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VIDEO: How The Initial Oklahoma City Police Interrogation Of Daniel Holtzclaw Unfolded

Daniel Holtzclaw is led to the coutroom before his sentencing Thursday. He received 263 years in prison after being convicted of 18 counts of rape and sexual assault last month.
Jacob McCleland
/
KGOU
Daniel Holtzclaw is led to the coutroom before his sentencing Thursday. He received 263 years in prison after being convicted of 18 counts of rape and sexual assault last month.

The Oklahoma County District Attorney's office released video Thursday of the nearly two-hour interrogation of the former Oklahoma City police officer convicted of sexually assaulting several women during a series of traffic stops.

The questioning of Daniel Holtzclaw took place June 18, 2014. Detectives Kim Davis and Rocky Gregory ask Holtzclaw about the traffic stop of Jannie Ligons early that morning. She was the first victim to report her assualt to police.

“When you put her in your car, did you pat search her?” Kim Davis asks.

"When I came around, I was like, 'Lift up your shirt. Is there anything on you? As far as your waistband or anything like that?' She said no,” Holtzlaw responded. “And then I put her in the vehicle, and went from there."

Holtzclaw never requests an attorney, and appears cooperative throughout the process. After about 20 minutes, Holtzclaw consents to a DNA swab. The tone of the interview then changes, and detectives tell Holtzclaw they have video evidence of the assault.

Later in the interrogation, the detectives mention another woman's accusation against Holtzclaw. Davis says the two complaints are exactly the same.

"That doesn't look good," Holtzclaw said. 

Davis asks Holtzclaw why Ligons would make up an accusation and go through a sexual assault examination.

"I don't know. I don't know. She was cooperative. She was nervous," Holtzclaw said during the interrogation.

Editor's note: The video below from KOKH-TV Fox 25 contains graphic and disturbing descriptions of sexual assault.

Holtzclaw continues to say he doesn't recall any sexual interaction during the 15-minute traffic stop. 

"I'm a good officer. That's not me. That's not me," he says after Davis and Gregory repeatedly question his time with Ligons. 

Toward the end of the recording, Davis says she's struggling with Holtzclaw's account.

"Everything you're telling me is dead on to what [Ligons] says. Everything. Except the sexual stuff," Davis says.

In December, a jury convicted Holtzclaw of 18 counts of sexual assault, including four counts of first-degree rape. Last month he received a 263-year prison sentence.

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Brian Hardzinski is from Flower Mound, Texas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma. He began his career at KGOU as a student intern, joining KGOU full time in 2009 as Operations and Public Service Announcement Director. He began regularly hosting Morning Edition in 2014, and became the station's first Digital News Editor in 2015-16. Brian’s work at KGOU has been honored by Public Radio News Directors Incorporated (PRNDI), the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters, the Oklahoma Associated Press Broadcasters, and local and regional chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists. Brian enjoys competing in triathlons, distance running, playing tennis, and entertaining his rambunctious Boston Terrier, Bucky.
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