All-White Jury Deliberates on Cop Accused of Sexually Assaulting 13 Black Women

A jury is currently on its third day of deliberations following the trial of 28-year-old former Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw, who has been accused of sexually assaulting 13 black women in his high-crime patrol area over the course of seven months. Prosecutors claim Holtzclaw used his position and power as a police officer to systematically target black victims with criminal histories whom he believed would not be able to speak out against him and would be ignored if they did. There are 36 counts in total, including charges of rape, forced oral sodomy, sexual battery, and indecent exposure.

The case appears to be a particularly egregious and overt example of the way police manipulate their positions of power to take advantage of vulnerable minority populations. Over the course of the trial, which began on November 2, 2015, several outlets, including the Guardian and Buzzfeed, have suggested that Holtzclaw engaged in a calculated pattern of manipulation in order to commit his crimes. "He chose [his alleged victims] because they are women of color, because of their socioeconomic status, and because they had previous interaction with law enforcement," says Stacey Wright, the founder of Yes All Daughters, a grassroots victims advocacy organization that formed in November 2014 following the aggressive bullying of rape victims at a Norman, OK, high school. Yes All Daughters has participated in several awareness-raising efforts related to Holtzclaw's case, including live-tweeting Holtzclaw's trial. "He thought no one would believe them," she says. "They thought no one would believe them."

Organizations like Yes All Daughters and OKC Artists for Justice, who Wright says were instrumental in "bring[ing] attention to this important case," have rallied for justice against Holtzclaw, hosting peaceful protests, congregating in discussion forums and vigils, and rallying support on social media. Nevertheless, early on in the trial local outlets noted that the courtroom was "mostly empty." In September 2014, Oklahoma NAACP president Anthony Douglas asked Buzzfeed, "Where's my media and where's my women's groups?"

"It took far too long, over a year, for this case to receive the media attention it deserves," said Wright.

According to a press conference given after Holtclaw's arrest in 2014, Holtzclaw joined the police department after failing to be drafted into the NFL as a linebacker for Eastern Michigan University. He was officially arrested outside his gym on August 21, 2014, a little over two months after he allegedly pulled over a 57-year-old woman, molesting her and ordering her to perform oral sex on him during the traffic stop, his gun visible the entire time. The woman reported the incident the day after it occurred. After an internal police investigation linked Holtzclaw to other reports of sexual abuse by unnamed police officers, Holtzclaw was fired from the police force in January 2015.

Holtzclaw has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and a group, Justice for Daniel Holtzclaw, has formed online to advocate on his behalf; the group, which has 1,041 "likes," sells T-shirts that say "Free the Claw" and posts articles about the ongoing trial. Back in August 2014, Holtzclaw's sister, Jennifer, set up a GoFundMe account to raise Holtzclaw's legal defense fund, but the website shut the campaign down after it received "a high volume of complaints." Like Holtzclaw is alleged to have done himself, Holtzclaw's attorney, Scott Adams, attempted to undermine victims' testimonies by bringing up past drug charges and suspended licenses during the trial.

The alleged victims' testimonies, compiled by Buzzfeed, paint a consistent portrait of Holtzclaw's systematic abuse. The women reported that Holtzclaw asked them similar questions leading up to the assaults and the fear that no one would believe their stories. According to police investigators, Holtzclaw ran background checks on 12 out of 13 of the victims to locate outstanding warrants or other ways he could coerce them into sex; one accuser, who was 17 years old at the time of her alleged rape, said that before Holtzclaw raped her on her mother's porch, he mentioned her outstanding warrant for trespassing and said, "This is what you're going to have to do." Others, such as one woman (identified in court records as S.H.) who was high on PCP and handcuffed to a hospital bed at the time of her alleged assault, claim Holtzclaw implied he could drop their charges if they did what he wanted. (According to Buzzfeed's report, S.H. said that when Holtzclaw forced her into oral sodomy, he told her "not move too much so that her heart monitor wouldn't go off.")

Social media users are currently impatiently awaiting a verdict, and the mood is hopeful yet wary. According to Census data from 2010, the population of Oklahoma City is 40 percent black, Latino, Asian, and/or Native American. However, the jury for this trial consists of eight men and four women, all of whom are white.