Keisha Wells Case Update

We have an update in the Keisha Wells murder case in Cleveland.

Wells was found dead in an apartment building  parking lot at 7 AM EDT from a gunshot wound to the abdomen back on June 24.   She had gone to a local bar called Cocktails that evening in Cleveland's Cudell neighborhood.

Eleven shell casings along with a leopard print shoe, a wig and a sweatshirt were also recovered at the scene. 

The person arrested was 27 year old James Butler, a homeless man who helped the shooter move Wells' body from his car, dump it after she was killed and clean the shooter's car.   Butler subsequently told his mother about the crime, and Butler's mother called Cleveland PD to report it.

Butler has been charged with complicity with aggravated murder, and an arrest warrant was issued for him on June 27. 

They are still looking for the shooter in the Wells case, and hopefully once Butler is in police custody, he can give CPD the info they need that will result to the capture and prosecution of the shooter who killed Keisha Wells.. 

Number 14- Rest In Power Keisha Wells

It's my sad duty to report courtesy of the Pittsburgh Lesbian Reporters the loss of our second trans person this month  and the 14th in 2018.

We head back to Cleveland to discuss the latest person gone to join the ancestors too soon. 

She is 54 year old Keisha Wells, and she was found dead from a gunshot wound to the abdomen at 7 AM EDT Sunday in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Detroit Avenue near West 87th Street.

As of this time there are no suspects, and if you have any info that can help solve this case you are urged to call the Cleveland Police Department. 

If anyone has a nice photo of Keisha, it would also be nice to have that as well for this article and any subsequent articles about her.

As of this moment no info concerning a vigil or memorial service, and if that happens, will pass that along to you along with any case updates as expeditiously as possible.

Number 6 -Rest In Power and Peace Phylicia Mitchell

Hard on the heels of hearing the news that the body found stuffed in a trash can in rural Santa Fe County was our missing trans sister, was news out of Cleveland, OH that we have now lost our sixth person of the year to anti-trans violence.

46 year old Phylicia Mitchell was found shot in front of her home in the West Side Edgewater neighborhood on West 112th Street near Detroit Avenue at approximately 6 PM on Friday. She was taken to MetroHealth Medical Center where she was pronounced dead according to Cleveland.com and CPD spokeswoman Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia

The case is under investigation, and Cleveland Police are looking for any information that will help them solve this case and bring to justice the person or persons who murdered her. 

Mitchell becomes the sixth trans person killed in 2018 and the third African American one this year.  She is also the oldest person so far to be killed this year since the pattern is usually trans women under age 40.

As of yet no information as to whether there will be a memorial service or vigil, and when I receive that information I will pass it along.   I'll also keep an eye on this case until justice is served for her, her longtime partner and all who loved her..



Rest in power and peace, Phylicia.

Rest In Power Brandi Bledsoe

We have lost another trans woman to violence, once again in Cleveland.

32 year old Brandi Bledsoe was found dead on Saturday clad only in her underwear and with white plastic bags covering her head and hands in the driveway behind a home on Drexel Avenue near 108th Street.  

And as you probably guessed, she was initially misgendered by the local media.

Her body was found at 10 AM EDT by a 5 year old boy riding his bike with his 12 year old brother

Police also reported that Bledsoe had head trauma and with the investigation of her death in its early stages, investigators are taking her trans status into account.

She is now the 23rd trans person killed this year in the US.  Her death now makes this the deadliest year for US trans women since we started keeping track of the murders of our trans siblings.   And once again for me, it falls into that infuriating pattern of an under 40 Black trans woman being killed

There has not been an arrest in this case yet, but will keep you TransGriot readers apprised of any developments in the Bledsoe case.

As of yet there isn't any information about a memorial service or vigil and I'll pass that info along once I receive it.

Rest in power and peace Brandi.  We will not rest as a community until the waste of DNA who killed you is captured and brought to justice.  

Melania Trump Plagiarizes Michelle Obama's 2008 DNC Speech

Last night I watched much of the first night of the Republican National Convention from Cleveland, and got so tired of the race bating and sellout kneegrows like Sheriff David Clarke being on the podium that for self-care reasons I turned it off before Melania Trump's speech and started following the far more entertaining Twitter commentary.

I then noted before the media finally started talking about it increasing chatter on Twitter that started sharing Jarrett Hill's observation that Trump's speech had two paragraphs that were strikingly similar to one that First Lady Michelle Obama gave at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

The Hill observations turned out to be so on point that the networks were after initially praising the Melania Trump speech, forced to address the growing plagiarism controversy as the Trump campaign scrambled to try to respond to it.



So what's the big deal about plagiarizing speeches?  Allegations of it sank Joe Biden's 1988 presidential campaign.  Careers have gone down in flames for it, and people have been expelled from colleges and universities for doing so.

When you also listen to the Trump speech, the message sounds oddly out of sync when you consider that Melania grew up in Slovenia.   It was part of Communist run Yugoslavia at the time she was born in 1970 before the 1991 breakup of that country and Slovenia's subsequent independence after a brief ten day war.

As I also pointed out in my take on this growing controversy on my Twitter feed, this was a real time example of a common problem in terms of Black intellectual property being jacked by whites for their own personal gain.  This happens far too often with Black women having their words repeatedly stolen by white women with little to zero credit for being the originators and creators of those words and receiving no compensation for it.

Trump also claimed in an interview before she went on the RNC stage she'd written the speech without much help in what was expected to be a moment to introduce Melania to the world and humanize her reprehensible husband..

Of course Twitter gleefully went all in on their dragging Melania Trump mission, and the hashtag #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes quickly rose to become the number one Twitter hashtag along with the #BeckyWithTheBorrowedSpeech one as Trump supporters and his campaign team tried to furiously spin away what happened.

This plagiarism situation was also dripping with irony.  The plagiarized section is discussing honesty, character and integrity, and since you couldn't find nice things to say about The Donald, so you steal them from a speech the FLOTUS is giving about her hubby the POTUS who does role model those qualities.

First Lady Michelle Obama has been demonized, misgendered, had her intelligence questioned despite possessing two Ivy League degrees earned with stellar grades and has been called everything but a child of God by the conservative movement.

But when it comes to speech writing, either Trump or someone on her husband's campaign team had no problem stealing the FLOTUS' eloquent August 25, 2008 words to put in Melania's teleprompter.

We'll have to see how this latest Trump campaign mess plays out not only for the rest of the RNC, but also for Melania Trump and this train wreck of a presidential campaign

Justice For Brittany Kidd-Stergis!

There is good news to report in terms of another one of our fallen transsisters receiving justice.

In my last update on this case back in June,  Delshawn Carroll was arrested and charged with the aggravated  the murder of Stergis while in the Cuyahoga County Jail on drug trafficking charges.

On Friday Carroll was convicted of the December 6, 2013 murder of Stergis as
she sat in her car in a Cleveland westside public housing project.   Carroll tried to deny that he and Stergis had a past association with each other, but that lie was blown up by evidence frond by investigators that placed him inside Stergis' car.

Carroll was also convicted of the drug trafficking charge.  It carries an 18 month sentence that he will serve concurrently with the life sentence he will get for killing Brittany Kidd-Stergis 

Justice has been served and another murderer of our sisters will be rotting in jail for doing so

Arrest Made In Brittany Kidd-Stergis Murder Case

While the month of June was a deadly one for trans women of color in the States, we did have some progress made toward justice being served for one of our fallen sisters.

22 year old Brittany Nicole Kidd-Stergis was found shot to death in her car in Cleveland on December 6 a day after 52 year old girl like us Betty Janet Skinner was found murdered in her apartment in an assisted living complex.

On June 5 Cleveland police announced the arrest and the filing of aggravated murder charges against 19 year old Delshawn D. Carroll.   Carroll was already in the Cuyahoga County jail on drug trafficking charges stemming from an April 21 arrest.

There unfortunately hasn't been an arrest made in the Skinner case, but you know I'll be tracking that case and the Kidd-Stergis one until justice has been served.   

My Remarks To The Cleveland TBLG Community Rally

There is a vigil and community meeting taking place in Cleveland as I post this and I was asked to submit some remarks to be read at it.

Here they are.

***  

To my Cleveland trans family, allies, family and friends of our fallen transsisters, and our supporters.

I wish I could be there at this moment to give you a comforting hug, help dry your tears, and stand in solidarity with you.  But my words will have to be an inadequate substitute for my physical presence at this time.

On behalf of myself, the trans community of Texas, the national and international trans community, we wish to express our deepest condolences for the loss of two of our Cleveland sisters. We offer our prayers and express our hopes that the perpetrators of these foul deeds will be caught and justice in these cases will be swift, fair and expeditiously served.

Once again as you gather in Cleveland to mourn the senseless loss of two of our trans sisters, you do so in the wake of media misgendering and disrespect robbing one of them of the dignity and the personhood they fought so hard to establish in their lives.

The deceased deserved better. So do the transpeople who are in the area struggling to live their day to day lives. And once again one of our two departed sisters lives was snuffed out before she had a chance to fully live it.

When will this carnage stop? How many more trans lives have to be lost to anti-trans violence before the Cleveland community says enough and shows through deeds and words that the lives of ALL its citizens are valued?

If there is anything that needs to happen in the wake of these senseless deaths, it is that the time has come to embrace the Cleveland trans community and ensure they become loved and valued members of the community, not shunned and disrespected afterthoughts.

May the upcoming New Year see this happen for my transfamily in Cleveland and beyond its city limits.

Sincerely,
Your sister in the struggle
Monica Roberts
The TransGriot

Cleveland TBLG Community Rally On Sunday

Been advised by Zoe Lapin that a community rally to discuss the trans murders of Brittany Kidd-Stergis and Betty Skinner, the latest outbreak of racist Cleveland media transphobia and other issues of importance in the local trans community will take place at Trinity Cathedral on Sunday,  December 15. 

Trinity Cathedral is located at 2230 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland and the event will start at 1:00 PM EST.  

What I am hoping for is that this event will be as diverse as the city of Cleveland is, and will feature someone from the local African American trans community to represent the people who are taking the brunt of the anti-trans hate crimes.  

I hope this does not turn into another event where white faces are the predominant ones we see all over the news, the media and the Net speaking, and irritatingly once again the Black trans community people who are the ones doing the dying, their representatives, leaders and local community leadership voices are shut out, ignored and the bodies of our dead are used once again to push somebody else's rainbow agenda.

In the runup to organizing this event, I hope and pray the organizers keep the I-words inclusion and intersectionality in their vocabularies and don't ignore the Black trans community as they put together this community rally.  

The Cleveland trans community has people besides white trans men who can eloquently speak for it.. Call them and invite them to the podium to speak for their fallen transsister who can no longer do so and their community. 


That being said, hoping for a large, diverse turnout and speakers at that rally reflecting the diversity of the Cleveland TBLG community.  I also hope for a frank discussion that takes place in that space which begins to address the frustration that I hear privately from many Black transpeople in the area about the state of the LGBT community in Cleveland, Ohio.   Their anger is mounting about their marginalization in it combined with the anti-trans violence being aimed at them and needs to be heard and dealt with. 

Cleveland Media Back To Disrespecting Black Trans Women Again

WKYC-TV and WTAM-AM radio, did y'all learn anything from the media hate crime that the Cleveland Plain Dealer committed against Cemia Dove Acoff earlier this year?  

Apparently not.

So once again, since you Cleveland media peeps just can't seem to get it right when it comes to covering trans people be it the print, television or radio ends of it, here's the AP Stylebook guidelines for covering transgender people.

transgender-Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth.

If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.

We have had two transpeople killed in the Cleveland area in the last 24-36 hours.   Betty Janet Skinner, a 52 year old disabled transwoman who was found dead in her apartment by her home healthcare worker on Friday morning, and now 22 year old Brittany-Nicole Kidd-Stergis

She was found in a car in the 21200 block of West 25th and Barber Streets at 2:30 AM EST Friday morning with a gunshot wound to the head and pronounced dead at the scene. 

Brittany was not as you reported WTAM-AM, a 'man dressed in female clothing' or as you reported it WKYC-TV, a 'man found with gunshot wound to the head'..   

Do you Cleveland media people not get the fact that every time you disrespect the lives of transwomen, you not only are disrespecting the deceased ones, but piss off the trans women who are trying to live their lives in the Cleveland area?

You are also by your transphobic reporting making it difficult for the police to solve these cases.  Many people in the Cleveland trans community only know Brittany by her femme name, not the male one you gleefully posted in your article WTAM-AM along with the salacious headline.

That misgendering of Brittany could potentially make it difficult for local law enforcement to access information that may only be available in the trans community that leads to the killers of Brittany being captured and punished if you keep going down the media misgendering rabbit hole.

Your media misgendering of trans people also fuels the anti-trans biases that manifest themselves into anti-trans violence.

The other point of contention is that we trans women, and especially non-white trans women, are beyond sick and tired of predominately white news organizations disrespecting and misgendering Black trans women who have unfortunately lost their lives

It's a pattern of disrespect that we have seen happen far too often, most recently in the Cleveland area back with Cemia's case in May.
 
Sad when bloggers and people in the community show more respect for the murder victim than the local media of record, and that needs to change.

Zoe's 2013 Cleveland TDOR Speech

Cleveland's TDOR memorial ceremony had the added sorrow of remembering one of their own this year in the person of Cemia 'CeCe' Dove Acoff.
  
In addition to mourning her death when the news broke of it back in March, the Cleveland trans community then had to deal with their paper of record in the Cleveland Plain Dealer subsequently committing a journalistic hate crime against Cemia by grossly disrespecting her.

When people complained about it including me, instead of listening to what people from the community were pointing out and correcting their mistakes, the Plain Dealer took the opposite combative path and defiantly doubled down on the transphobic disrespect aimed at Cemia.

Andrey Bridges, the waste of DNA who committed the senseless crime was quickly arrested, subsequently convicted of murder, felonious assault, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse.   He will be serving a life sentence for it. 

There was even resolution between the Cleveland TBLG community and the Cleveland Plain Dealer.  After a letter was submitted requesting they cover the TDOR and do so with honesty and respect, the Plain Dealer agreed to not only cover the local TDOR , but meet with area activists to ensure that such grossly disrespectful coverage of a trans person never happens again. 

During their 2013 Cleveland TDOR, Zoe Renee Lapin, who organized one of the rallies held for Cemia  during that time person spoke to the assembled people at the memorial service. 

Here's her speech.

***

Realness isn't seen in your physical beauty but it's revealed through your heart. It isn't your ability to use one hand to give yourself a pat on the back and use the other to hold down others going through the same journey. It is your ability to look beyond the surfaces and empower your community. To be the greatest you that YOU can be, and then when you do that, do it again-but even better. The reality that your work is never over. The reality that this list gets longer and longer every year and yet the respect grows smaller and smaller.

Realness is realizing that "oddly dressed man found in pond" or "brutal murder marks the end of the fight for acceptance" is not appropriate, not ever. That until all of us are accepted and respected, we are all destroyed and neglected. That every "he, him, his, sir" that a transwoman gets is a direct attack to all of us. That every "her, ms, she, ma'am" that a transman gets is a direct attack to all of us. That every "it and thing" that a non-identifying person gets is a direct attack to all of us. Every drop of blood spilled, every tear shed, cannot exist in vain. That the time for silence is over and that the time for action has never been more prevalent.

My reality is that I am beautiful, my reality is that you are beautiful, our reality is that we are beautiful. And that when we come together in the name of equality, in the name of respect, in the name of our fallen-our cries will not fall upon closed minds and empty hearts. Realness is our ability to empower and encourage everyone from the young person living in the streets because they were forced out of their homes for manifesting their reality, to our elders, to everyone along the way.

Realness is if one of us makes noise, we all make noise, if one of us falls, we all have fallen. Realness is leaving none of us behind, in life and in death. The deceased before us have paid the price for their truth. The living in front of them must never forget them, we carry their names in our hearts and their vindication through our actions. Realness is realizing that Islan, Ce Ce, Ashley, Kelly, the unmentioned and the unknown, cannot continue to live their truths because of the ignorance and fear that propelled so many of their lives to a tragic halt. Realness is healing our wounds and healing the wounds of those around us. Realness is knowing that many in the outside world, even within our own community do not care about us. That we are a threat to their vision of equality, that we are a "burden" that they do not wish to bear.

As much as the term gay isn't a modifier of the entire lgbtq population, the slurs that some see endearing are not signs for our acceptance and validation. That the blood that landed on our footsteps is met with silence, but the bruises met on another are somehow unequal. That in Cleveland, we care more about pandering than we do the pandemic of inequality many of us face everyday. That we are told to all stand up for one cause, but have a seat for another. Your time will come, just wait. Wait...

Realness is the fact that the time is up. That our community cannot afford one more loss. That our family will not fall victim to your hand nor your words. That we ARE family. We are not in competition with each other. We must remain in harmony with one another. Our journeys may not be the same, but we are all in this race together. Our histories, our realities could not have made us any further apart-but I feel so close to each and every single one of you. Our realness, together, is our realness, together. We are our truth, we have manifested our reality. We are united, we embody those fallen and we shape the road ahead, and when we fall together-we rise together.

Andrey Bridges Sentenced In Cemia Dove Acoff Murder

Last week Andrey Bridges was convicted by a Cuyahoga County jury after a ten day trial of killing 20 year old Cemia Dove Acoff.   Today he was back in Judge Hollie L Gallagher's court at 11 AM EST to find out what his sentence would be.

The 36 year old Bridges was sentenced to life imprisonment for his convictions on murder, felonious assault, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse and will be eligible for parole in 2034.

While Bridges will be going back into the Ohio penal system again for an extended stay this time, it still doesn't bring back Cemia for all who loved her

“She was a ray of sunshine. She was really, really sweet; very, very positive; very pretty,” said Tracy Jones, CEO of the AIDS Task Force of Greater Cleveland in a FOX 8 report.

And local Cleveland activists are making sure that their paper of record, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, never leads the charge to grossly disrespect another trans person in the area like they massively did in Cemia's case.

Justice was served in this case, but I would be willing to bet that everyone who loved Cemia would rather see her smiling face interacting in their lives and an immediate end to our young trans women being murdered

Andrey Bridges Found Guilty Of Killing Cemia Dove Acoff

After a 10 day trial that started with the empaneled jury taking a trip to the crime scene where it took place, a Cuyahoga County jury found Andrey Bridges guilty of stabbing 20 year old Cemia Dove Acoff to death in January after discovering her trans status.

According to a Cleveland Plain Dealer report, the jury comprised of nine women and three men deliberated for a day before rejecting the recordings of Bridges' declarations of innocence made during his four hour police interrogation after his arrest in May.   

Acoff was called several times by Bridges on the morning of January 5, hired a taxicab to pick her up and paid the driver $100 upon her arrival at his apartment in Olmstead Township, OH.

She was never seen alive again after that date.  Later that day, two men stopped by the apartment house to pick up rent money that Bridges owed. They reported finding blood spattered in the apartment, Bridges’ hand bleeding profusely, and a bonfire burning in the yard.   

Acoff's body when found three months later was stabbed 40 times and anchored to a concrete block.  

Judge Hollie L. Gallagher has set the sentencing for next week and Bridges is facing 15 years to life for the murder conviction. 

Cleveland LGBT Group Delivers Letter To Plain Dealer

Many of you TransGriot readers remember how I blasted the unacceptably disrespectful coverage of the Cleveland Plain Dealer aimed at our fallen trans sister Cemia Dove Acoff back in late April.

I was so infuriated by it that I called the piss poor stenography (it didn't deserve to be called reporting) a 'journalistic hate crime'.

A group of concerned Cleveland LGBT citizens also had a problem with the way Cemia was covered in the Plain Dealer at the time and delivered a letter to their newspaper of record at 11:00 AM EST today.

***

November 6, 2013
To the Editor and Staff of The Plain Dealer:

As citizens of Northeast Ohio we are concerned about our city’s image at the local, statewide, national and international levels. We want Cleveland to be recognized as a diverse, inclusive, and respectful community. We know you share these values with us. However, your organization failed to live these values in the April 29th article covering the murder of CeCe Acoff.

We understand the difficulty of gathering information on the life of a murder victim in the days following such a discovery. We appreciate your willingness to remedy those mistakes. However, The Plain Dealer’s published “correction” was derogatory and disparaging of CeCe. It left many in our community deeply offended. CeCe was Transgender. Continuing to refer to her as male in those articles was demeaning and hurtful to those who loved her.

After the much-maligned series of transphobic, insensitive and misleading articles published by The Plain Dealer, the October 29th article announcing the trial of CeCe’s accused murderer, Andrey Bridges, was truly a breath of fresh air. We applaud your decision to follow the court’s lead and respect the deceased’s right to be referenced by her preferred name and gender.

We believe that right now, in Cleveland, this continues to be a teachable moment. We have the opportunity to educate our neighbors, law enforcement officials, and the general public on the central issue: “Who are Transgender people?” Working with Equality Ohio, local LGBT community leaders Phyllis Harris of the Cleveland LGBT Community Center and Jacob Nash of Margie’s Hope met with members of The Plain Dealer editorial board in May. This was an important starting point for discussion.

We are now approaching a significant event within our community. We want to further clarify what it is like to live as a Transgender person. And we need your help. We have three requests of The Plain Dealer as follows:
* inform the public of the Transgender Day of Remembrance prior to its occurrence;
* cover the Transgender Day of Remembrance; and
* publish an article on the Transgender Day of Remembrance after the event.
These are simple requests to fulfill and can be met with both print and online coverage.

We are pleased to see that some of the Plain Dealer journalists reference LGBT community leaders as they research and compose articles covering Transgender and allied communities. We encourage more journalists to make efforts to reflect our community with honesty and respect. The upcoming Transgender Day of Remembrance event offers an opportunity to do exactly that. The Transgender Day of Remembrance is an annual event commemorated worldwide to remember those Transgender individuals who have been killed because of who they were. Coverage of the event by The Plain Dealer will provide a clearer view of the community response to violent acts perpetrated against Transgender people.

This year’s event is scheduled for November 22nd and will be held at Huntington Park at Lakeside Avenue and West 3rd St, beginning at 5:30pm. We would like to see notice of the event on or before November 18th with a follow up article during the weekend of November 23rd. We ask for your help in getting our message out to the larger community so that they may know that we are their friends, their family, their parents, their sisters and brothers.

We are looking forward to working with The Plain Dealer on these projects. We ask that a representative contact Jacob Nash (330-240-1600) no later than Monday, November 11th to gather information for the story about the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Now we'll see what the Plain Dealer's response to the community letter is.  Watch this electronic space..  

Andrey Bridges Trial Starts In Cleveland

TransGriot readers, here's another trial for us to keep our eyes on to see if the deceased trans person and all who loved them gets justice.

The murder trial of 36 year old Andrey Bridges, who is accused of killing 20 year old Cemia Dove Acoff began on Tuesday in Cleveland.  He is charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping, tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse.

Bridges has a long and violent criminal history that includes felonious assault and four stints in prison.  He was on probation in 2010 to Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Hollie L. Gallagher for one of those assault charges according to Cleveland.com when he was arrested in connection to the Acoff case.

And guess who the presiding judge is in this case?  

According to the report by the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Rachel Dissell, Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Brian Radigan briefly described for the jury how Dove's body was found and how police used taxi cab call records to link Bridges to the crime. He didn't present a motive but said witnesses would tell the story as the trial unfolded.  

Defense attorney Henry Hilow told jurors that there had been a lot of talk and conjecture about what the case was about. He asked the jurors to consider evidence and witness testimony, not theories.
"We're not here to create false impressions," he said. "It's about fact."

Well, Mr. Hilow, the fact is that a 20 year old person is no longer on this planet, and the evidence points to your client being the reason that's the case.  

But as I know from almost 20 years of being Moni and 15 years of trans activism, murder trials involving trans feminine victims, especially transfeminine victims of color sometimes have not so just endings.

I'm still concerned the blatant demonizing misgendering of Ms Acoff gleefully engaged in earlier this year by the Cleveland Plain Dealer may still have an effect on the jury pool that was empaneled yesterday

The jury in the Bridges trial has been selected, and they are taking a trip out to the Olmstead Township, OH crime scene that will be the focus of this case.

Let's just hope justice is served when they return to the courtroom, hear all of the evidence presented in this case by the prosecutors and defense attorneys and render their verdict.

Cemia Dove Acoff Case Update

The last news I had in the Cemia Dove Acoff case was that her alleged killer Andrey Bridges had been arrested on May 6 and charged with her murder on May 10. 

Unfortunately the stenographers at the Cleveland Plain Dealer are still thumbing their noses at the local trans community and still disrespecting Cemia by not only using old name in the story but that old mugshot and unflattering pics every chance they get.

And naw, I wasn't the only person who thought the jacked up Plain Dealer coverage of Cemia was problematic.

My fear is that the Cleveland Plain Dealer's ongoing journalistic hate crime and disrespectful coverage is poisoning any potential jury pool for the Bridges trial and will make it harder for Cemia and her family and friends to get justice in this case. 

But back to the update. 

Bridges was charged with aggravated murder, murder, kidnapping, felonious assault, tampering with evidence and crime against a human corpse in the death of Cemia Dove Acoff. 

Many Cleveland area advocates and Cleveland City Council member Jim Cimperman believe there should have been a hate crime charge added to the indictment and I concur with that assessment.   

Judge Hollie L. Gallagher was assigned to the case and Bridges' bond was set at $5 million and there was a scheduled May 21 pretrial hearing that as of yet I haven't found any additional information on..

I will be keeping an eye on this case until justice is served in it.

Just Stop, Cleveland Transphobia Dealer

You've dug this hole so deep in terms of your epic fail of covering Cemia Dove Acoff's murder that you'll probably be popping out on the other side of the planet into the outskirts of Beijing soon.

You and your stenographers have more than demonstrated you don't know, don't wanna know and you simply don't care about our issues or respectfully reporting on Cemia.

It's becoming more clear that you delight in flipping the journalistic middle finger at the local Cleveland and national trans community.

I'm sure you'll be getting that call from the Pulitzer Prize Board soon for your stellar reporting in this case.

Cleveland Plain Dealer STILL Hatin' On Cemia

Far from seeing the error of their transphobic ways and correcting them, the Cleveland Plain Dealer continues to flip the journalistic middle finger at the Cleveland trans community.

In their latest article, the stenographers at the Plain Dealer continue to conduct a journalism class case study in how not to report on Black trans people. 

They continue to misgender Cemia and demonize her by using the mug shot and problematic references that people found so odious in the first place.  

As a reminder, not that you care anyway Cleveland Plain Dealer, here's what the AP Stylebook says about covering transgender people:

transgender-Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth.

If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.

It's sad when a smaller local news outlet in Cleveland, out of town news media and bloggers show more respect for the victim of the crime than the local paper of record.

It's crystal clear at this point through this latest article they are defiantly obtuse about how offensive this is to the trans community and instead of making their corrections, have tripled down on the transphobia.So what can you TransGriot readers do to help our friends and allies in the Cleveland trans community? 

Help our Cleveland transpeeps and allies get that sorely needed meeting with the Plain Dealer editors and staff to discuss their fracked up coverage on Cemia.  Call them out in the comment threads on these pathetic stories.   And if that doesn't work, be civil and e-mail the reporters in question as you point out the continued blatant AP Stylebook violations.   

Alleged Ce Ce Acoff Killer Charged

In the latest development in the Cemia Ce Ce Acoff case, the alleged perpetrator of the killing, 36 year old Andrey Bridges of Parma, OH has been charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping, tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse in his appearance before Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.  

Bridges has a long criminal history that includes felonious assault and four stints in prison.  He did not enter a plea, was assigned a public defender and his bail was set at $5 million.

That's the good news.  The bad news is that the Plain Dealer continues to stick their journalistic middle finger at the Cleveland and national trans community and obstinately traffic in transphobia.

And yes, I'm concerned that the relentless PD media negativity and demonization of CeCe may have a negative effect on this trial and the ability to get justice for her.

As long as I'm tracking this case, Cemia (and any other trans woman being disrespected in the media) will get the respect she deserves on these electronic pages.

Well, Andrey Bridges has now been charged for the murder of Cemia 'Ce Ce Acoff.   The question now becomes will he do time for it?

In my nearly twenty years of being transitioned and 15 years of activism, I have seen far too many killers of non-white transwomen walk or get ridiculously low sentences.  I'm not letting go of my skeptical cynicism or doing the happy dance until I hear the words 'guilty' come out of a jury foreperson's mouth.  

Naw Nicole, You DIDN'T Unconditionally Accept Your Cousin

Interesting comment that hit my inbox yesterday from Nicole Cantie, who had something to say about my post Why The Negative Plain Dealer Coverage May Result In Cemia NOT Getting Justice

First off let me tell you something you don't know anything about me and how dare you make an accusation saying what I did and did not accept. I have always called my cousin by his given name and he never had a problem with it so why should you. I'm the 1 that watched him growing up not you. I love all of my family members and I don't give a damn about what their preference is. My cousin was a beautiful person inside and out and he took some beautiful pictures and looked damn good. I have to respect my aunt and her feelings. Do any of you know what it's like to bury not 1 but 2 of your children? You all don't know what our family has been through this is the second family member we have had to bury within a month's time. Cece wasn't treated different because he chose to live as a transgender woman. All we told him was to be careful because it's crazy people out here. Y'all have no idea how we are feeling

Now Nicole, it's my turn.  

First off, I do have an idea how your family is feeling, and my condolences by the way.  My father was buried the day before Easter Sunday.  There are also two other families in the Orlando area and Baltimore burying trans loved ones who were also killed in the month of April like Cemia..

But back to focusing on you since you stepped to me. 

I calls it as I sees it Nicole, and based on that interview, if you accepted and loved your cousin Cemia like you claim you do you wouldn't have misgendered your cousin in that interview and used the name she chose to reflect who she is now.   You may love your cousin and are proud of her, but misgendering her is what caused me to call your relationship with Cemia into question in the first place because to those of us in transworld, misgendering us IS disrespecting us. 

Unlike you Nicole, I'm a proud African descended trans girl like us just like Cemia and have been for almost 20 years.  I've been an activist for trans human rights issues for fifteen of those twenty transitioned years so I have intimate knowledge of what  does and doesn't bother girls and guys like me. 

So yeah, it is my business and pisses me off when transpeople, especially transpeople who share my ethnic heritage are killed and grossly disrespected in death like your cousin was by the media.  It's a pattern I've seen far too often going back to 1998 when Bay Windows disrespected Rita Hester of Black trans women being misgendered by media outlets inside and outside the LGBT community.

I'm beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of it.     

The one way I know for certain a cis person inside or outside my family respects me and the person who I am now is the use of feminine pronouns to address me and addressing me by my current name, not my birth one which I changed a long time ago.    

Nicole, you not only admitted to using Cemia's old birth name, you've misgendered someone you claim to respect FOUR times in this comment you fired off to me.  That's not acceptance or unconditional love, that reeks of conditional tolerance.    It's also a huge presumption on your part as a cisgender female to assume that Cemia DIDN'T have a problem with you calling her by her old male name or misgendering her. .

But neither one of us can ask Cemia that question now because some waste of DNA took her life and she won't be taking any more pretty pictures. 

If you didn't care about Cemia's 'preference' as you called her gender presentation and claimed in this comment I'm responding to, I can't emphasize this enough, you would have respected your cousin by using feminine pronouns while describing her and calling her Cemia. 

I'm just sayin'

I'll concede the point you have the obligation to respect your aunt as your elder and inside her home.  But Nicole, once you are out and about in the world and in your own home you are your own woman. You aren't obligated to march lockstep with a loud and wrong position she may hold even if she is your elder or her feelings if they conflict with yours, much less defend them.

I don't have to respect someone who is being a transphobic bigot or who threw her trans child out of her home and put her in the position to be killed in the first place knowing how brutal the streets can be for a trans kid.

And yeah, your aunt throwing her trans child out of your home qualifies as 'treating them differently'. 

Speaking of homes, if you loved your cousin as you say you do and didn't care about 'her preference' which is a problematic conflating of sexual orientation and gender identity, why didn't you open your home to CeCe?  

One thing we can both agree with is that CeCe was taken away far too soon and I'm just as pissed off about that as your family is.  But y'all need to ponder the fact at your next family reunion that if y'all had shown CeCe more unconditional love, she'd still be in your lives.