Holtzclaw’s feigned concern for safety
If Holtzclaw couldn’t identify a criminal or legal problem, he would express concern for their safety and offer to drive them home. While many of the women found his concern suspicious, they said they took the ride instead of resisting or inciting any tension that could have provoked their arrest.
S.B. said she was walking home when Holtzclaw pulled up to her and asked whether she was leaving “a drug house.” She said she wasn’t, nor did she have any drugs or paraphernalia on her, though she did have a drink earlier that evening. Still, he said he would take her to “detox or jail,” but when she said she’d rather just go home, he said he would do that. Instead, he drove her to an isolated road known as “Dead Man’s Curve” and, according to S.B., said she had two new choices: forced sex or jail.
In R.C.’s case, she recalled he offered to take her to a detox facility instead of jail. But he didn’t. Instead, R.C. said he took her to a bus parking lot and raped her, and then he let her go.
J., the youngest accuser, said she was surprised when Holtzclaw walked her to the porch of her mother’s home. But that’s where she said he then raped her.
In most cases, Holtzclaw uses his position of power to manipulate the often vulnerable women he came across — quickly trying to build a feeling of trust under the guise of protection, only to almost instantly invalidate that trust.