A person wearing make-up and carrying a pair of pumps was found unconscious on a sidewalk in NW DC early Saturday morning. The DC police are identifying the person as a transwoman. She later died at Howard University Hospital. The case is being investigated as a homicide pending results of toxicology exams.
The victim is believed to be either Hispanic or of Middle Eastern descent and between 25 and 30 years old. The victim also had jewelry and money, leading to the supposition that robbery was not involved. The Advocate describes the victim as a Latina transwoman.
But that's not all.
Later that same night there was an incident on a Metro bus which resulted with a man accosting three transwomen with a gun on Minnesota Avenue SE. The suspect was arrested and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon - bias related.
Early Monday a transwoman was shot in the neck on Savannah Street SE. She walked a half mile to a police station to report the incident and was reported in stable condition on Monday afternoon.
Police reported that she knew the assailant, who reportedly goes by the name of Tyrone, and that they are working to locate him. They do not believe this shooting is related to any of the other shootings of transwomen in DC which have occurred since early July.
Update:
Horace Boothroyd III found a link to a report of an arrest in this case. Darryl Willard, 20, of Washington was been arrested and charged with intent to kill.
We do not need to be in a position because we come out in public, our lives are taken away.
--transgender activist Ruby Corado
I would say it seems like it’s almost open season. I don’t recall D.C. becoming a shooting gallery like this.
--Dana Beyer, executive director of Gender Rights Maryland, who lives nearby in Montgomery County
I think there is almost a sense of panic.
--Brian Watson, director of programs for Transgender Health Empowerment
Meanwhile a DC corrections officer is has been accused of making death threats against a transwoman inmate at the Central Detention Facility and an activist who works for THE...after the two of them had complained about the officer harassing the inmate and behaving transphobicly. Earline Budd of THE, who presents sensitivity training courses on transgender issues to city employees…including corrections officers…says she did not receive the threat directly, but was informed of them by a third party.
Budd declined to identify the officer that made the threat but says it came from a 20-year veteran of the corrections department that has participated in one of her sensitivity courses. Budd adds that jail authorities have reached out to her.
The officer has been reassigned from facility where the threats occurred pending the completion of the investigation.
What I do know, which I got from a conference call, is that the Department of Corrections has a zero tolerance against any type of discrimination against transgendered inmates in the jail.
--Earline Budd
This is the third incidence investigation of violence against a transperson by a DC law enforcement officer in recent months. Officer Kenneth Furr currently resides in the Central Detention Facility accused of firing 5 shots, while intoxicated, into a car containing two transwomen and three of their friends, wounding three, including the two transwomen.
Another MPD officer is under investigation for severely beating a transwoman while off duty.
A final story: Teonna Brown, who pleaded guilty last month to the April first-degree assault as a hate crime in the beating of Chrissy Polis in a Baltimore McDonald's restaurant…an incident that went viral because a McDonald's employee videoed it with his cell phone because he apparently thought it was funny, will be sentenced today in Baltimore County Circuit Court before Judge John Grason Turnbull II. She is expected to be sentenced to 5 years in prison.