Daniel Holtzclaw Disappears After Recently Starting 263-Year Prison Sentence

Notorious serial rapist and former Oklahoma City Police Officer Daniel Holtzclaw has effectively vanished after being convicted of various sexual offenses and assaults of eight African American women and sentenced to 263 years in prison.

Oklahoma Dept. of Corrections spokesperson Terri Watkins assured local NBC affiliate KFOR that Holtzclaw remains incarcerated, but told the station only, “We are not going to comment, it is a matter of security.”

That statement is, in itself, problematic — it is the security and peace of mind of the victims which the system is obligated to protect. As KFOR reported, none of the attorneys representing the victims had been informed of a change in status for Holtzclaw’s whereabouts.

“He was processed at Lexington exactly as every other offender. Currently, we cannot reveal his location for security; the security of the inmate and the facility,” Alex Gerszewski, a second Oklahoma Dept. of Corrections spokesperson, told KFOR reporter Ali Meyer.

Holtzclaw, it appears, is continuing to use his badge as a shield — the same thing he did when choosing his victims.

The Free Thought Project recently reported on the events which led to Holtzclaw’s conviction on 18 of 36 total felony counts, including four counts of first-degree rape:

“Around 2 a.m. on June 18, 2014, Officer Daniel Holtzclaw pulled over a 57-year-old middle class grandmother with no criminal history and forced her into the back of his patrol car because she could not roll down her broken driver’s side window.

“Instead of requesting a female officer, Holtzclaw forced her to expose her breasts and pull down her pants. As Holtzclaw exposed his penis with his gun in plain view, she pleaded, ‘Please don’t do this. You’re not supposed to do this!’

“After Holtzclaw ordered her to perform oral sex, he dropped her off at her daughter’s house. She immediately reported the assault and was taken to the hospital to receive a medical forensic exam. In the hospital, she met Det. Kim Davis of the Oklahoma City Police Sex Crimes Unit who connected her report to a similar unsolved assault report involving the same officer in May 2014.”

Holtzclaw’s whereabouts remain unknown to his victims — a perfect example of extreme lengths to which blue privilege extends.

Using the intimidation of a gun and a badge to assault women whose personal histories with prostitution and drug abuse, he felt, would prevent them from exposing his crimes shows a reprehensible lack of moral and ethical character. Had another person — without the added protection of a badge — perpetrated such crimes, the victims would most certainly be able to track that offender’s location through the prison system.

But that is not the case with Holtzclaw.

Perhaps he fears the notorious prison justice so often carried out in assaults by other inmates once an offender is behind bars — as well he should. But the criminal justice system should not be shielding a serial rapist’s location from those he assaulted — whether he once carried a badge or not.