Myra Ical Alleged Murderer Arrested

I've been following the case of murdered Houston transwoman Myra Ical that happened before I moved back to town.

I was happy to find out while perusing the news last night that the waste of DNA who allegedly committed the crime was already locked up at the HPD Hilton.      

46 year old homeless man Lucky Ward was arrested in November and already charged in the strangulation death of 52 year old homeless woman Retia Faye Long.

It turned out that Ward had been busy on a serial killing spree.  His DNA connected him not only to the June murder of 24 year old Raquel Mundy, whose car broke down across the street from the Greyhound Bus Station downtown, but to another murdered homeless woman named Carol Flood.

Ward's DNA also links him to Myra Ical's murder and another Houston transwoman, 40 year old Gypsy Rodriguez who was found dead inside her north Houston home on September 13.    

Investigator: Suspect is a Serial Killer: MyFoxHOUSTON.com

So now that we hopefully have our man, it's time for the Harris County prosecutors to do their thang, prosecute alleged killer Lucky Ward.     Hopefully a jury will find him guilty and send his behind up I-45 to Huntsville for a long time 

Nizah Morris Case Update

Nizah Morris was a 47 year old Philadelphia transwoman who accepted a courtesy ride from the Philadelphia Police Department in 2002 and was later found with a fatal head wound.  

The circumstances around Nizah's death are still murky almost a decade later and the Philadelphia PD claimed in 2008 the Morris file had been lost.

Armed with 14 new members, the Philadelphia Police Advisory Commission is trying again to shed light on this case.  They are seeking information from the District Attorney's office, and have made it clear they are willing to go to court to get it..

One month ago the PAC gathered for a first time meeting in the TBLG community at the William Way LGBT Center.   They passed out copies of letters addressed to District Attorney R. Seth Williams and Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, seeking more information on the Morris incident..

There was another PAC meeting held Monday in which Tim Cweik, a reporter for the Philadelphia Gay News was going to speak during the public comment phase of the hearing, but it was interrupted by a fire alarm in the Municipal Services Building .   Cwiek's comments about the Morris case were still heard by commission members according to the Groffoto blog.

Once again, what does the Philadelphia PD know about what happened to Nizah Morris, when did they know it, and if po-po's are involved, who did it?    

Inquiring minds in the Philadelphia and national trans community would like to know the answer to that still festering question.

Ashley Santiago Killer Gets Sentenced

I posted about 31 year old Puerto Rican transwoman Ashley Santiago, who was found brutally murdered inside her home last April.   Emanuel Adorno Ayala confessed soon afterward to stabbing Santiago 14 times.

Ayala faced the judicial music for his crime earlier today and was sentenced to 111 years in jail by Justice Jesús Peluyera.  

Good, it's a start.   A century plus 11 years in jail.   But sadly, it won't bring back Ashley for her family, the customers that depended on her hairstyling skills or the folks who loved her..

Santiago’s mother, Carmen Ocasio, was reported by Primera Hora as tearfully saying during the sentencing that  "this pain will last for the rest of my life" 

Just like Ayala's jail sentence.      

Ciara and La La Vazquez-It Gets Better

The video from Ciara and La La Vazquez for the 'It Gets Better' campaign

 

Another Day, Another Trans Person Jacked With

Sigh.  Seems as though jacking with trans people doesn't take a day off even during the Christmas season.

Here's the story of a Jackson, TN transwoman who went shopping with her mother on Consumers Gone Wild Friday (the day after Thanksgiving)  to Kohl's.  She and her mother were assaulted by other shoppers as the store opened for business and the Kohl's employees stood idly by greeting customers. 

The assault broke Akasha Adonis' jaw and three teeth.   What's worse is that once the Jackson Po-Po's arrived on the scene and discovered out that Akasha was trans due to mismatched ID, they stopped treating her with respect, declined to look at the surveillance tape and their interest in solving this case has deteriorated as well.

When the officer first arrived on the scene and asked about the assault, he addressed me as she then asked for my i.d. and my name. [When] the  officer saw that it was a male name, and I was a male to female transsexual, he immediately changed his demeanor in how he treated me and the other witnesses. He rolled his eyes and turned his back to not look at me and said that he had 'other places to be.' There was no more conversation directed to me but to fellow officers and [other] people. He was short and rude/dismissive to witnesses and to the officers I was the 'He not She.' The officer told my mother that the case would take a few days to write up and he would get the surveillance tape and then walked away. In the officer report he put in that "the black male then defended himself and put Quick in his place."

If officer Ashley McCullar had been thinking fast on his feet and immediately reviewed the surveillance tape, instead of dissing Akasha, it probably could have resulted in the arrest of the person who attacked her and her mother because in all likelihood he was still in the store.

The Nashville based Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition ain't happy about this either and are urging people to call the mayor of Jackson, TN and the chief of the Jackson Police Department    

Mayor Jerry Gist's Phone: (731) 425-8240; Mayor's Fax: (731) 425-8605

Chief of Police Gill Kendrick: (731) 425-8400

I also hope Akasha has a good civil rights attorney on retainer by now so she can sue the crap out of Kohl's and eventually the fool that assaulted her.

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TDOR Lives So The Trans Community Never Forgets The People Who Died

TransGriot Note:  This is the TDOR essay I wrote for Renee of Womanist Musings.


It's here.  The 12th annual International Transgender Day of Remembrance.     I can remember when it was just a great idea that Gwen Smith organized in the wake of our pissivity over Rita Hester's 1998 death and  our alarm that we were already starting to forget about the deaths of transpeople such as Debra Forte and Chanelle Pickett.that happened in 1995.

Thanks to Gwen's and Ethan St. Pierre's efforts and a cast of thousands around the world, it has grown to become an event embraced by the international trans community and our allies.   

As someone who was around and part of the local and national trans leadership when the TDOR started in 1999, as time inexorably marches on I have seen eleven previous TDOR's come and go.  I have that intimate understanding of why we have them and militantly resist the calls from some transpeople to change the focus from a memorial ceremony to a happy-happy joy-joy event because it's in their words 'morbid and depressing'

Fighting lynching and advocating for an anti-lynching law was 'morbid and depressing' for my African descended peeps as well for most of the early 20th century but they took on that grim task along with the NAACP.   Even though the bill got filibustered to death by the Dixiecrats,  they kept fighting for that goal of eliminating lynching deaths and filed that anti-lynching bill in Congress every year without fail for over 40 years.

70% of the transpeople we memorialize are people of color.  I don't want people forgetting that salient point either as we read this year's list of names..   Until anti-trans violence is reduced to nothing and the people who perpetrate it get properly punished for doing so, there will continue to be a need for the 'morbid and depressing' TDOR.

We also need to remind our allies that this is an important day for us as well.   Just as you in the GL community have certain events that you treat with reverence such as the upcoming World AIDS Day, do the same for our TDOR.


It has also been a part of my evolution as an activist as well.  I've gone from being a part of the audience to helping plan and being the keynote speaker for the first two events ever held in Louisville in 2002 and 2003 and being honored to be the keynote speaker at the LITDOR last year.

But no matter what my role is from year to year, and this year back in my hometown I'll be just one of the attendees sitting in the AD Bruce Religion Center, I never forget why I'm at whatever venue we are holding a TDOR.

One, it's to remember the people who didn't make it through the year.   Hell, Brenda Paes, one of the people on the list that we are memorializing in this year's ceremonies didn't even live to see the dawning of 2010    She was found dead in her Italian apartment on November 20, 2009, the very day we were mourning 122 transpeople who were killed last year due to anti-trans violence.   

Two, it's to remind myself that there but for the grace of God go I.   If my life circumstances were different, a little bad luck or a few wrong decisions were made here or there, I could have been one of those names people are reading off the TDOR lists

Three, it's so that I as an activist never forget one of the three groups of people we are fighting to gain trans human rights for.   The trans kids, the people who are here on the planet and the trans angels whose lives were taken away from us for no other reason other than somebody had a problem with them living on Planet Earth because they are trans. 

And finally, it's so I and others don't forget the names of Tyra Hunter, Ebony Whitaker, Angie Zapata, Gwen Araujo, Lateisha Green, Leslie RaJeanne Pink, Amanda Milan and the 400 plus people that are listed on the Remembering our Dead website..

The TDOR lives so that I and the international trans community and our allies never forget the trans people who died.