So far, 13 days into the trial of Daniel Holtzclaw, a former Oklahoma City police officer charged with 36 counts, including rape, sexual battery, forcible oral sodomy, and stalking, in connection with 13 different women, the prosecution has called more than 40 witnesses, including nine of Holtzclaw’s accusers. According to The Guardian, prosecutors allege that Holtzclaw targeted black women with histories of drug use, sex work, or criminal backgrounds, because he thought investigators would be less likely to believe them if he was ever accused.

Police investigators claim that Holtzclaw would run background checks on his victims, looking for women with outstanding warrants, and would use that information as a means to coerce sex. Holtzclaw’s defense, The Guardian reports, has followed the same track:

On the first full day of testimony, Holtzclaw’s attorney, Scott Adams, grilled the woman whose complaint led to Hotlzclaw’s arrest about marijuana use and her suspended driver’s license. The woman’s daughter and fiance also testified, about her physical and mental deterioration. Adams interrogated them about their criminal backgrounds.

Adams asked another woman why she didn’t report the crime to police right away. He then called attention to her multiple drug-related felonies. That woman was one of two to testify against Holtzclaw while in pretrial custody of the Oklahoma County jail. She was dressed in an orange jumpsuitand wore ankle- and handcuffs for the duration of her court appearance. Adams declined to comment for this article.

The accusers make up just a fraction of an extensive witness list. In court filings, the prosecution indicated it would call as many as 175 witnesses, including investigating officers and forensic analysts.

“I didn’t think that no one would believe me,” one of Holtzclaw’s accusers, who accused him of coercing her into performing oral sex on him while she was handcuffed to a bed after being hospitalized while high on angel dust, testified in a pre-trial hearing, the Associated Press reported. “I feel like all police will work together.”

“I didn’t know what to do,” a 17-year-old girl with an outstanding warrant for trespassing, who accused Holtzclaw of raping her on her mother’s porch, testified at the same hearing. “Like, what am I going to do? Call the cops? He was a cop.”

This alleged strategy would fit into a larger pattern, Diane Wetendorf, a counselor in Chicago who works with female victims of police abuse, told The Guardian. “Officers count on no one believing the victim if she reports,” Wetendorf said. “And [they] know that the word of a woman of color is likely to be worth even less than the word of a white woman to those who matter in the criminal justice system.”

“These cases are so difficult to prosecute because the defense attorneys go after the victims’ credibility in court,” she said. “In my experience working with victims of police abuse, officers do target vulnerable women, particularly drug addicts, alcoholics and prostitutes. They are confident that ‘no one will believe’ these victims. Where women of color are available as targets, they are even easier prey.”

On Monday, The Oklahoman reports, one of Holtzclaw’s accusers took the stand, testifying that he pulled her over one night in April, 2014, for rolling through a stop sign and accused her of driving drunk. He took her to a field and raped her, the woman testified.

“I knew that it was going to be a sexual assault,” she said. “There was nothing that I could do. He was a police officer and I was a woman.”

Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.