A serial rapist police officer, who admitted to using his badge and cruiser to prey on innocent women — by raping them while on duty — was handed down a 20-year sentence this week.
This sentence is extremely high for rapist cops and highlights the serious nature of his crimes.
As TFTP regularly reports, almost no one feels “protected” when they see flashing red and blue lights behind them while driving.
But the women pulled over by Chattanooga police officer Desmond Ladon Logan were getting far more than a simple promise of extortion. Several of them got raped, and one even abused with a taser.
Logan pleaded guilty to two counts of deprivation of civil rights for the rapes of two women as part of a plea agreement and also admitted to two additional assaults.
In court this week, Logan stood before U.S. District Judge Curtis Collier and tried claiming that he never hurt anyone, saying,
“I’d like to apologize for all the trouble it’s caused … I am not a bad person. I made mistakes. I never hurt anyone.”
His face mask muffled his words as he claimed to have never hurt anyone again. “I’ve done things wrong — moral things wrong, I never hurt anyone.”
His victims, however, do not agree.
“I was barely afraid of anything before this happened to me, and now I am afraid to get out on the street by myself,” wrote one woman, identified as D.H., who Logan assaulted in a parking lot near the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2016, according to the Times Free Press.
According to the Times Free Press:
Victim impact statements by her and one other woman were attached to a sentencing memorandum filed by prosecutors earlier this month.
D.H. stopped cooking for her family, she wrote. She’s afraid to go on walks alone. She’s afraid of law enforcement, a group she was raised to trust and respect, she said, and Logan took that trust away from her.
She sometimes falls into deep pits of depression, her statement says, and she can’t always afford her medication, so she’s had to go on Medicare.
Another victim, identified as N.S., has said she lives with guilt for not reporting him when she says he raped her in 2015.
During Logan’s trial, another victim came forward and said Logan raped her too — she’s now a cop.
Despite Logan attempting to claim he didn’t hurt anyone, Chattanooga police Chief David Roddy let this rapist know that he is “an absolute disgrace of a human being.”
“To stand in front of a judge and say he never hurt anyone is despicable and reprehensible,” he said in a statement to the Times Free Press.
“Desmond Logan has hurt many, his family, officers, friends outside the department, but none more than the women he’s raped.”
“The actions of Desmond Logan jeopardized public safety and violated the trust of the citizens of Chattanooga he swore to protect,” J. Douglas Overbey, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, said in a statement.
“This case exhibits our continued efforts to prosecute those who would abuse their authority to commit acts of violence and injustice against members of our community. Our office will continue to stand by and protect the victims of such crimes.”
Collier said the U.S. is also a victim in this case.
“It is all of your fellow citizens and on their behalf that the charges were brought,” he said.
“The state of Tennessee and city of Chattanooga cloaked Logan in the authority of the state to use force, detain and arrest citizens accused of crimes when he was given the badge of law enforcement,” Collier said.
And when those charged with enforcing the law turn around and break the law, it “breeds disrespect of law and anarchy,” he said.
It certainly does breed disrespect and no amount of pandering by police chiefs and judges claiming it was this “one bad apple” will ever reverse that disrespect as Logan’s case is one of many.
Indeed, one need only browse through our archives to see the brutal reality that is police sexual misconduct. Arguably, the reason it is so pervasive is the fact that they can get away with it with little to no consequences.
Fortunately in this instance, the rapist cop received far more time than other officers.
By Matt Agorist, Guest writer
