A Baltimore police officer was trusted with a simple errand on June 2: driving a domestic violence victim and her young son home in a marked SUV, supervisor’s approval on file. Twelve weeks later, his case turns on a number prosecutors almost never get to say — the odds the DNA at the scene belonged to anyone else were one in forty octillion.
Officer Daniel Oxendine, 32, an eight-year Baltimore police veteran, is charged with eight counts including first-degree rape — and a judge ordered him held without bond. The sheriff leading the investigation says detectives believe he may have done something like this before.
A supervisor-approved ride home
The June 2 call left a mother and her son an hour from home in Edgewood, Harford County. Her caseworker asked police for the ride, a supervisor signed off, and Oxendine took the wheel. Charging documents add one stop: a liquor store, where she bought a bottle and a snack for her son. She asked to be dropped a street away from her building — she didn’t want neighbors seeing her climb out of a police SUV.
The “safety check”
At her door, the documents allege, Oxendine sent the boy outside, then said he needed to check the apartment was safe. Harford County is not his jurisdiction — and by his own admission, his radio did not work there. Prosecutors have a phrase for that safety check: a misrepresentation, designed to get him inside.
Inside, the documents say, he grabbed her by the hair and ordered a sex act. She refused and lost consciousness. By the time she came to, someone had already called 911.
The DNA — and the camera that went dark
A forensic exam at Greater Baltimore Medical Center the next day collected the evidence that would become the whole case. On June 10, Harford County Detective Phillip Golden interviewed Oxendine, and a search warrant produced his DNA sample the same day. The lab returned the one-in-forty-octillion figure — an octillion is a one with twenty-seven zeros behind it.
The investigation also surfaced what didn’t record. Oxendine switched off his body camera during the transport; his explanation, per the documents: confidential informants and undercover officers. But policy requires recording an off-the-record request before the camera goes dark, and no such request was ever captured. Area cameras placed a marked Baltimore SUV and a uniformed officer at her apartment that afternoon — the department confirmed it was Oxendine. He said he was inside ten to fifteen minutes; cameras showed closer to forty.
Eight counts — and a sheriff’s warning
On August 27, Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler announced the charges: two counts of first-degree rape, two of second-degree rape, two counts of an officer engaging in a sex act with a victim of an investigation, plus burglary with intent and misconduct in office.
Gahler did not treat this as an isolated night. His office says detectives believe he may have committed similar offenses before, are reviewing his prior reports, and have opened a tip line — if there are others, the sheriff wants to hear from them.
What happens next
At his bond review, prosecutors asked for no bond and the judge agreed, calling him a danger to the community. He has been held at the Harford County Detention Center since that Friday night. Baltimore suspended his police powers, then suspended him without pay, and says it is cooperating fully.
And there is the clock: eleven weeks passed between the day his DNA was taken by warrant and the day charges were announced — and he stayed on the force, with pay, the entire time.
Every charge is an allegation right now. Oxendine is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty — the same standard his badge was supposed to represent. This post will be updated as the case develops: indictment, trial dates, and any outcome of Baltimore’s internal review.
She called the police for help, and the system sent a driver it trusted. Who is she supposed to call the next time?
Sources
The Baltimore Banner · WBAL-TV 11 · WMAR-2 News · FOX45 Baltimore · CBS News Baltimore
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