Very Proactive
Throughout 2013 and 2014 the Springlake Division told the officers on its overtime detail, in email after email, to be proactive: stop cars, talk to people, pull warrants, gather intelligence. Daniel worked that detail and did that work on patrol. Some of it happened out of sight, because some of the people he talked to couldn’t afford to be seen talking to police. At trial the prosecutor called those places “secluded locations” and the stops a habit.
“Officers should [be] VERY proactive during the shift.”
In February 2013 Maj. Brian Jennings, who commanded the Springlake Division, wrote to Daniel and the other officers who had signed up for an overtime program called VIPER. It targeted “an area identified with a high amount of violence”: NE 16th to NE 30th, Lottie to Miramar. Four officers would work it in one-man cars on evening shifts, Thursday through Sunday. One instruction was in capitals: “Officers should [be] VERY proactive during the shift.” Jennings, “V.I.P.E.R. Overtime Program,” Feb. 1, 2013, OKC 6290, 6658. Ten days later he spelled out what that meant: “the goal is to be very proactive with traffic stops, FI’s, jump-outs, etc. in order to reduce the criminal activity.” A FI is a field interview, a recorded stop to talk with someone and note who they are. Jennings, Feb. 11, 2013, OKC 6942. That June an officer wrote to Jennings the day before his first VIPER shift: “Sir, Tomorrow is my first time with VIPER, is it just stop anybody and anything in that area?” Jennings replied: “Yes, very proactive. Looking to stop violent crime, so dope, guns, warrants, FI, traffic stops, etc.” Fulton to Jennings and Jennings to Fulton, June 11, 2013, OKC 8023. Jennings used the word in at least thirteen separate emails to the detail between January 2013 and August 2014, nearly always as “very proactive.” Daniel told the detectives who interviewed him on June 18, 2014, that he worked VIPER out of Springlake. Tr. 1144:5–7 (Adams, cross-examining Davis). In 2019 he described it as “basically a program to set forth the officers go out in specific areas that are high crime areas.” Holtzclaw Dep. 82:6–9 (Oct. 21, 2019).
The instructions continued into 2014. That February Jennings sent the VIPER officers, Daniel among them, the results: the NE 23rd and MLK zone had shown “good decreases in violent crime and great proactive activity.” Then: “Please continue to work hard and be very proactive. It really does make a difference when you are stopping cars, talking to people, pulling up warrants to serve and reviewing the Crime Bulletin by the ILP officers. A couple of areas we can improve on is more FI’s and Action Grams.” Jennings, “VIPER for 2014,” Feb. 3, 2014, OKC 8530. ILP is intelligence-led policing. The ILP officers were the division’s intelligence unit: they put out the Crime Bulletin, collected the detail’s activity sheets, and were to feed it “more intelligence” as the program went on. Jennings, Feb. 1, 2013, OKC 6658; Springlake Division Crime Bulletin, OKC 4692. Three weeks later, with the March schedule: “Please really be proactive, especially with the gang members. Some suggestions are pulling warrants in the zone or getting with the ILP officers on specific activity in the area.” Jennings, “March VIPER Schedule,” Feb. 21, 2014, OKC 6280.
Proactive drive was also how the division graded its rookies. At ten months, Daniel’s supervisor, Aven Bull, wrote that he was “a little slow but does good work and eager. He is eager to learn and do better. He is eager to learn all aspects of our job. He will be a fine officer.” Of another probationary officer in the same batch of evaluations, Jennings wrote back: “I’m also very concerned about your assessment of lack of proactive drive. Let’s talk about this.” Bull to Jennings, Feb. 17, 2013, and Jennings to Bull, Feb. 18, 2013, OKC 6592.
Daniel asked to be on the detail the day after it was announced (“I would love to work the V.I.P.E.R program… I’ll be there!”), took open shifts when they came up, and wrote Jennings at two in the morning after a foot pursuit to say he wanted to work the next day anyway. Holtzclaw to Jennings, Feb. 2, 18 and 22, 2013, OKC 8334, 8217, 8204. Jennings’s monthly tallies measured the detail by its contacts. For March 2013 he counted 104 field interviews against ten felony arrests, and wrote: “The FI’s and contacts are making a difference.” Jennings, “March Viper Activity,” Apr. 10, 2013, OKC 7041. Twice he wrote to Daniel by name, with his supervisors copied: “Daniel, great month of activity. Keep up the outstanding work. It makes a difference,” and nine months later, “Daniel, outstanding activity! Keep up the hard work. It is appreciated.” Jennings to Holtzclaw, May 3, 2013, OKC 6463; Feb. 4, 2014, OKC 6465.
Rapport, warrants and information.
Daniel described the work in a 2019 deposition, given as a defendant in the women’s civil suits. Asked who had taught him proactive policing, he said “probably through academy and probably through field training officers.” Asked what it was: “Basically initiating activity by yourself and not waiting for a dispatch to dispatch you a call, actually being active and setting a tone, I guess, as far as your community, making your presence known to deter violence.” Asked whether Springlake encouraged it: “They encourage every rookie, cadet that comes out of academy to do that.” Holtzclaw Dep. 23:5–19. His example was “getting out of my car, stepping up to three gangbangers and not being scared and actually interacting with them, making a rapport, open dialogue between me and them, seeing how, you know, what they’re up to, anything I can help them with.” He called himself “a gung-ho officer.” Holtzclaw Dep. 23:23–24:20. Plaintiffs’ counsel asked whether that conversation was “what’s called a field interview.” “That’s correct.” Holtzclaw Dep. 25:20–24.
Asked whether Springlake, as the division with the highest crime, put “a lot of emphasis on proactive policing,” he answered, “Absolutely.” Holtzclaw Dep. 43:11–15. Asked whether his supervisors pushed the stops, the searches and the back-seat interviews: “Supervisors only would push to be proactive.” Was stopping someone for a field interview good police work? “100 percent.” Running someone through VARUNA on a casual stop? “100 percent.” Holtzclaw Dep. 72:8–21. A field interview card, he said, “gives knowledge to put in the VARUNA database,” so that other officers could later match a tattoo or a description to a name. Holtzclaw Dep. 87:2–21.
He treated the people he stopped as potential sources, he said. He put them in the back seat to “develop a rapport, talk to them, grab their intelligence,” and with anyone he detained he tried “to build dialogue through training to build intel to possibly catch the bigger fish.” Holtzclaw Dep. 74:3–9, 134:12–25. He let people with city warrants go in return for what they knew: “you don’t got to point, just describe it, hey, that house right over there, that’s got drugs.” Holtzclaw Dep. 174:19–25.
Why a stop moved off the street.
Daniel also said why that work could not happen in the open. “The nature of the beast in that area is snitching,” he testified, describing a 2013 stop in which he kept a suspect, Demetria Campbell, in his back seat so the man who had called in the stolen car could look at her without being seen pointing her out and “identified as a snitch,” because “everyone knows each other around that area.” Holtzclaw Dep. 102:19–25, 105:1–7. Of the people who talked to him: “everyone has that stereotype about snitches get stitches, everyone snitches, everyone snitches.” Holtzclaw Dep. 175:10–18.
The trial record has independent support for that concern. Capt. Ryan Boxwell, who ran day shift at Springlake, told the jury there was “mistrust between police officers and the citizens in the division.” Tr. 920:11–15. Kala Lyles did not want to be seen with a police officer, she testified, and agreed the worry was that people would “think you’re friendly with the police.” She told Daniel so, and asked him to let her out on Highland. He turned into the school off Highland. Tr. 3610:13–3611:12. On cross she agreed she had told Daniel she did not want to be seen in his car in her neighborhood, and that she preferred to talk to him in private. Tr. 3649:3–3650:12; 3665:12–25. What she said happened at the school is discussed here. Carla Raines gave Gregory the same reason for ending a stop quickly. She lifted her shirt, his report says, “to make the stop go quicker to not be seen talking to a cop and labeled a snitch.” Gregory, crime report 14-068786 (000), Scott Adams 00297.
The fear runs through the women’s own accounts. Adaira Gardner, asked at the preliminary hearing what people in her neighborhood thought of snitches: “They’re a waste of life.” Was it dangerous to snitch? “Yes, it is.” The prosecutor: “People get mad.” Gardner: “People get killed.” A friend, she said, had told her not to tell people what happened, because “they would think that you’re snitching and it’s not like you could tell the cops.” Prelim. Tr. Vol. I 211:5–19 (Nov. 17, 2014). Lyles, asked at the same hearing why she had turned down a ride from a police officer: “Because of the area where I’m staying at. I don’t want to seem like I was a snitch.” Prelim. Tr. Vol. II 87:3–13 (Nov. 18, 2014). Syrita Bowen told the jury that in Creston Hills “it’s, like, not really normal for the police to come by and stop and talk to you every day because, you know, you’re pegged as a snitch.” Tr. 3372:9–14. Davis agreed on cross that Lyles had told her she did not want to be known as a snitch or be seen in a police car, and had told Daniel the same. Tr. 3727:16–24. Raines told Gregory why other women would not come forward against an officer: “they can make it harder on them. Like telling a drug house that they are a snitch and the neighborhood takes a sort of measure of discomfort on them.” Scott Adams 00297. And S.G. told Davis that after the officer who stopped her on June 9, 2014, had left her apartment, the people in the unit below accused her of snitching. She told them what she said he had done, and that she was not snitching on anyone. Davis, supplement 14-092553 (001), Nov. 6, 2014, Scott Adams 02756.
“Secluded locations.”
In closing, Assistant District Attorney Lori McConnell walked the jury through the stops one by one. “Officer Holtzclaw’s habit continues,” she said. “He continues to take victims to secluded locations where he can sexually assault them.” Tr. 4158:22–24. On the rape counts she told the jury that all of the women “were taken to secluded locations by the defendant. They were alone, there was no one to help them.” Tr. 4174:22–25. Half of them weren’t. Rosetta Grate said she was raped in her own bedroom, in the house she shared with Willie Carter, after Daniel radioed dispatch that he was transporting her there. Tr. 2565:19–24, 2547:1–2, 2741:10–14, 2748:12–13. Regina Copeland placed it in the side yard of a corner house beside Miramar Boulevard, across the street from a row of houses, at an address Daniel had just given dispatch. Tr. 2903:21–25; Scott Adams 03332. Adaira Gardner said it happened on the enclosed front porch of her mother’s house, with his patrol car in the driveway. Tr. 3768:7–20, 3774:1–7, 3779:6–8. VIPER came up once, when Adams asked Davis whether Daniel worked it. “I thought VIPER was a traffic -- overtime traffic,” she said. “But I’m not sure.” Tr. 1143:23–1144:4. None of Jennings’s emails are in the file of Daniel’s trial lawyer, and the jury never saw them. The State had listed Jennings as a witness, to describe the meeting it arranged with Daniel on the day of his arrest, and never called him. The City produced the emails later, in the civil cases. State’s witness list, No. 160 (Brian Jennings); subpoena to Jennings for Nov. 2, 2015; OKC Bates series Holtzclaw-CIV-16-184-HE. The stops she described as a habit were the activity the division counted, praised Daniel for by name, and asked him for more of. A stop in view of the street got Daniel a quick exit and nothing else: Raines said she lifted her shirt to end hers before anyone saw her talking to a cop, and Lyles asked to be let out rather than be seen. Had Daniel done that work where people could watch, there would have been far fewer contacts to count and far less to tell the ILP officers.
The State read two other contacts the same way: Daniel’s Facebook messages with Shardayreon Hill, which began when she accepted his friend request and thanked him “for looking out for me that night,” and a call from his own phone to Adaira Gardner’s mother on the day her mother had reported the seventeen-year-old to 911 as a runaway. Both are discussed in Who Daniel Was.