A police officer took a teen for a rape kit. Then he assaulted her, too.

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Hundreds of law enforcement officers have been accused of sexually abusing children over the past two decades, a Post investigation found​

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.

“You really should think about it,” he said.

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.

Under the police department’s rules, a case like this was supposed to be handled from the start by a detective trained in sex crimes or child abuse. But on this afternoon in May of 2020, it was Vicknair, a patrol officer with a troubled past, who knocked on the girl’s door.

Four months later, police would arrest a man for sexually assaulting the girl. But it wouldn’t be her teenage friend. It would be Officer Rodney Vicknair.

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.

NOPD photo of Vicknair

Americans have been forced to reckon with sexual misconduct committed by teachers, clergy, coaches and others with access to and authority over children.

At least 1,800 state and local police officers were charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse from 2005 through 2022, The Post found.

Abusive officers were rarely related to the children they were accused of raping, fondling and exploiting. They most frequently targeted girls who were 13 to 15 years old — and regularly met their victims through their jobs.

 

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Trial over teen’s sexual abuse by police officer delayed after Post investigation​

A federal judge in New Orleans postponed a trial in a civil case against the city following The Post’s revelations Thursday​

Hours after The Washington Post published an investigation into a New Orleans police officer who sexually abused a teen he met responding to a rape report, a judge delayed the trial for her civil case against the city.

The victim’s lawyers, in a motion filed Thursday, accused the city of withholding “highly relevant text messages.” The texts show the head of the New Orleans Police Department was notified of “potential sexual abuse of a minor by an officer” days before that officer sexually assaulted her in 2020, when she was 15.

The existence of the text messages, which The Post first reported Thursday, contradicts the city’s previous claims in federal court that there is no evidence that any NOPD policymaker had notice of any inappropriate behavior by Officer Rodney Vicknair, according to the victim’s motion.

In court filings Thursday, attorneys for New Orleans described the text message in September 2020 from then-independent police monitor Susan Hutson to then-superintendent Shaun Ferguson as “irrelevant” and denied improperly withholding materials or making any misrepresentations to the court.