Police and Sexual Assaults

[swake]

What is up with cops sexually assaulting women they meet on duty in Oklahoma? Three have been arrested in just the last month with at least 15 victims, all three cops were using their position as officers to intimidate the women.

Tulsa County Sherriff:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/crimewatch/update-tulsa-county-sheriff-s-deputy-resigns-after-arrest-on/article_55f9e59b-67f1-5664-912c-e178700ec939.html

Oklahoma Highway Patrol:
http://newsok.com/oklahoma-highway-patrol-trooper-arrested-on-sexual-assault-kidnapping-complaints/article/5342164

Oklahoma City Police:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/08/23/oklahoma-city-police-officer-accused-rape-sex-assaults-on-patrol/

pancakes is wrong with cops these days?

[Vashta Nerada]

What is up with cops sexually assaulting women they meet on duty in Oklahoma? Three have been arrested in just the last month with at least 15 victims, all three cops were using their position as officers to intimidate the women.

Missed a couple, within the week:


A Tulsa Public Schools security officer faces five charges of sexually abusing a child.
The officer came to the district from a company called Securitas which contracts with TPS.
http://www.newson6.com/story/26483090/former-tulsa-public-school-security-guard-charged-with-child-sexual-abuse

Passing the Trash:  Trooper fired after killing not charged, eligible for police work elsewhere.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/crimewatch/ohp-trooper-fired-for-fatal-off-duty-shooting-at-tulsa/article_d1020e54-94a2-5275-aed4-d7c030b71a85.html

'Cannibal Cop' cohort sentenced to 10 years for plotting kidnappings, murder.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/cannibal-cohort-sentenced-10-years-article-1.1941960

[tulsa_fan]

Read this first . . . THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR SEXUALLY ASSULTING a person . . . period.

I do like to try and  understand the basis for the behavior.  You could assume these guys were all sexually abused themselves, but I'm not thinking so.  My thought is that there is this stereotype (old school) that women always got out of tickets by flirting (and more) with an officer.   If somewhere in messed up minds, a person decided that was a truth rather than a fantasy, then he may be approaching a situation with the attitude that he should expect that treatment.  Probably not every time, but sometimes our stupid thoughts get the best of any of us.   Just a thought, definitely not a defense of these officers. 

[Vashta Nerada]

Punch in the gut, maybe, but a total surprise?  I dont think so.
How do you spend your entire career busting creeps, yet miss the one working right next to you?


More:

DA Moves to Revoke Bond of Police Chief Accused of Molestation
http://www.ktul.com/story/26567667/da-moves-to-revoke-bond-of-police-chief-accused-of-molestation

De-certifying bad cops that get fired or forced to resign should be by default.  Ahem, CLEET....

[Vashta Nerada]

Attorney Clark Brewster suggested that citizens record their traffic stops.

"It's probably not unreasonable to have a recorder if you have genuine concern, or video, and tell the officer you're videoing it to put yourself into a position where there might be some kind of protection," Brewster said.

He added, if the conversation crosses the line, that's when a call for help is necessary.

"If the officer is engaging in predatory conduct or being off-color or improper in any way, that justifies telling him you're gonna use the phone to call the authorities and you're gonna stop having further dialogue with him," Brewster said.

http://www.news9.com/story/26561630/arrest-of-deputy-for-sexual-assault-is-third-of-its-kind

[Vashta Nerada]

The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf is puzzled by all the attention given the National Football League (NFL) for domestic violence incidents involving some of its players.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/?single_page=true


There is a profession, on the other hand, that has an unusually high rate of domestic abuse - police officers. Those criticising the NFL, he says, should also be spotlighting this disturbing trend in the law enforcement community.

The National Center for Women and Policing cites two studies that found that "at least 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10% of families in the general population".

"If there's any job that domestic abuse should disqualify a person from holding, isn't it the one job that gives you a lethal weapon, trains you to stalk people without their noticing, and relies on your judgment and discretion to protect the abused against domestic abusers?"

Friedersdorf goes on to recount a number of domestic violence incidents in recent years across the US involving police officers, such as murder-suicides in Colorado, Washington state, Texas , Indiana, Nevada and Utah.

He also points to a 2013 New York Times article that found many domestic violence incidents involving police are handled "informally", allowing the assailants to continue to work without official sanction.

"The law enforcement community hasn't seen fit to track these cases consistently or rigorously," he writes.

Based on reported stories and the incidents that do lead to criminal prosecution, however, he says the evidence of a nationwide problem is "overwhelming".

"In many departments, an officer will automatically be fired for a positive marijuana test, but can stay on the job after abusing or battering a spouse."  "The situation is significantly bigger than what the NFL faces, orders of magnitude more damaging to society and yet far less known to the public, which hasn't demanded changes," he concludes.

A few weeks ago Echo Chambers observed that law enforcement also doesn't seem all that interested in keeping records about how often citizens are killed in police shootings.

Out of the public's sight, out of the public's mind.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-29262598

The woman called 911, seeking help from police after reportedly being assaulted by her boyfriend. But while police responded to the domestic violence call, one of the officers allegedly took the woman into an upstairs bedroom and sexually assaulted her, authorities said.

http://www.freep.com/article/20140307/NEWS01/303070095/Detroit-cop-rape-911

[Vashta Nerada]

Wewoka police officer accused of sexually assaulting 15-year-old while on duty
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/crimewatch/former-wewoka-police-officer-accused-of-sexually-assaulting--year/article_25c8b00d-ccd0-55db-b3e4-04536c1bab8d.html

Blackwell spent "about 20 minutes" in Seminole County custody before posting bond. Jail officials did not provide a mugshot, saying they did not take a booking photo of him.

James Wilson, general counsel for the Council of Law Enforcement Education and Training, or CLEET, said Monday that Blackwell remains a CLEET-certified police officer in the state. He did not say, however, whether Blackwell was currently employed with an Oklahoma law enforcement agency.

[Vashta Nerada]

Hunted by night: Oklahoma City police officer accused of series of sexual assaults

For six months, prosecutors allege, Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Ken Holtzclaw prowled the dimly lit nighttime streets of one of the state's poorest neighborhoods engaging in an escalating level of sexual assaults, often while on duty.
http://newsok.com/hunted-by-night-oklahoma-city-police-officer-accused-of-series-of-sexual-assaults/article/5339632


The incidents took place in private residences and in a police car parked on streets or in empty lots, authorities say. The crimes advanced from groping, to oral sodomy, to rape. The victims ranged in ages from 34 to 58.

The attacks stopped in June, only after Holtzclaw, 27, allegedly assaulted a woman who immediately reported the incident to police. That report came more than two months after another victim had come forward to tell police she'd been assaulted by an unknown officer later alleged to be Holtzclaw. Department officials say it wasn't until the second victim came forward that they were able to link both cases to Holtzclaw. He was removed from duty the day of the second assault. In the weeks that followed, police would canvass neighborhoods, examine Holtzclaw's police computer searches and review the global tracking system on Holtzclaw's police vehicle to trace his movements.

Hotlzclaw, son and brother-in-law of law enforcement officers, a former college football star and three-year department veteran, is charged with two counts of first-degree rape and several other counts of forcible oral sodomy, sexual battery, indecent exposure, burglary and stalking. Eight victims have been identified already, and investigators say there could be more.

On Wednesday, Oklahoma County District Judge Timothy Henderson agreed to lower Holtzclaw's bail from $5 million to $500,000. Holtzclaw was released Friday after posting a cash bond. He will stay with his parents in Enid and wear a monitor to track his whereabouts.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following sections allege encounters between Holtzclaw and eight victims. The quotes and descriptions, especially quotes attributed to Holtzclaw, come from court records and testimony. Holtzclaw did not speak to The Oklahoman for this story.

Court records and testimony in the case allege the following encounters between Holtzclaw and eight victims:

The first known assault took place Feb. 27, just past midnight, in the 1500 block of NE 15 St., a few blocks east of the OU Medical Center in the Culbertson East Highland neighborhood. The neighborhood sits in one of the poorest census tracts in the state, where the median household income hovers around $14,000 a year, about one-third the state average, and 50 percent of residents live in poverty. Eighty percent of the residents are black and 10 percent are white.

It was into this tough neighborhood, part of the sprawling Springlake Patrol Division covering much of the city's north side, that Holtzclaw went to work straight from the police academy. He worked third shift — 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., often patrolling alone. He stood 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed 260 pounds, 40 pounds over his listed playing weight when he amassed more than 400 tackles and 18 sacks as a record-setting Division 1 football player at Eastern Michigan University. He'd grown up in Enid, the son of a longtime city policeman and stay-at-home mom and grandson of the dean of the OU Health Sciences Center. After unsuccessful attempts to make an NFL team, he'd joined the police department in September 2010. A fitness and weightlifting enthusiast, Holtzclaw attended LifeChurch in Edmond.

The first victim would later tell investigators she was sitting in her car with her children and a friend in front of her home when two police cars blocked her in. After running her friend's license and finding he had no warrants, one officer left on another call. A second officer, young and burly, lingered. He asked the woman if there were drugs in the house, whether they were going to buy drugs, whether she had any on her. He ordered the friend and children inside the house so he could talk to the woman alone in his patrol car. He checked her for warrants. He found three. In a recent court hearing, a police detective testified about the conversation that followed.

"What are we going to do about this?" Holtzclaw asked.

The woman said Holtzclaw told her he needed to search her and told her to lift her shirt.

The woman said she lifted her shirt, exposing her belly. She knew the protocol. She knew she wouldn't have to show more without a female officer present.

"No. That won't work," he told her. "I need you to lift it all the way."

When she did, Holtzclaw fondled her, the woman said.

It would be the first of three such encounters the woman would have with Holtzclaw over the course of the next month.

About two weeks later, on March 14, about two blocks east, near NE 16 St. and Fonshill Avenue, another woman was walking down a street pocked with vacant lots when a police officer pulled to the crumbling curb and asked her for identification. A warrant check turned up a history of drugs and prostitution.

The same routine followed. The officer told the woman to raise her shirt and expose her breasts.

When detectives later tracked down the woman, she said she never reported the incident because she didn't want to make trouble for herself or the people in her neighborhood.

On March 25, authorities allege Holtzclaw returned to the first victim's house on NE 15 St. She wasn't home, but inside, Holtzclaw found the woman's boyfriend, Terry Wayne Williams, sleeping in one of the bedrooms. Holtzclaw shook him awake, asked where the woman was, ran a warrant check on the man, then ordered him to leave, saying he didn't want to see him around the house anymore. When the woman returned home some time later, Holtzclaw told her children to go inside the house then told her he could take care of her warrants "if you play by my rules."

The woman told police she knew that meant more sexual favors. Told to expose her breasts and vagina, she said she complied.

The next day, Holtzclaw again showed up at the woman's house and tried to get inside.

The woman, who was cooking dinner and talking to her mother on the phone, told him to go away.

Holtzclaw threatened to arrest both the woman and her mother, before leaving.

"I'll be back," he warned.

Looking back, Scoggins, the victim's neighbor, said she remembers hearing the woman complain several months ago about being bullied by police.

"She was livid," Scoggins recalled. "She said police kept pulling her over for no reason."

Attacks escalate

On April 14, just a block away from the first victim's house, authorities say Holtzclaw stopped another woman near NE 16 Street and Jordan Avenue. He'd stopped the same woman and done a warrant search three weeks earlier.

He asked what she was doing in the area. Did she have any dope on her? Was she trying to buy some?

He did another warrant search. He told her he was going to search her and ordered her to turn around. When the woman turned and raised her arms, she said Holtzclaw groped her from behind, then told her she was free to go.

Ten days later, on April 24, Holtzclaw came across his fourth victim as she walked near NE 14 Street and Jordan Avenue. The woman said she was honest with Holtzclaw, telling him that she had a history with prostitution and drug addiction, had relapsed and had been smoking crack. Holtzclaw found a crack pipe in the woman's purse and made her smash it on the ground.

Holtzclaw then drove the woman to her home about five blocks away.

"He pulled up in the driveway like he lived there," the woman later told police.

The woman said she didn't invite Holtzclaw inside the house, but also didn't want to tell him no since she was on probation and didn't want to go to jail.

Once inside, the two made their way to her bedroom, where the woman said Holtzclaw told her, "This is better than county," before sodomizing and raping her.

Two weeks later, on May 7, Holtzclaw struck again, picking up a woman walking near NE 18 Street and Highland Drive.

He ordered the woman into the back of his patrol car where he sodomized her, then drove to a nearby abandoned school where he hopped a curb, parked between the building and a tree and raped her. As he drove away, Holtzclaw told the woman, "have a good night."

The very next day, Holtzclaw picked up another woman walking near the 2700 block of N Lindsay Avenue. He drove a few blocks, rounded a corner and parked in the 700 block of NE 24 Street, just north of the Oklahoma History Center, where he sodomized her in the back seat.

Afterward, the woman said Holtzclaw drove her through the neighborhood, before stopping near a vacant field. Fearing he was going to kill her, the woman said she began screaming before Holtzclaw let her go.

It would take the woman more than two weeks before she approached several officers working another case in the area to tell them what had happened. It was the first inkling the department had of a potential predator in their ranks.

The case went to Detective Rocky Gregory, a longtime veteran of the department's sex crimes unit, who spent the next two weeks trying to find the May 7 victim.

Meanwhile, on May 26, a woman was walking near NE 16 Street and Jordan Avenue when a police car speeding around a corner almost hit her.

The officer rolled down his window.

"Haven't I taken you to jail before?" Holtzclaw asked the woman.

He hadn't, but he had stopped her and checked her name for outstanding warrants about two months earlier.

This time, he searched her for drugs, fondled her, then let her go.

Weeks later, when detectives investigating the case approached the woman about whether she'd been assaulted by a police officer, she immediately broke into tears.

The last attack

On June 18, Holtzclaw had just finished his shift and was driving outside his normal patrol area when he pulled over a car near NE 50 Street and N Lincoln Boulevard.

The woman told police she saw a car pull up next to her on NE 50 Street before dropping behind and activating his emergency lights as she crossed over N Lincoln Boulevard.

Holtzclaw had turned off both the computer in his patrol car and a global positioning system that tracked the car's movement.

He ordered the driver into the back of his patrol car and asked if she had any drugs.

"If you have something on you and you tell me now, then I won't take you to jail," Holtzclaw told the woman. "But if you don't tell me about it now, and I find something, then I'm gonna take you to jail."

The woman, who had a drug arrest from the 1980s but no history of prostitution, insisted she didn't have any drugs and was returning home after a night spent playing dominoes at a friend's house.

"I'll still need to check you," Holtzclaw told her. "Raise your shirt."

She lifted the shirt to her belly, but Holtzclaw insisted she raise it higher.

He shined his flashlight on her breasts and told her to pull down her pants.

Holtzclaw then sodomized the woman, despite her pleas for him to stop.

The woman drove home and tried to call police, but got no answer. She drove to the police station. Right away, detectives noted similarities between her encounter and that of the May 7 victim.

Holtzclaw was placed on paid leave later that day.

Now, detectives, including Kim Davis, a 13-year veteran of the sex crimes unit, began to pore over Holtzclaw's logs, warrant searches and arrest reports and began interviewing people he'd come into contact with while on duty.

They noticed a pattern. The victims all were black, appeared to be middle-aged and had histories of drug use or prostitution. Most of the attacks also occurred within blocks of each other.

Investigators would go to great lengths to track down potential victims, going from rehab clinics, to homeless shelters to known drug houses.

When they approached the victim of the Feb. 7 assault, she described her attacker as a big man with short black hair that seemed to stand up. She'd given him a nickname — Spike.

As police found the women, they checked their stories against searches Holtzclaw had made on his police computer and the tracking device that traced the movements of Holtzclaw's police cruiser. Everything matched.

They found that the day after the May 7 attack, Holtzclaw had searched the victim's name twice in police databases. Detectives believe he was looking to see if she had reported the assault to police.

"He's stepping out," Assistant District Attorney Gayland Gieger said Wednesday in court. "He's getting bolder."

On Aug. 21, police arrested Holtzclaw at an Edmond gym.

Many residents of the Culbertson East Highland are reluctant to talk about recent events in their neighborhood. Some said they feared retribution from other police officers. Others said they just wanted to mind their own business.

The Rev. Sterling Mitchell, 62, pastor of Amos Memorial Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, 1301 NE 18 St., said people in most cases have confidence in the police.

"But when things like this happen, there is distrust," he said.

With noticeable frustration in his voice, Garland Pruitt, president of the Oklahoma City chapter of the NAACP, said there is a long-standing legacy of distrust for law enforcement in the neighborhood.

"There's a good reason behind not completely and totally trusting our so-called law enforcement to do the right thing," Pruitt said. "When you see injustice with your own eyes, when you experience injustice, unfair treatment, when you see it and experience it, it's a great reason to have a little distrust."

Pruitt said he walks those same streets everyday, and that people in the community believe Holtzclaw is not the only city officer to push their authority past legal limits.

"Their major concern is that this particular one just got caught," Pruitt said.

The pervasive feeling, he said, is a sense of betrayal.

"When you're in a position of 'to protect and serve,' we expect to be able to call on you for help, call on you to save us, rescue us, pull us out of a situation, versus being the (one) causing havoc on the community," Pruitt said.

A woman who runs a hair salon on Lottie Avenue said she's upset about the negative attention the attacks have brought regarding crime and poverty in the neighborhood.

"Everybody will forget about this and nothing will change," the woman said, not taking her eyes off of her soap opera on a nearby television. "This is the northeast side, and that's the way it's always been."

[Vashta Nerada]

Attorney Clark Brewster suggested that citizens record their traffic stops.
"It's probably not unreasonable to have a recorder if you have genuine concern, or video, and tell the officer you're videoing it to put yourself into a position where there might be some kind of protection," Brewster said.

He added, if the conversation crosses the line, that's when a call for help is necessary.

"If the officer is engaging in predatory conduct or being off-color or improper in any way, that justifies telling him you're gonna use the phone to call the authorities and you're gonna stop having further dialogue with him," Brewster said.

Here's what happened when someone did exactly that:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tasered-passenger-my-civil-rights-were-just-thrown-out-window-n219916

[heironymouspasparagus]

Here's what happened when someone did exactly that:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tasered-passenger-my-civil-rights-were-just-thrown-out-window-n219916

Oh...did you think we lived in a country of "rule of law"...??

Sorry about the confusion.....

[heironymouspasparagus]

Hunted by night: Oklahoma City police officer accused of series of sexual assaults

Just a quick note about these long excerpts....how about a link??  Or a little editing to get the most important parts....all that blue gives me seizures scrolling through it.

[Vashta Nerada]

Highway Patrol officers have been sharing explicit photos of female suspects for years as part of a "game," an officer implicated in the scandal told investigators, court records show.
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Disturbing-texts-in-CHP-officers-nude-photo-5846327.php

CHP Officer Sean Harrington, 35, of Martinez, acknowledged to Contra Costa County prosecutors that he had forwarded photos from the cell phone of a woman he had arrested in a DUI case, sent them to his own phone and had shared them with at least two other CHP officers, according to a search warrant filed in Superior Court.

Harrington said he had done the same thing to at least six other female arrestees in the past several years, authorities said. After taking arrestees' photos, officers would share pictures with one another and exchange comments about each woman's looks, Harrington told district attorney inspectors. Harrington said he first learned of the practice while working for the CHP in Los Angeles, investigators said.

"Harrington described this scheme as a game," Darryl Holcombe, a senior inspector wrote in a search warrant affidavit.
One alleged victim was a 19-year-old woman, identified in court records only as Jane Doe 2, who had been involved in a DUI crash in Livermore on Aug. 7. The woman had two photos of her in a bikini taken from her phone as she was undergoing X-rays after being in a crash, investigators said.

"Taken from the phone of my 10-15x while she's in X-rays," Harrington allegedly texted fellow Dublin CHP Officer Robert Hazelwood. In police parlance, "10-15x" refers to a female arrestee. Hazelwood in turn responded, "No fu---— nudes?" the affidavit says.

Holcombe wrote in the affidavit that he believed Harrington, Hazelwood and others unlawfully accessed a computer system (smartphone) and stole computer data. Prosecutors are to decide next week whether anyone will face criminal charges.

The case originated from the Aug. 29 arrest of a 23-year-old woman in a San Ramon DUI case. After being released from jail, the woman, identified in court papers only as Jane Doe 1, realized from using her iPad that six photos of her in various stages of undress had been forwarded from her iPhone while she was in custody, investigators said.

Harrington also exchanged text messages with Hazelwood less than a half-hour after Harrington allegedly stole six photos from a woman identified as Jane Doe 1, the affidavit says.

"Nudes are always better with the face," Hazelwood allegedly wrote. Harrington responded with a crude comment about her face, and Hazelwood allegedly wrote, "Let's see the dl," referring to the woman's driver's license photo.

Harrington then responded, "When we get back to the office. And we'll have the (jail) mug shot, too," court records said. Harrington is referring to the Martinez Detention Facility where he had taken Jane Doe 1.

Hazelwood commented that Jane Doe's "body is rocking though," authorities said.
Prosecutors opted not to charge the woman in her DUI case because of Harrington's alleged conduct, court records show.

Jane Doe 1's attorney Rick Madsen said Friday, "This is the worst-case scenario come true." He said of his client's photos, "Once they're out there, they're out there for good. The trauma that has been inflicted by these officers could be lifelong. It's almost akin to a chronic disease — you don't know when it's going to manifest itself again and take over your life again, and so the anxiety that's associated with it is incalculable."

[patric]

After taking arrestees' photos, officers would share pictures with one another and exchange comments about each woman's looks, Harrington told district attorney inspectors. Harrington said he first learned of the practice while working for the CHP in Los Angeles, investigators said.

Apparently more common than we realize.


CHP nude photo scandal: Similar cases across the country
http://www.mercurynews.com/my-town/ci_26799876/chp-nude-photo-scandal-similar-cases-across-country

...and makes a really good case for turning on the encryption in your smartphone.

[Vashta Nerada]

"Harrington said when he was assigned to the Dublin office, he learned from other officers that they would access the cell phones of female arrestees and look for nude photographs of them. Harrington said if photographs were located, the officers would then text the photographs to other sworn members of the office, and, to non-CHP individuals. Harrington described this scheme as a game."
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/confession-chp-officers-have-been-trading-stolen-nde-photos-of-dui-suspects-for-years/


CHP Cop who Stole Nude Photos of Female Arrestees Resigns; Charged with Felonies
http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2014/11/chp-cop-resigns/

[Vashta Nerada]

An Oklahoma City police officer accused of sexually assaulting women while on duty has been fired.

Daniel Ken Holtzclaw, 28, awaits trial on 36 counts including rape. He is also accused of sexually assaulting 13 women while on duty.
Holtzclaw had been a police officer for three years when allegations arose in June.

He was fired January 8.