This is utterly terrible: an Oklahoma City police officer has been arrested for sexually assaulting at least seven women while on patrol duty. All of his victims were black women ranging in age between 34 and 58, and the assaults occurred over a period of five months.
According to the Oklahoman, police began investigating officer Daniel K. Holtzclaw on June 18 after receiving a complaint from one of his alleged victims, a 57-year-old grandmother who claims she was forced to perform oral sex on him during a traffic stop. After contacting other women who had also been stopped by Holtzclaw, the police discovered six other victims. They anticipate that there may be more whom they have yet to identify and contact.
As of now, Holtzclaw accused of raping one woman, forcing three to perform oral sex and "fondling and exposing" the others. He would reportedly stop his victims at routine traffic stops while on patrol duty, and he would threaten to arrest them if they did not comply with him. In case the past two weeks haven't made it clear, the world we live in is completely and unspeakably fucked-up.
In a press conference, Alitia Timmons, a lawyer representing the first victim to come forward, said that her client was "scared to leave her house" in the aftermath of her assault. "When she was driving and she saw a police officer drive by, it would terrorize her, and she has been piecing herself together."
Officer Holtzclaw, who has been on the force for three years, was one of four police officers named in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed in 2013. He is currently being held in jail on a $5 million bond.
Image via Oklahoma County Sheriff's Department.