A Target On Our Backs

Is there a trans serial killer on the loose down in Florida?

LGBTQ community in fear after 4th attack on transgender victim
Sunday's killing marks 3rd attack in a month
News 4 JAX
By Jenese Harris & Erik Avanier
June 25, 2018

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - The shooting death Sunday of a transgender woman at a Baymeadows area motel marks the fourth reported attack on a transgender woman in Jacksonville since February.

While the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said it has no evidence so far suggesting the attacks are linked, some people in the transgender community fear they are being targeted.

Cindy Watson, chief executive officer for Jasmyn, an advocacy group for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Community, wants to make sure these cases aren't overlooked.

"We see many trans women who are African American, and I think they feel particularly targeted by these crimes," said Watson.

These are the victims,

Sunday's shooting is the latest in a string of four shootings with transgender victims, and the second such attack in a week:

• A 24-year-old transgender woman was found dead Sunday by officers answering a report of someone shot at the Quality Inn and Suites on Dix Ellis Trail;
• A transgender woman survived being shot multiple times June 8 on West 29th Street not far from Golfair Boulevard in Northwest Jacksonville;
• Antasha English, 38, died June 1 after she was shot near a vacant home along Ella Street in Northwest Jacksonville;
• Celine Walker, 36, was shot dead Feb. 4 at the Extended Stay America on Skinner Lake Drive, near the St. Johns Town Center.

So what does the police have to say about the killings?

NBC Out Twitter reports…

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office doesn’t believe the murders are linked, but local transgender activists worry a serial killer may be on the loose.

Okay all of them may possibly are not linked, but all four separate killings? I doubt it and if they are not linked then there still is a major problem in Jacksonville that makes it okay to targets us.

NBC reported…

Celine Walker, 36, was the first trans women killed in Jacksonville this year. Police found her body on Feb. 4 inside a room at an Extended Stay America hotel in the city’s Southpoint area, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.

Antash’a English, 38, was found shot in the abdomen between two abandoned houses in northern Jacksonville on June 1, and she later died in a hospital, the sheriff's office said.

The body of the third victim, Cathalina Christina James, 24, was found at a Quality Inn and Suites on Sunday about 10 miles south of where Walker was found, according to the sheriff's office.

(A fourth transgender woman was shot multiple times on June 8 but survived. Local activists said the shooting appeared to be a domestic dispute, and they don’t believe the incident to be related to the others.)

It sounds like the Jacksonville sheriff’s department is not a friend of the community.

Mahogany said the relationship between the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and the local transgender community is strained.

“Every day, there are a lot of crimes not being reported, because when the sheriffs come out, the sheriffs make the girls feel like suspects, not victims,” Mahogany said. “A lot of these girls are being beaten up, they’re being robbed, they’re being assaulted, but they’re not reaching out to the police department.”

Duncan, of Equality Florida, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy group, also expressed frustration with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for repeatedly referring to the three homicide victims using male pronouns.

Somehow I think that it is only going to get worst down in Jacksonville where the police just give lip service to the trans community.