The DC Stabbings (another trans murder)

[Quiet Reflections]

I've lived in D.C. for over 20 years, and I can tell you that not every street in bustling with tourists and members of Congress. You can walk 5 or 6 blocks away from the Capitol and find yourself on a quiet residential street, where a mugging or stabbing could take place and no witnesses are present.

Are you familiar with this location?

I know that area and its not that busy

[trish]

Sometimes it all just leaves you speechless.

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

What happened is atrocious and hopefully justice takes place weeks, months, maybe even years down the line.

Here in NYC there have been multiple slayings during the night when many TS/TV streetwalkers work that NEVER made the papers, let alone radio or television. As sad as this is it's folks like you Sarah that are helping because you bring light to the matter. Had you not mentioned it I (and probably several others on here) would never have known about it. So kudos to you

I would tell you to call the Post but let's face it, the newspaper industry is on death's door. Today's real (better detailed) news is found on the net more than it is in a printed paper.

[SarahG]

Here in NYC there have been multiple slayings during many TS/TV streetwalkers that NEVER made the papers, let alone radio or television. As sad as this is it's folks like you Sarah that are helping because you bring light to the matter. Had you not mentioned it I (and probably several others on here) would never have known about it. So kudos to you

Anytime you or anyone else hears of one happening, post the story here.

The girl who was killed in Syracuse last november was almost omitted from the TGDOR because the story was initially unknown, then misreported (by the SYR PD and then SYR DA's office) to be a gay guy killed for being gay, all in sequence in the days before the TGDOR.

Even the LGBT blogs, like the bilerico report, for days thought that the Syracuse story involved the killing of a "gay guy for being gay" and that helped keep the story from reaching more people.

Here the DC cops went around saying the victims were "transgender males"- they didn't mean FtM's, but were trying to say that they were 1- trans, 2- biologically male in the same breath. The media blindly picked it up and ran with it, virtually all but 1 local press group reporting it incorrectly, and consquently the bilerico report's coverage for this article has consisted of this crap:
http://dc.bilerico.com/2009/08/break...d_one_dead.php

By that I am not trying to give their blog bad press, to be fair & clear I am criticizing the papers and tv news shows here, NOT the bloggers. They only have what they have access to in reporting their stories. When you're only given access to crap, you report crap.

I would tell you to call the Post but let's face it, the newspaper industry is on death's door. Today's real (better detailed) news is found on the net more than it is in a printed paper.

Calling would be a waste of time in that I doubt we'd ever possibly see a retraction... but I encourage people to let the Post know how dissatisfied they are, maybe if its enough trouble they'll "try better next time." But given the tone of their "journalism" I highly doubt it (street name? WTF).

Unfortunately, the internet is so dependent on the "mainstream" press that they matter the most when it comes to stuff like this. Had Fox not done a better job (I can't believe I just wrote that; but I did) this story would have been even more ghastly worded in online reports.

[2009AD]

I've lived in D.C. for over 20 years, and I can tell you that not every street in bustling with tourists and members of Congress. You can walk 5 or 6 blocks away from the Capitol and find yourself on a quiet residential street, where a mugging or stabbing could take place and no witnesses are present.

Are you familiar with this location?

I know that area and its not that busy

Correct. the 200 Q St. area is in a neighborhood called Shaw and at 2 p.m., on a weekday, you can walk down an almost deserted street. It's a fairly quiet location, it is not downtown D.C.

Anyways, the point is a horrible crime was committed. My gut feeling tells me that they were stabbed by a deranged man, a man, who would have stabbed anyone walking down that street.

[SarahG]

Anyways, the point is a horrible crime was committed. My gut feeling tells me that they were stabbed by a deranged man, a man, who would have stabbed anyone walking down that street.

Regardless whether or not he was crazy, I think he did pick them because they were trans. After all these articles are saying he was shouting slur(s) as he did it.

Maybe that's the cynical side of me, but when I hear of a story where someone of a specific label is killed, by someone shouting a slur relating to that label- that tells me that label was part of the motivation. We unfortunately do not know what he was shouting ATM, so I am only speculating here.

But to use an analogy from elsewhere: perhaps that guy in Texas who was dragging that black guy by the back of his pickup truck was just crazy, and all the slurs he said at the time were irrelevant. If I were more sheltered or optimistic I would say he was just crazy... after all what normal person would do such a thing?

But then I remember how frequently normal, sane people go around committing such graphic attacks.

[Marilyn]

I lived in DC for 11 years. In fact I used to work on Q st, I personally never had a problem walking down the streets even when I worked in the SE side of the city but back in 2003 one of the girls I knew got shot 4 times by a man she had provided sexual services to earlier that day and who later came back to kill her claiming he didn't know she was a "man". DC can be a dangerous city once you step away from the White House-Capitol Hill areas! Reason why I ended up living in VA for a while b4 moving to NJ/NY area.

[icarus2112]

reminds me of a news story here in Seattle from last December/November. All the news reports said 4 men were stabbed at closing time outside of Neighbours. It was a couple of weeks before I talked to a TS friend and she told me that 2 of the "men" stabbed were TS girls that I kinda knew. The attacker was a boyfriend of another TS girl brought on by some kind of conflict between the girls. The thing that bothered me the most was that every single quote from the Police identified all the victims as men and not a single news agency caught on to the fact the cops were lying due to their ignorant prejudices.

[freak]

Anyways, the point is a horrible crime was committed. My gut feeling tells me that they were stabbed by a deranged man, a man, who would have stabbed anyone walking down that street.

Regardless whether or not he was crazy, I think he did pick them because they were trans. After all these articles are saying he was shouting slur(s) as he did it.

Maybe that's the cynical side of me, but when I hear of a story where someone of a specific label is killed, by someone shouting a slur relating to that label- that tells me that label was part of the motivation. We unfortunately do not know what he was shouting ATM, so I am only speculating here.

But to use an analogy from elsewhere: perhaps that guy in Texas who was dragging that black guy by the back of his pickup truck was just crazy, and all the slurs he said at the time were irrelevant. If I were more sheltered or optimistic I would say he was just crazy... after all what normal person would do such a thing?

But then I remember how frequently normal, sane people go around committing such graphic attacks.

Only one story said anything about a slur and that was a maybe. There is no proof that he said anything, for all we know they may have said something to set him off, called him a crazy bum or something. It is always easy to blame random violence on race or sexual preference, but it is not always the case.

You were not there, no one heard anything but the victim and one is dead so she will not tell and the other said maybe.

[Alyssa87]

gender identity means nothing i guess.

like REALLY? you cant throw a dead dog a bone and use female pronouns?
The girl lived as female. it wasnt a performance or sex fueled hobby.

I dont know if being murdered scares me more or less then the sebsequent coverage that would follow.