MINNEAPOLIS ( AP )- LGBTQ+ campaigners in Minnesota want lawmakers to develop legal protections to defend a community that is overwhelmingly the target of violence. They also want prosecutors to address the murder of the trans woman in Minneapolis as an act of hatred.
Last month, a close-range bullet struck Savannah Ryan Williams, 38, in the mind. This year, Damarean Kaylon Bible, 25, was charged with second-degree murder by the prosecution. His next court date is January 9, and his bail is still set at$ 1 million. His lawyer did not immediately return a Friday visit asking for comment.
According to the legal complaint, Bible claimed to have asked Williams if he wanted sex after passing him at a bus house close to an early-morning light rail stop on November 29. As she engaged in oral sex with him in a courtyard several blocks away, according to Bible, he started to feel” suspicious” and shot her in the brain from just inches away. According to the problem, Bible afterwards informed his jailed papa that he” only murdered someone.” According to the complaint, he felt bad for killing her and knew that it was n’t God, but nonetheless felt compelled to do it.
This year, a trans woman was attacked for the next time close to the station. Although prosecution determined that the attack was not motivated by bias, two gentlemen entered guilty pleas to severely beating a transgender woman in February. A still-unsolved shooting at a mainly gay and transgender punk rock present in August that left one man dead and six injured also roiled the neighborhood LGBTQ+ area.
On Thursday, Williams ‘ family, followers, and members of the Queer Legislative Caucus gathered at the state Capitol to express their sorrow and demand greater protections for all people, including trans women of color like Williams, who are disproportionately the targets of violence. Her family urged citizens not to judge her and identified her as Caribbean and African American.
Savannah ought to be dead right now. Democrat Rep. Leigh Finke of St. Paul, the country’s first explicitly transgender senator, told reporters that Savannah is dead because she is a transgender woman. In America, transphobia is pervasive and it is dangerous.
In an annual report released last month, the Human Rights Campaign, which supports LGBTQ+ right, stated that it had counted the deaths of 335 trans and female non-conforming victims of violence, including at least 33 murders in the previous 12 months. The victims, according to the party, were “disproportionately Black trans people impacted and overwhelmingly fresh and people of color.”
According to the report, Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the outbreaks of violence against transgender and female non-conforming people is a national horror and an embarrassment.
The” trans panic defense,” which is prohibited in at least 18 other states but not in Minnesota, was called for by Amber Muhm, who knew Williams through trans support programs.
According to the LGBTQ+ Bar, a regional legal advocacy organization that prefers the more diverse word “LGBTQ+ stress security,” accused use this tactic to hold their victims accountable for their violent actions due to their hostility toward their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender appearance. The death trial of two people who brutally beat 21-year-old college student Matthew Shephard in Wyoming in 1998 and kept him tied to a gate to death was one notable event in which it appeared.
Muhm also requested that the protections for trans children and others that were passed this year be expanded by the 2024 Legislature.
We miss Savannah terribly, and she ought to be with us today, Muhm told the media. ” Our hearts are broken, but we’re going to keep pushing forward and fighting until Minneapolis is the best transgender community in the nation.”
Mary Moriarty, the counsel for Hennepin County, stated in a statement that she was unable to discuss the case’s specifics because it is still being investigated. Transgender persons “deserve to live honestly and be free from threats and violence,” according to queer activist Bur Moriarty. She vowed to handle the case properly.
Although Minnesota does n’t have a specific hate crime offense listed, it does permit longer sentences for bias-based crimes. In Minnesota, second-degree death is punished by up to 40 years in prison.
We may proceed accordingly, Moriarty said, “if the investigation turns up enough evidence to establish bias enthusiasm beyond a reasonable question.”
