys.”
For unknown reasons, however, Hotzclaw was not assigned to the anti-gang unit, although he might have made it there eventually if he wasn’t allegedly a SEXUAL CRIMINAL. In his second year on the force, he was assigned to a nighttime patrol route in a rundown part of Oklahoma City.
An Oklahoma City police officer arrested on charges of serial sexual assault preyed on women in the rundown neighborhoods he was assigned to patrol — picking some up off the street, pulling others over at traffic stops and in one case taking a woman to a nearby school, according to an affidavit released Friday.
Former star football player Daniel Ken Holtzclaw, 27, raped one woman and either fondled others or forced them to expose themselves, investigators said. He made others perform sex acts on him.
And police said there could be more victims than the seven already identified.
“They’re retracing all of his contacts, as many as they can, especially traffic stops,” said police spokesman Capt. Dexter Nelson.
To their credit, the Oklahoma Police appear to have launched an investigation immediately when a woman complained in June that Holtzclaw had sexually assaulted her during a traffic stop on a boulevard about two miles north of the state Capitol. Holtzclaw was immediately placed on leave and investigators began checking Holtzclaw’s interactions with the public since he began street patrols about 18 months ago.
By re-tracing Holtzclaw’s on-the-job contacts, the investigators identified seven victims and eight incidents of sexual misconduct including rape, sexual battery and indecent exposure. Only then was the former star tackler arrested and taken into custody. Police Chief Bill Citty made the decision to publish Holtzclaw’s photograph in the hope that other victims will step forward. Holtzclaw had not previously been disciplined in his three-year tenure with the department, although according to one report, he was named in a wrongful death suit in 2013.
According to the affidavit, the victims were reportedly all black women between the ages of 34 and 58. Three of the women were assaulted in his car and one victim was taken to a school in the Spring Lake Division where Holtzclaw worked.
“Did he feel that these people were so disenfranchised that they could be thrown away because no one would care about their safety?” asked state Rep. Connie Johnson, who represents the area in the state Legislature.
The police are not convinced that Holtzclaw targeted the victims because of their race, but suspect he simply assaulted the women who were available it the area he worked, which was a racially-mixed neighborhood of blacks, Hispanics, Vietnamese and a few whites.
It’s curious how some people react to an incident of this nature. Holtzclaw’s former high school football coach Tom Cobble is apparently more concerned that Holtzclaw “knows he’s loved” than he is concerned about the welfare of the hapless victims.
Cobble said the allegations were “absolutely a shock. It’s so totally out of character. It’s unbelievable. We need to reach out to him and make sure he knows he’s loved.”
It’s going to take more than “love” to get Holtzclaw out of this mess.
In contrast to Coach Cobble, Capt. Nelson said Holtzclaw’s colleagues are upset at the allegations against a police officer.
“Most of us see it as a black eye to our profession and our department.”
Holtzclaw is being held at the Oklahoma County Jail in lieu of $5 million bond. District Attorney David Prater said formal charges could be lodged by Aug. 29.
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This is the second case of serious charges being brought against urban area Oklahoma police officers in the past few weeks. In Tulsa, we had 24-year-police-force veteran Shannon Kepler being charged with first-degree-murder in the August 5th shooting death of his adopted daughter Lisa’s 19-year-old boyfriend, Jeremy Lake.
In Kepler’s case, there is some question as to exactly what transpired. There are only two witnesses, Lisa Kepler and one other individual who allegedly suffers from mental problems. Kepler’s lawyer has reportedly stated that they have a “valid, though imperfect defense”.
In the case of Daniel Hotzclaw, based on the sheer number of allegations against him (the number is seven and could go higher), it seems rather unlikely that the accusations are unfounded.
With local law enforcement agencies now in the spotlight based on the sheer number of shootings, rapes and beatings perpetrated by those who are supposed to protect us, it will be interesting to see if police departments around the nation become more sensitive to the need to “police their own” effectively. As a nation, we need to be able to trust our “men in blue” rather than simply fearing them as so many of us do.