OUR AID RECIPIENTS

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THE BIASED INVESTIGATION

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“The start of this nightmare where I was wrongfully convicted has been beyond imaginable for myself and my family,” writes Daniel.  “The presumption of guilt was out the roof.”

 

The area where Daniel worked was a dangerous and challenging one.  Daniel writes, “As a police officer I gave an oath to protect and serve” and he did that to the fullest.  

 

“I worked the north east side of Oklahoma City,” which “is considered one of the roughest places in the city,” Daniel explains.  “This is the birth place of the ‘107 Hoover Crips, which is the biggest African-American gang in Oklahoma City.  The area I patrolled was where it started.  I did everything in my power to protect other officers and the citizens of Oklahoma City.”

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AN ALLEGATION AFTER AN EARLY MORNING TRAFFIC STOP TRIGGERS 

A PRESUMPTION OF GUILT

 

Daniel Holtzclaw’s life changed forever on June 18, 2014, after a 57-year-old African-American woman alleged that a blond police officer had orally sodomized her briefly through his unzipped, buckled uniform pants during a traffic stop at 2 a.m. that morning. 

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From the very start, detectives presumed the officer who made that stop -- who turned out to be Daniel -- was guilty.  

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The woman went to the hospital where a Sexual Assault Nurse Examination (SANE) kit was completed several hours after the alleged assault.  Here she was interviewed by a female Oklahoma City Police Department (OCPD) sex crimes detective. 

 

The woman's description of the suspect did not match Daniel.  The detective reported that the woman said the officer was a white male, 35-45 years old (Daniel was 27), and between 5'7" and 5'9" tall (he is 6' 1", and even taller with his police boots on).  The woman said the officer had blond hair with a part on the right side closer to the middle than the side of his head (Daniel's hair is black, without a part).  Also, the detective reported that the woman said the officer's skin was not smooth (Daniel's skin is smooth).  The woman admitted to the detective that she had smoked marijuana and taken nighttime PM medication before driving.

 

After the sex crimes detective interviewed the woman at the hospital, the detective believed her even though her sexual assault allegation was not corroborated by forensic evidence and even before interviewing the officer who would acknowledge he had made that stop...Daniel Holtzclaw.  

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The lead detective has stated, "Before we started the interview [with Holtzclaw], I felt like that what [she] told me was the truth." (Daniel in the Den, Parts 1 and 2).

 

The female detective has also explained to the media that on the day of Daniel Holtzclaw's police interrogation, right after she met with the woman who made the oral sodomy allegation, the detective "knew there would be more."

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Later that morning, detectives identified Daniel as a suspect by looking through the patrol car fleet's computer Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) records for June 18, 2014.  The AVL showed that none of the patrol cars had been to the location of the alleged sexual assault.  However, there was one patrol car that had its computer system off at 1:58 a.m., just before the officer went off duty at 2:00 a.m.  That officer turned out to be Daniel Holtzclaw.  

​Much has been made of the fact that Daniel's patrol car computer, which also ran the AVL, was turned off before Daniel stopped the woman's car a short time later, as if this meant he had logged off the computer system to prevent his car from being tracked.   

 

But, in fact, it was simply Daniel's habit to deactivate the patrol car computer right after going off duty, as Daniel himself would say during his interrogation.  The lead sex crimes detective was forced to admit at trial that "it appears from looking at the documents that it was not uncommon at all for Officer Holtzclaw to log in and out at the station."   

 

Rather than being nefarious, logging off the patrol car computer system before reaching home was so common among police officers going off duty that Oklahoma City sent an e-mail directive in February 2014 reminding officers to keep their patrol car computers on, door-to-door, when leaving and returning home.  

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Another misrepresentation of Daniel's case is the claim that he turned his patrol car computer/AVL off before stopping all the other women who would eventually go to trial with allegations against him. 

 

In reality, Daniel's patrol car computer/AVL system was on for all the Holtzclaw case stops, which occurred while he was on duty, except for one.  The one exception was the early morning traffic stop on June 18, 2014, of a car that Daniel said he saw swerving only after he logged off his computer and went off duty at 2 a.m.  

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After the female detective interviewed the 57-year-old woman at the hospital several hours after the traffic stop, police then held a staff meeting about the case.

 

When the meeting was over a lieutenant expressed the concern to the female sex crimes detective that the allegation could result in an explosive community reaction if not handled properly, according to The Oklahoman newspaper’s series “Hunting Holtzclaw” about Daniel’s conviction seen from the detectives’ perspective.  The lieutenant pulled the lead detective aside and “tells her the eyes of the department are on her.  In a department already struggling with relations in the minority community they know how explosive something like this could be."

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A PREVIOUS ALLEGATION AGAINST AN UNKNOWN OFFICER IS PINNED ON DANIEL ALTHOUGH HE DIDN’T MATCH THE SUSPECT

 

The June 18th sexual assault allegation made detectives suspect that Daniel was also guilty of a previous month’s oral sodomy allegation against an unknown, muscular police officer by a black woman with paranoid schizophrenia and a long criminal history who made the allegation while high on crack cocaine.    

 

That earlier woman remembered a date, location, police car description, and a dark-skinned assailant that did not match Daniel or his patrol car locations.  The June 18, 2014, allegation inspired detectives to investigate the earlier allegation more thoroughly.  Eventually, detectives would find that this troubled woman could not positively identify her assailant in a line-up, the sole line-up used in the Holtzclaw case.  Daniel would ultimately be acquitted of her allegations that detectives pinned on him. 

 

The detectives’ treatment of this at-risk, drug-addicted African-American woman who made an earlier allegation against an unknown officer is especially troubling and unethical.  The male detective pressured the woman to proceed with her allegations, even when she told him she “just wanted to be left alone.  Please, please, I just want to leave it alone. […] I don’t want to be a part of nothing no more.  […] Don’t do this to me, please.  God help me Jesus.  Jesus help me.” 

 

Only after the distressed woman ended up in jail did she finally change her story to match a different location that the detective had previously revealed to her…and which now matched the known location of Daniel’s patrol car.  During the trial, it was revealed that Daniel’s patrol car was going faster than 25 mph at the location where the woman alleged he had dropped her off, so that even the male detective admitted that, "Yes," she was lying about that. 

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DANIEL'S INTERROGATION CEMENTS THE DETECTIVES' BELIEF IN HIS GUILT

EVEN THOUGH DANIEL COOPERATES FULLY

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Despite the inconsistencies in the two oral sodomy allegations from June 18th and the previous month, at the start of the investigation detectives suspected Daniel was guilty of both.

 

Already believing they had caught their criminal, the female sex crimes detective and her male colleague interviewed Daniel for two hours on the afternoon of June 18, 2014.  

 

Daniel denied both women’s allegations during his interrogation, with which he cooperated fully. 

 

Daniel requested no lawyer for the interview.  He answered every question posed.  He willingly provided a DNA sample from his cheek.  He placed his uniform pants and belt in a brown paper evidence bag for forensic testing. 

 

It should be noted that the male detective inserted his bare hand in the evidence bag before the uniform pants and belt were placed inside it.  This action violated evidence collection procedures because it could have transferred the detective’s skin cell DNA, and any other DNA from other people on his hand, to the bag's interior and then to the evidence later placed in the bag.  The detective should also have required that the belt be placed in a separate evidence bag to prevent DNA transfer between evidence items. 

 

The male detective’s sloppy collection of Daniel's uniform pants and belt revealed he was not aware of the reality of innocent skin cell DNA transfer.  It was a harbinger of worse forensic science errors to come in the case. 

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Even when the two detectives lied to Daniel during the interview, claiming pubic hairs had been found in the back of the patrol car, Daniel continued to proclaim his innocence, saying those pubic hairs weren't his. 

 

The male detective told Daniel that they had surveillance videos of the stop, and asked if Daniel wanted to see them.  Daniel said yes.  When the male detective tried to extract a confession by lying, "We can watch a whole lot of actions being performed while you were there," and saying, "It's not looking good so far," Daniel continued to explain that he was innocent and nothing sexual had occurred.

 

Daniel asked detectives to complete the DNA tests quickly because he wanted to clear his name.   “Take the test.  I want to clear my name.  I want to get it cleared up,” Daniel said.  “I want you to take the exam and get, get this over with […].  Go, go at it – not my DNA.  […] I want to do it today.  I want everything.  I want to get it done.”  Daniel also was willing to take a polygraph test.

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During the interrogation, Daniel recalled that when he asked the woman during the June 18th traffic stop, "Do you have a valid insurance or valid license?" she replied that she didn't have any and she gave him an I.D. card.  Daniel said that after searching her car (which can be seen in the surveillance video) and finding nothing illegal, and because in his experience she was not over the legal alcohol limit, Daniel told her to go to the Department of Public Safety to get a valid driver's license and get that taken care of.

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Detectives later confirmed that the 57-year-old woman's driver's license had been suspended for more than 30 years.  During the trial, she would deny knowing, at the time of the traffic stop, that her driver's license had been suspended.  Yet her claim that she did not know her driver's licenses was suspended was contradicted by her fiancé of 20 years, who testified that he was aware her license had been suspended.  The woman's fiancé also testified that normally she didn't drive and he drove her, but for that particular night (June 17-18, 2014) he let her drive his car because he was kind of tired.

 

After interviewing Daniel Holtzclaw, despite his full cooperation, detectives still presumed he was guilty and they labeled him as a “narcissist,” “sociopath,” and “evil,” as they have explained publicly.  (See "Daniel in the Den:  The Truth about the Holtzclaw Case," Parts 1 and 2, by Michelle Malkin Investigates.) 

 

Similarly, The Oklahoman newspaper reported in its series, “Hunting Holtzclaw,” that halfway through the interrogation the lead detective already thought, “He’s like interviewing a robot” and the male detective told her, “He’s a sociopath.”

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The tunnel vision of the detectives was now thoroughly focused on Daniel.  Daniel was placed on administrative leave as the investigation steamrolled ahead.  From the investigators' perspective, they had their guilty party.  Now all they had to do was develop the case to convict him.

 

FORENSIC EVIDENCE TESTING SUPPORTS DANIEL'S INNOCENCE

 

Around a week after the June 18, 2014 allegation, the SANE kit and DNA test results came back.  They were negative, meaning the forensic evidence did not support the woman's allegations about the early morning traffic stop.  

 

Daniel’s DNA was not found in or around the 57-year-old woman's mouth.  The forensic analyst would later expose her bias against Daniel during the trial when she testified that "unfortunately in this case" Daniel's DNA was not found in the SANE exam. 

 

No DNA or fingerprints matching the woman or Daniel were found on top of the patrol car, meaning there was no corroboration of her allegation that at one point during the traffic stop her hands were on top of the hood and Daniel's hand was on the roof.

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No DNA match to the woman who made the June 18th allegation was found when the Oklahoma City Police Department’s forensic analyst swabbed the fly of Daniel’s uniform pants to test for DNA. 

 

The fly of the uniform pants also lacked visible stains or deposits, not a single indication of saliva or vaginal fluid or any body fluid, when the forensic analyst used a bright light and magnifying glass to inspect the pants.  The forensic analyst performed no tests for body fluids, not even by using an Alternate Light Source that can cause latent body fluid stains to fluoresce. 

 

The fact that the analyst saw nothing suspicious on the fly of Daniel's uniform pants should have been recognized by investigators as evidence of innocence because eventually Daniel would be accused of sexually assaulting 3 people through the unzipped fly of those buckled pants less than 24 hours before the pants and belt were confiscated as evidence:   a 17-year-old saying she was raped for around 10 minutes, a woman claiming she was raped for 20 - 30 minutes and orally sodomized, and then the woman alleging oral sodomy during the June 18, 2014, traffic stop. 

 

DNA ON THE FLY OF DANIEL'S PANTS WAS MISPERCEIVED AS SIGNIFYING GUILT

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While the forensic evidence did not corroborate the June 18, 2014, oral sodomy allegation, when the police department’s forensic analyst swabbed the fly of Daniel's uniform pants she discovered a low level of DNA including an unknown female’s full DNA profile, in a mixture of DNA from at least 3 people including at least one unknown male.  The discovery of the unknown female's full DNA profile would cause the investigation against Daniel to snowball out of the control. 

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As in many wrongful convictions, the presumption of guilt was perpetuated by flawed forensic science. 

 

In Daniel’s case, investigators jumped to the incorrect conclusion that the DNA meant Daniel had been in sexual contact with an additional, unknown female.  Detectives believed there must be "another victim." 

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Investigators overlooked a non-nefarious explanation for the DNA found on the fly of Daniel's uniform pants lacking stains and deposits:  skin cell DNA indirect transfer via Daniel's hands following pat searches and other non-intimate contact that police officers have with people they stop and their belongings.  The forensic analyst, detectives, and eventually the prosecutors ignored that the evidence supported innocent touch DNA indirect transfer as the reasonable and even the best explanation. 

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The lead detective demonstrated her ignorance of innocent DNA transfer and her bias when she told the media that the DNA meant there must be more victims:  "After [the first woman] was investigated, there was DNA on his pants that was female DNA that was unknown.  It didn't match [her].  We knew he didn't just say I'm going to pull this lady over and sexually assault her.  There had to be something that built up to it.  There had to be other victims out there."

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The presumption of guilt would result in a biased hunt through Daniel's police records to find the alleged victim who matched the unknown female DNA profile.  

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Daniel recalls his thoughts at the time when he learned that an unknown female's DNA profile was discovered on the fly of his uniform pants: 

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“I thought they, you know, they were setting me up, I thought someone was tampering with evidence… and I was like, are you serious?  I didn’t do anything sexual in nature with any of these women, so where is this evidence coming from?”

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The answer that should have been considered immediately by investigators was the non-sexual indirect transfer of skin cell DNA.

 

Not only did the fly of Daniel's uniform pants lack any visible signs of stains or deposits, but also the unknown female's DNA profile was part of a minute quantity of DNA from at least several individuals, including at least one unidentified male, exactly what you would expect to see after innocent transfer of other people's skin cell DNA, via Daniel's hands, from objects he touched during police searches to the fly of his pants during urination.  

 

The teenager even told detectives and testified that when Daniel first stopped her, she was with a woman and man whom Daniel also questioned, putting the male in the back of the patrol car for questioning.  The teenager said Daniel then checked her purse for drugs and later pat-searched her.

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The presence of male DNA on the fly of Daniel's uniform pants proved that an individual’s DNA could transfer to the fly without the involvement of that individual’s vaginal fluid, since males don’t make vaginal fluid.  The information that there was male DNA in the samples does not appear to have been conveyed to the detectives. 

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Incorrect DNA analysis by the State’s forensic analyst led the prosecution to believe that only sexual contact reasonably explained why a female DNA profile was found on the fly of Daniel’s uniform pants. 

 

The State's analyst incorrectly concluded that Daniel's DNA was not present on the fly of his pants.  According to the State’s witness list description of the forensic analyst's planned testimony, she “will opine for [the teenager's] DNA to be transferred to the pants, it most likely was contained in some type of body fluid - including vaginal secretions or saliva,” and she “will express opinions that def.’s assertion that [the teen's] DNA was found inside his pants as a result of contact DNA transfer is not reasonable, and perhaps not even possible - in support of this conclusion and opinion, she will testify that def.’s own DNA was not even found on his pants." 

 

In fact, the DNA data were inconclusive as to whether or not Daniel was a contributor because the low level of DNA and insufficient data meant it was possible that not all the alleles (variations of genetic regions) of the contributors were detected.   

 

During the trial, the State's forensic analyst would also tell the jury untruthfully that the two DNA samples from inside the fly lacked male DNA.  This testimony contradicted the lab's DNA quantification data that showed male DNA was present.  The forensic analyst herself initialed the data page that revealed male DNA in the two samples from inside the fly of the uniform pants.  Her testimony also contradicted the analyst's written report stating there was insufficient data for comparison purposes, meaning that the profile including male DNA was inconclusive as to who the contributors were.  It is not known from whom that male DNA originated and so it is incorrect to rule out Daniel as a possible contributor.

 

Furthermore, even if Daniel's DNA were not detected on the fly of his uniform pants, he could still have touched the fabric and transferred other people's DNA.  Scientific research available before the start of Daniel's trial proved that we can transfer another person's skin cell DNA that is on our hands without transferring our own DNA in detectable quantities to objects we touch.  

 

A study by Cale et al. found that if you shake hands with a second individual and then touch a knife, you can transfer the non-handler's DNA but not your own DNA to the touched object.  See Cale et al., Could Secondary DNA Transfer Falsely Place Someone at the Scene of a Crime, J. of Forensic Science, 61: 196-203 (2016), published online Sept. 1, 2015, before Daniel's trial started on Nov. 2, 2015.

 

Other scientific research available before Daniel's trial proved that non-intimate transfer of DNA from the teenager's purse to Daniel's hands and then to the fly of his uniform pants was a reasonable explanation.

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A study from 2010 by Sarah Jones and Kirsty Scott discovered that a woman's non-intimate skin cell DNA can transfer secondarily from her face and hands via a man's hands to his underpants and even genitals.  See Jones and Scott, The transfer of DNA through non-intimate social contact, in Conference Report by J. Hulme, Science and Justice, 50: 100-109 (2010).   

 

A study published online on Oct. 27, 2015, by Janine Helmus and others, revealed that indirect tertiary transfer of a person's skin cell DNA can occur from a person's neck to a piece of cloth to a second individual's hands, and from that second individual's hands to another piece of cloth, resulting in a full DNA profile of the non-handler on the second cloth.  See Helmus et al., DNA transfer – a neverending story:  A study on scenarios involving a second person as carrier, Int J Legal Med, 130: 121-125 (2016) – published online Oct. 27, 2015. 

 

The police department's forensic analyst made other errors, including testifying, incorrectly, that no presumptive tests for vaginal fluid exist.  The analyst said this to explain the reason she did not test for vaginal fluids on the fly of Daniel's uniform pants.  In reality, presumptive tests for vaginal fluid cells have existed for years and a positive result means that vaginal fluid cells may be present.  (A positive result with a presumptive test for a body fluid tells you that a substance may have come from that body fluid, but more than one type of fluid can give a positive result.)

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The prosecutor revealed his ignorance of science and indirect transfer of skin cell DNA when he talked to the press after the trial. 

 

Even though Daniel's uniform pants were not tested for any body fluids, the prosecutor claimed falsely after the trial that "the skin cells were transferred through the body fluids of a 17-year-old girl after he raped her.  That's what the evidence was.  That's what the jury heard and certainly that's what they convicted him of.  They [the defense] tried to explain DNA from a 17-year-old girl that ends up inside his pants at the areas where his privates are.  Quite frankly, their explanation was not believable because you can't explain that" (Erielle Reshef, KOKO 5 News, "Prosecutors who helped convict Daniel Holtzclaw speak,” Feb. 5, 2016). 

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The prosecutor also demonstrated his lack of knowledge about indirect transfer of non-intimate DNA and his lack of awareness that his forensic analyst erred when she testified that Daniel's own DNA was not found on the pants. 

 

The prosecutor told the media after the trial, "If what they are trying to get people to believe, which is not accurate, is that it could transfer from a purse, to hands, to pants, to inside of pants...uh, significantly, Daniel Holtzclaw's own DNA was not found on the inside of his uniform pants.  I think that speaks probably louder than anything I can argue as to the ability of someone's skin cells from their hands to get transferred to a piece of fabric." 

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The most dangerous ignorance occurs when people, such as the prosecutor, are ostensibly unaware that they are ignorant.  The prosecution's forensic science errors and presumption of guilt led investigators and prosecutors to reverse-engineer a case against Daniel, ignoring the evidence of his innocence.

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DNA FROM AN UNKNOWN FEMALE TRIGGERS A BIASED HUNT TO FIND HER AS DETECTIVES TARGET AT-RISK AFRICAN AMERICANS

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The incorrect assumption that an unknown female's full DNA profile on the fly of Daniel's uniform pants must mean Daniel had been in sexual contact with an unidentified female victim caused investigators to mount a massive and biased hunt through Daniel's police records to find her.

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The lead detective testified that the reason she was still "looking for victims" two months after the first allegation against Mr. Holtzclaw was “because our serology lab notified us that they had female DNA on the inside flap of Officer Holtzclaw's uniform pants.  And it didn't match [the 57-year-old woman] and it didn't match his girlfriend and so far it hadn't matched anybody that we had found.  So I knew there was another female victim out there that we needed to find that DNA to." 

 

The lead detective was incorrect.  As has been explained, the presence of someone’s DNA on a man's pants--even a seemingly incriminating location such as the inside flap of the fly--does not mean that any criminal act was committed or even that sexual contact occurred.

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Investigators used Daniel’s own police records to contact and solicit allegations specifically from over 40 at-risk African-American women with criminal histories and warrants whom Daniel had stopped.

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Even though the 57-year-old woman did not have warrants or previous convictions, a lieutenant looked back through 6 months of Daniel’s police records and created a list of the African-American women “who had a drug history, prostitution history or a significant criminal history” whom he had stopped.  The lieutenant then gave packets of the women’s information to the two sex crimes detectives to use to contact them.
 

Detectives untruthfully told many of these women that police had received a "tip" that they may have been sexually assaulted by a "bad" cop with many victims.  The detectives' use of leading, biased questioning of potential complainants is documented in the trial transcript and is described in the Forensic Experts' Report on Daniel's case.

 

"These detectives, they kind of led them," Daniel says.  "The investigation as far as approaching these women saying we have a tip you've been sexually assaulted by an Oklahoma City police officer.  You know, you're opening the floodgates.  You're opening the door.  All they had to do was say yes."  

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Although most of the women said nothing had happened, 10 made allegations, including the 17-year-old teenager whose DNA was found to match the unknown female profile found on the fly of Daniel's uniform pants.    

 

The teenager said Daniel had stopped her with another female and male on June 17, 2014, and then later that evening, after giving her a ride to her mother's home to verify it was where she lived, had pat-searched her and then digitally penetrated her before raping her for about ten minutes through the unzipped fly of his buckled pants on her mother’s porch.  

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It did not occur to investigators that the mixture of DNA from at least 3 people, including at least one male, on the fly of Daniel’s uniform pants could have transferred via his hands from the teenager and her female and male friends during routine police contact that an officer has with questioned individuals.

 

Presumed guilty by the police department, media, and the public, the Oklahoma City Police Department’s process of seeking allegations from African-American women ultimately led to 13 accusers in the trial. 

 

These 13 included the 10 complainants procured by police by using Daniel's own records, and 3 women -- including the complainant whose June 18th allegation sparked the investigation -- who came forward on their own.  Daniel was ultimately acquitted of the accusations made by the two other women who came forward without first being contacted by police.

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PRE-TRIAL PUBLICITY LED TO 8 KNOWN FALSE ALLEGATIONS

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In addition to the 13 allegations that would go to trial, 8 individuals made allegations that were determined to be false immediately and therefore did not lead to charges.

 

One of those individuals, Shaneice Barksdale, admitted in a videotaped police interview that she had made up her allegations to try to help the case because she felt bad for the 57-year-old woman who came forward and didn't want her to feel she was the only victim.  Barksdale was the only false accuser convicted of falsely reporting a crime (State of Oklahoma v. Shaneice Barksdale, Case No. CM-2015-1413). 

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Another woman who made a false allegation, Shakara Walker, told an Oklahoma City News 9 TV station reporter on August 22, 2014, that she had nearly become a victim of Daniel Holtzclaw in his police uniform and patrol car the week before.  “As I was walking to the house, he tried to grab me and make it seem like he was gonna rape me," Walker recalled.  But this was impossible because Daniel was put on administrative leave on June 18, 2014, stripped of his uniform, badge, and patrol car. 

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After the video about Ms. Walker's allegation aired as if it were valid, the article was later updated at the bottom to report that the OKCPD believed her allegation to be false:  "The Oklahoma City police told News 9 they have been receiving several false complaints against Officer Daniel Holtzclaw.  Police believe the information provided by Shakara Walker in this story to be false, because they say Holtzclaw has been on paid administrative leave for the last month." 

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DETECTIVES OVERLOOKED RED FLAGS IN THE ALLEGATIONS THAT WENT TO TRIAL

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Although the prosecution weeded out eight obviously false allegations because of their inconsistencies, detectives ignored similarly major discrepancies that were red flags in the claims of complainants whose allegations headed to trial. 

 

Police discounted and dismissed evidence of Daniel’s innocence, such as descriptions of the assailant as a dark-skinned man or a short, black officer, and allegations that failed to match Daniel's patrol car locations or the shortness of the actual stops as revealed by the patrol car AVL.  (www.HoltzclawDNAreport.com)

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As one example, mentioned previously, a woman described her assailant as a black police officer and indicated he was several inches shorter than her own height of 5'11".  Daniel Holtzclaw is Japanese-American, over 6'1" tall, and pale-skinned.  The woman also said she was raped for about five to ten minutes in a public park.  Yet Daniel’s patrol car GPS data showed it could only have been motionless for less than 3 minutes and 50 seconds.  This allegation alone would lead to a guilty verdict and a 62-year sentence. 

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As a second example of discrepancies in an allegation that led to a guilty verdict, a woman alleged that Daniel allowed her to drive while intoxicated and that he followed her in his patrol car onto a street where she said he parked briefly, letting her drop off her car at a relative’s home, before he drove her down the street and raped her while parked in the yard of a house.  But Daniel’s patrol car AVL data shows his patrol car never drove down that street, disproving her claim. 

 

Furthermore, the woman initially alleged that Daniel raped her for "a long time," which then dwindled down to “for about five or ten minutes” during the preliminary hearing.  During the trial she would change her story again to say “maybe about three minutes or so,” her allegation shifting to become closer and closer to the actual short time that Daniel was parked at the end of the street.  Daniel's patrol radio call data and AVL show there would have been only 3 minutes during which any alleged assault could have occurred.  Those 3 minutes would have had to include the time it would take for him to exit the patrol car, open the back right passenger door, commit the alleged rape, and then return to the driver’s seat and drive away.

 

As yet another example, one of the five women whose allegations would lead to acquittals made a videotaped statement that contradicted her claim of oral sodomy. 

 

This woman was arrested by Daniel for using PCP and was brought to the hospital because she had overdosed by crushing a vial with her teeth and swallowing it while also spilling PCP on her clothes.  Daniel waited with her at the hospital until staff approved she was well enough, and then he took her to jail.  Afterwards, she and Daniel messaged on Facebook as he made sure she was okay and staying out of trouble.  She chatted about how she was doing and even sent him a smiley face.

 

Months later, the woman accused Daniel of orally sodomizing her while she was in the hospital. 

 

Daniel would ultimately be found not guilty of her allegation after she was caught on video telling a detective, “Even if like, even if he didn’t like even rape nobody or nothing, he’s still getting … he’s been in contact with people that he’s arrested."  The detective did not mention the woman's statement in his written report.

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Despite the flawed investigation and shaky allegations, Daniel Holtzclaw's police department presumed Daniel was guilty and fired him long before the criminal trial. 

 

The Oklahoma City Police chief released Daniel's termination letter to the public -- the jury pool -- in January 2015, ten months before the trial.  In this letter to Daniel, the police chief wrote:  "Your offenses committed against women in our community constitute the greatest abuse of police authority I have witnessed in my 37 years as a member of this agency.  These violations more than warrant your termination from the Oklahoma City Police Department.”

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The biased investigation in which Daniel's police department presumed Daniel was guilty, promoted shaky allegations, dismissed exculpatory evidence, and denounced Daniel publicly, culminated in a trial permeated with further injustices.