New Orleans police officer Rodney Vicknair sexually abused a teen girl he met on the job. He is one of hundreds of officers arrested for child sexual abuse.
The 14-year-old did not want to go to the emergency room. Her mother had begged her. Her therapist had gently prodded. And now there was a police officer in her living room.He introduced himself as Officer Rodney Vicknair. His New Orleans Police Department cruiser was waiting outside, ready to take her to the hospital for a rape kit. Early that morning, the girl said, a 17-year-old friend had forced himself on her.
The day the 14-year-old met 53-year-old Vicknair was the day the officer began a months-long grooming process, prosecutors would allege. Within hours of meeting the girl, Vicknair wrapped his arm around her while they took a selfie. He let her play with his police baton. He joked with her about “whipping your behind.” He showed her multiple photos of a young woman dressed only in lingerie.
Bowling Green’s Henry A. Wallace Police Crime Database tracks officers whose alleged crimes were discovered, who were arrested and whose charges appeared in news reports.Sex crimes, especially those involving children, are widely believed to be underreported. Children may be more afraid to come forward; courts may be more likely to seal records involving juveniles; and law enforcement agencies may not release information about the arrests to the media.
But while many school systems and churches have created practices and policies to root out predators, law enforcement agencies have largely treated child sexual abuse as an isolated problem that goes away when an officer is fired or prosecuted — rather than an always-present risk that requires systemic change.
The Post obtained hundreds of internal law enforcement records, hours of video footage and dozens of text messages. Now, the case will go before a jury. A trial over what, if anything, the girl is owed by NOPD is scheduled to begin March 18. Nicole was just a year old when Vicknair applied for the job that would make it possible for him to meet her and other children.
The police station in New Orleans’s first district, where Officer Rodney Vicknair was based for more than a decade.The police station in New Orleans’s first district, where Officer Rodney Vicknair was based for more than a decade.In his application, Vicknair disclosed to the department that he’d previously been charged with disturbing the peace and aggravated assault. Just the year before he applied, deputies from the St.
Three of Vicknair’s family members told The Post that he was charged after he had what they described as a sexual relationship with a minor. Vicknair was 20 years old. The girl, whom The Post is not identifying, was a preteen at the time. She did not respond to interview requests. During the next 12 years, he was internally investigated for allegations of misconduct a dozen times, according to NOPD records.
After the swabbing was over, after she stopped hyperventilating, after she stayed at the hospital to ensure she didn’t hurt herself, Nicole was discharged. Then she called Officer Vicknair. This story is the first in the Abused by the Badge series examining police officers accused of sexually abusing children and the systemic failures that allow those crimes to occur. Reporters Jessica Contrera and Jenn Abelson and photojournalist Carolyn Van Houten spent a year with teenagers who were victimized by officers who met them while on the job.
The interest Vicknair was taking in her daughter was so different from how NOPD first responded. On the morning in May when Rayne discovered her daughter on the couch with her 17-year-old friend, two other patrolIt was 5:21 a.m. The teenage boy had already fled. Records show the officers spent 11 minutes at the house before leaving. They appeared to take no further action.
Several hours after the first officers left Nicole’s house, her therapist called to report the assault a second time. NOPD sent Vicknair and two other patrol officers to her house. Then a special victims detective, Kimberly Wilson, arrived. Body-camera footage shows she spent a total of four minutes with Nicole before saying she had somewhere else to be.
“What was running through my mind at that time was ‘Oh, he’s just a guy,’ ” Nicole said. “You know, that’s how guys think.” So she told no one when Vicknair’s texts shifted from “Lion King” GIFs to tongue emojis. Or when he confided in her about his own childhood trauma, then asked her to send nudes. Or when he went from telling her he wanted to touch her to actually doing it.
Nicole told her mom only that Vicknair once followed her in his police cruiser while she was on a run, yelling “Nice ass!” out the window. Rayne consulted with Nicole’s therapist. They both worried there was more going on.“ and he took a pic, took a picture, a selfie picture in the mirrorAnd, and that kind of physical closeness, that contact, and“... And, anyway, told me she went on a run after he leftI mean, he's been very kind, don't get me wrong.
police departments turn to outside agencies to conduct investigations when one of their officers is suspected of committing a serious crime, NOPD investigates its own. was Nicole interviewed by someone specially trained in child abuse at the New Orleans Child Advocacy Center. She tried to hug him goodbye, she said, but then, “He stuck his finger in one more time and was like, ‘Just one more taste.’ ”
Over the next hour and a half, Vicknair switched between denials and explanations for what he couldn’t deny. Yes, he’d gone to Nicole’s house just before midnight two nights earlier — but only because she’d asked him to sniff her to see if she smelled like weed, he said. Yes, he had sexual photos of her on his phone — but he’d only taken screenshots of her Snapchats “in case something ever did happen,” he said.
She stood at a microphone in a stiff white button-down shirt she’d purchased just hours before. She hoped it would make the judge take her seriously. “I guess he was thinking: Who is going to believe a 14- or 15-year-old over me, a New Orleans police officer?” the judge said. “He served himself, not this young, trusting child.”
Two months later, Nicole was scrolling on her phone when she started to shake. She rubbed her eyes, thinking she must be imagining the notification that had just appeared on her screen.“Officer Rodney,” the notification said, “added you as a friend.” She wanted to feel relieved. Instead, she kept thinking about how little time Vicknair served. And how, before he died, he’d given a deposition in her civil case. Under oath, he returned to denying that he’d ever assaulted her.
But a judge disagreed, ruling in February that the city was, in fact, liable for Vicknair’s actions. It would still be up to a jury to decide how much New Orleans owed Nicole — and whether NOPD was at fault for hiring Vicknair in the first place.
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