Trans woman with a ‘beautiful heart’ fatally stabbed in the neck during an argument over a wig
Placard at a Chicago rally for trans lives. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
A trans woman with a “beautiful heart” was fatally stabbed in the neck in Harlem Park, New York, early Saturday morning during a spat over a wig she allegedly stole.
In the light of the morning after, a crescent-shaped bloodstain on the pavement remained at the scene.
The woman, 33, was sitting on a park bench on the corner of East 128th Street and 3rd Avenue near Harlem River Park when, officials and witnesses say, an unidentified assailant approached her.
At around 1.30am, the pair began arguing and the suspect sliced her neck before jumping onto a red motorised scooter and fleeing the scene, the New York Post reported.
Medics rushed her to NYC Health and Hospitals/Harlem, but she was later pronounced dead.
What happened?
The victim, according to a witness who spoke to the paper, “snatched” a “child’s wig”.
“It was a blonde wig,” the witness claimed.
“[The victim] just walked past her and took the wig off her head.
“That prompted the other person to attack her.”
She continued: “Someone said: ‘Oh, s**t, she cut her throat!’
“There was a dude riding one a red scooter trying to pick up one of the girls. [The attacker] must have hopped on the back of a date’s motorcycle.”
Victim was ‘very giving’, says witness and friend.
The witness described the trans woman, whose identity is being withheld until family can be notified, police say, as someone with a “beautiful heart”.
“She’s very giving. She would give you the shoes off her feet in the wintertime if she really had to.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio called the attack “horrifying” Saturday.
“My heart breaks for this woman and for her family,” he wrote on Twitter.
This is horrifying.
My heart breaks for this woman and for her family. We WILL find the person responsible for this heinous crime and bring them to justice. New York City stands with our trans community, now and always. https://t.co/bi9cg8ZZi0
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) March 28, 2020
“We WILL find the person responsible for this heinous crime and bring them to justice. New York City stands with our trans community, now and always.”
Anti-trans violence incessantly soars even amid coronavirus pandemic.
New York City has become a petri dish for coronavirus cases in the throws of the pandemic, accounting for a quarter of the US’ total caseload.
As Americans across the country are urged to stay in their homes by legislators, anti-trans violence has continued to creep upwards.
The unknown victim is, according to LGBT+ advocates, the fifth trans and gender-nonconforming person violently killed in 2020. A statistic likely to continue its climb as the days go by.
It comes after Monika Diamond was gunned down inside an ambulance in North Carolina earlier this month.
