To many, the name Muhlaysia Booker may not ring a bell, but for many in the LGBTQ community, the trans woman from Dallas' name became synonymous with the violence and abuse trans people face in America, even before her death.
Last month, after a minor traffic accident, Muhlaysia Booker was attacked by a group of men who repeatedly beat kicked and punched her in broad daylight and in front of filming cameras. The disturbing video shows the act of mob violence against Booker. It's a sickening example of the risks trans people, specifically trans women of color, face every day, simply by living their lives.
Muhlaysia survived the brutal attack but a month later, she's been found dead. Authorities found Booker "lying face down on a street northeast of downtown Dallas" earlier this month.
Sign to demand justice for Muhlaysia.
Now, the Dallas PD, which had asked the FBI to investigate Booker's April beating as a hate crime, has decided that her shooting death doesn't qualify and have chalked it up as just a normal incident of "homicidal violence." However, a murder that came just weeks after her hate-filled beating and the fact that trans women are constant targets of hateful violence should make DPD reconsider and open a hate crime investigation into her death.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, trans people face a gauntlet of discrimination and violence that rivals few other groups. In 2018, 22 transgender people were murdered last year. Since 2013, 95% of the 128 trans killings in the US were women and of those, nearly 80% were women of color. Two of those women, Booker and Michelle Washington, were killed just last week.
Dallas PD has a duty to get to the bottom of Muhlaysia's senseless murder. Law enforcement must immediately open a hate crimes investigation into her death. Muhlaysia deserves justice.
Tell the Dallas Police Department to do their job, consider her death a hate crime and investigate it accordingly. Sign the petition.
#JusticeforMuhlaysia
