Arrest Made In India Clarke Case

There has been an arrest made in the India Clarke case.

18 year old Tampa resident Keith Gaillard turned himself in to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office on July 28.  He has been charged with one count of first-degree murder, and one count of possession of a firearm.

Police investigators have declined to cite a motive in the case (transphobic hate) but believe that he knew the 25 year old Clarke, who was found dead on July 21 from a single gunshot wound to the head.
Detectives found a fingerprint on a cigar wrapper inside Clarke's car, and Gaillard's public Facebook profile allegedly showed him showing off a small-caliber revolver, the sheriff's office said. .

Will keep y'all updated as to whether justice is served in this case.

Another Black Trans Woman Killed In Florida

It is my sad duty to inform you once again that another Black trans woman has been murdered, this time in Tampa, FL.

25 year old India Clarke's body was found after the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department received a phone call at 9 AM EDT this morning from an employee at the University Area Community Center located at 14013 N. 22nd Street.   The employee reported that a deceased body was lying next to the basketball courts.

Clarke was last seen alive by her parents at their home on Sunday and as usual, the local media violated the AP standards for respectfully covering trans people by misgendered her.   Eric Glasser of WTSP-TV took his disrespectful reporting a step further by not only misgendering India, but putting  her chosen name in quotation marks, and aggravatingly injecting an old arrest.into this story.

Do you media peeps do that crap to white women and white people in general who are murdered?  I doubt it.  So why do you media peeps continue to racistly disrespect the lives of Black trans people by doing that BS?

If you live in the Tampa area, please pass along any updates concerning this case, arrest of suspects or pending funeral arrangements so I can post them on the blog.

India is now the tenth trans woman murdered in 2015, and what is pissing me off is that once again, the murdered trans person in question not only shares my ethnic background, but is under 30..

Once again I ask the question of my African-American cis brothers and sisters?  When will #BlackTransLivesMatter?   When will your trans brothers and sisters see ministers and politicians decry the loss of these lives as loudly as you do for cisgender Black people?

Detectives are asking for anyone with any information to call the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office at 813-247-8200.

My condolences to your family and friends who loved you.  Rest in power and peace, India.

TransGriot Update: A candlelight vigil in Clarke's memory is planned for Friday, 8 PM EDT at Lykes Gaslight Square in Tampa.

Popping My NCAA Women's Tournament Colllar

The NCAA Women's Final Four will be kicking off in Tampa this weekend, and I get to gloat a little bit before it starts.

For the fourth time in TransGriot history and for the first time since 2012, I correctly predicted all four women's Final Four teams (Connecticut, South Carolina, Maryland and Notre Dame) that ended up in Tampa.

Will I get the champion right, too.   We'll see when the fun starts on April 5 with the semifinal games.

Connecticut will take on Maryland, and Notre Dame will battle South Carolina for the other berth in the April 7 NCAA women's title game.

Can Maryland do what only Stanford has done this season and derail UConn's bid to threepeat?   Can South Carolina and Notre Dame rebound from previous losses to UConn and shock them in the title game? Or will UConn roll to their 10th title?

We'll see who is cutting down the net on April 7.

Tavares Spencer Sentenced In Tampa

Justice has been served in Tampa, FL.

Tavares Spencer, the 16 year old teen who robbed and shot trans woman Coko McDonald back on April 9 and gleefully bragged about on social media will be spending time in the Florida penal system.

Spencer was tried as an adult and found guilty back in October of attempted first degree murder, robbery with a firearm, attempted second degree murder, aggravated assault and aggravated battery.

The trial featured testimony from Coko Williams and a failed attempt by Spencer's defense attorney to deploy the odious 'trans panic' defense. 

Our transsister Coko is not only thankfully alive to tell her story, she got the early Christmas present of seeing justice being served  

The judge in this case noted his pattern of recent criminal behavior and the testimony from Tampa PD detectives about his lack of remorse in the shooting.  He sentenced Spencer to spend the next 25 years of his young life in jail for letting his transphobia get the best of him.

Tampa Area Media, Read Your AP Stylebook

White I was happy about how the Tavares Spencer trial turned out in terms of being tried as an adult for his hate crime perpetrated upon Ms. McDonald, and convicted of all five charges yesterday in his attempted murder trial, one thing I was NOT happy about was the repeated misgendering in the Tampa media of Coko McDonald

Tampa Bay Times , Bradenton Herald and other area media, Coko McDonald is not a 'transgender man', 'a crossdresser', 'really a man' or a 'man dressed as a woman', she is a transgender woman and as such, feminine pronouns should have been used to describe Ms. McDonald in any story you wrote or broadcast about her.

Several Tampa area television stations weren't much better in reporting this story either and I am more than beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of African-American trans women being disrespected in the media in life and death.  

Coko was the one who was shot and robbed by Spencer, remember Tampa media?    
 
Sigh.  Let's do this once again and review what the AP Stylebook has said since 2001 about the coverage of transgender people in the media.

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 individuals live publicly.

Translation: transgender woman=use female pronouns in story. Transgender male=use male pronouns in story.   GLAAD has a media guide you can peruse in addition to the NLGJA in case you are confused about something so simple even the GEICO caveman gets it. 

So did WPTV-TV, the NBC affiliate.  They got it.  

So let's see Tampa media if you get it right when i comes time to sentence Tavares Spencer and beyond when it comes to reporting on trans people, because this won't be the first or the last time you'll encounter a transperson as you do your jobs..

Tavares Spencer Trial-Guilty!

Looks like the attempted use of the 'trans panic' defense by his defense team failed.

Tavares Spencer was found guilty in a Tampa courtroom today of all charges including attempted 1st-degree murder, robbery with a firearm, attempted 2nd-degree murder, aggravated assault and aggravated battery in the shooting of Coko McDonald.

As soon as I find out when Spencer will be sentenced and what that sentence is, I'll definitely post it to the blog.

Tavares Spencer Trial-Coko Takes The Stand

The question was asked by the Tampa media if Coko McDonald would testify against her attacker or even be there in the audience as the Tavares Spencer trial started yesterday. 

Well, she did.  Sis was looking good as she described the events of that horrific April 9 day. 




And yeah, not a surprise to me that Spencer's defense attorneys are already trying to deploy the 'trans panic' defense.   They actually claimed that since McDonald made sexual advances toward their client, the now 17 year old teen felt scared for his life and shot her.

WTF?   Just another sterling example of why the 'trans panic' defense needs to be banned and consigned to the legal ash heap. 

Gee, I hope the jury didn't buy those woof tickets the defense attorney was selling, but then again, we have previous experience with Florida juries buying bull feces laden defense cases up the road in Sanford, FL. .  

The Spencer trial is expected to wrap up by the end of the week.

Tavares Spencer Attempted Murder Trial Starts In Tampa

22 year old Coko McDonald almost ended up being another one of the sadly too long list of Black trans women whose names we'll read on November 20.

But because of quick thinking on her part she's not, and the waste of DNA who allegedly tried to kill her is on trial.

16 year old Tavares Spencer is facing attempted murder and hate crime charges after luring McDonald to a home on April 9 in the 5000 block of Winnie Street N.in the east Tampa area and shooting her. 

Spencer wanted to date Coko and after discovering she was a trans woman, became enraged about that revelation and allegedly plotted to kill her.

Just because you get pissed about finding out you are attracted to a trans woman doesn't give you or anyone else the authority to kill us.  

Off soapbox, returning to story.  

A week after the two met, Spencer lured Coko to the home on Winnie Street, pulled out a gun, and told her to get on the ground.  Police say he stole her cell phone and her purse and then shot her. Coko says the bullets hit her in the hip.


“I lost my breath with the first shot.  The second one kind of put my body in a shock,” said Coko.

McDonald played dead until Spencer walked away.  She then got up and took off running as Spencer fired another shot at her that fortunately missed.

Tampa Police Department investigators said that within an hour of the shooting, the teenager was bragging about it on text messages and using "defamatory statements" about McDonald's sexual orientation.

Spencer was in jail on an unrelated charge when he was arrested and charged as an adult for the attempted murder of McDonald along with robbery and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.  The enhanced hate crime charge was the result of a warrant authorized search of Spencer's phone that revealed the transphobic text messages. 

Jury selection started this morning with prosecutors and Spencer's defense attorney interviewing potential jury members for this attempted murder trial.   It's also not known at this time whether Coko will appear in the courthouse to either testify during the trial against Spencer or just be there in the courtroom to watch the proceedings.

At any rate, I'll be keeping an eye on it along with the Tampa area trans community to see if justice is served in this case.