Cop Arrested, Threatened To Rape and Kill Woman and Her Children For Not Sending Nude Photos

 Orange City, Florida – A police officer was arrested this week for  attempting to extort nude photos from a Georgia woman on Instagram.  25-year-old officer Joshua David Fancher was charged with making  terroristic threats for reportedly threatening to rape and kill the  woman, along with her entire family. 

Detectives in Lowndes County, Georgia, told  WKMD that Fancher threatened to kill the woman’s 5-year-old brother and  rape her sister if she did not send him nude photos. 

It was not just  one threatening message either—according to the arrest warrant, these  messages continued for more than 5 months. A press release  from the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office discussed some of the charges  against Fancher and the evidence in the case. The statement reads: 

“Joshua David Fancher, 25, of DeLand, was arrested this  afternoon at the Orange City Police Department on a Georgia warrant  charging him with making terroristic threats. The Lowndes County (Ga.)  Sheriff’s Department is investigating the case. The victim reported  receiving numerous threatening messages from an unknown person  attempting to extort her for nude photographs. The messages, which  started via Instagram, included threats to kill the victim and kill  and/or rape her family members if she didn’t provide the photos. VCSO  detectives executed a search warrant at Fancher’s residence at a DeLand  apartment complex to assist in the Lowndes County SO investigation.”

Fancher immediately resigned from the Orange City Police Department  after his arrest, and he is currently being held without bail awaiting  his court date. He was with the department for less than a year. 

 In 2014, The Free Thought Project published a shocking report that  highlighted 40 police officers who were convicted or charged with  spousal abuse, child rape, or other types of sex crimes in just 30 days. In spite of the rampant abuse, police sexual misconduct still manages to escape the spotlight. According to a recent report from Newsweek, the reason is fairly simple: fear and intimidation. 

The victims have reason to be frightened—and, at the very  least, to doubt investigators will take them seriously. In many cases  they are trafficked girls, women of color, prostitutes, undocumented  workers or just poor. Those were the types of women abused, for example,  by Oklahoma City Officer Daniel Holtzclaw, who in 2016 was sentenced to  263 years in prison for rape and other sexual assaults involving eight  victims. Holtzclaw faced charges only after a 57-year-old grandmother  accused him. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the largest  organization of police chiefs, is well aware of the problem, too. In  2011, a national working group it had convened published an executive  guide for police chiefs, which read, “Law enforcement agencies and  executives have a duty to prevent sexual victimization, to ensure it is  not perpetrated by their officers, and to take every step possible to  ensure the safety and dignity of everyone in the community.”

While independent researchers began tracking how many people are  killed by police every year, no one was tracking how many crimes were  committed by officers. However, that is beginning to change, and the  data shows that the problem is staggering. Last year, a study exposed  the startling fact that police officers are arrested about 1,100 times a  year, or roughly three officers charged every day. 

Many of these  arrests are over unspeakable sex crimes. Since police officers are often above the law and more difficult to  prosecute or even catch than the average person, predators will  naturally be drawn to these types of jobs because they understand that  it will give them more of a chance of getting away with it. 

Given the  fact that Officer Fancher began this predatory activity immediately  after becoming a police officer, it is not unreasonable to suggest that  this could be why he chose the job in the first place.