Holtzclaw carefully chose his targets
In many cases, the women said they were assaulted after being stopped by Holtzclaw for seemingly no discernible reason. When Holtzclaw ran their names through the police system, he found many had warrants or outstanding tickets. Some had criminal backgrounds, and some were sex workers. The police stop may have seemed like business as usual for these women; many were of lower economic status, and statistically, poorer black neighborhoods tend to be more heavily policed and experience high rates of incarceration. But the women said Holtzclaw would then leverage this information, stipulating they either go to jail or perform sexual acts on him.
Some of the women testified they had some run-ins with the law previously, and were worried about their records or being sent back to jail. Other times, Holtzclaw found many of these women with drug paraphernalia, or a few accusers said they had been drinking or using drugs right before Holtzclaw approached them. Another had warrants for her arrest and was told that if she complied with him by exposing her body, he would make the warrants go away. In all cases, Holtzclaw abused his own authority as a police officer to take advantage of these women’s vulnerability in the situation and the shame they carried for their prior arrests or drug use.
“I’m an alcoholic and I suffer with that problem since — for years. Since the ’80s,” said R.C. “And I failed so many times — and I was ashamed, you know. I didn’t go to prison until I was 30 years old, but my mother was a Christian, so I was ashamed of what I was doing, you know.”
Another woman, R.G., said she had relapsed and used crack cocaine the day she encountered Holtzclaw. She was walking alone, and he offered to take her to detox instead of jail. Instead, he drove her home and followed her into her house. She said she thought he was being overly thorough, but then she said he forced her into oral sodomy and then raped her. She said she felt especially intimidated by the gun in his holster.