美国国家公共电台 NPR Transgender Killings Spur Calls For Police Reform

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Four transgender women have been shot this year in Jacksonville, Fla. Three of the women died. There's been an outcry over how police have handled the cases. And as Lindsey Kilbride from member station WJCT reports, the sheriff's department is responding to calls for a better relationship with the local LGBT community.

LINDSEY KILBRIDE, BYLINE 2: At nearly 4 a.m. on June 1, Antash'a Devine English was found between two abandoned homes with a gunshot wound. She later died in the hospital. Her close friend Chloie Kensington is still mourning her death.

CHLOIE KENSINGTON: I hadn't felt that type of hurt in a long time - long time.

KILBRIDE: English was the second transgender woman of color to be shot in Jacksonville this year; two more would soon follow. And Kensington considered English to be her god sister.

KENSINGTON: Especially during that time in my life when I didn't have many people to identify to.

KILBRIDE: The Human Rights Campaign has tracked 16 homicides of transgender people this year, three of them in Jacksonville alone.

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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Black Trans Lives Matter. Black Trans Lives Matter. Black Trans Lives Matter.

KILBRIDE: With each of the shootings followed vigils and protests like this one at city hall earlier this summer. Equality Florida's Gina Duncan spoke 3 saying, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, or JSO, is impeding 4 its own investigations 5 by not using victim's preferred names and pronouns, the way their friends knew them.

GINA DUNCAN: Besides misgendering these transgender women of color, JSO is also not interacting with the community.

KILBRIDE: None of the victims had legally changed their names to ones they actually used in life. The sheriff's department says these cases are also complicated. Not only were these women trans, they were also involved in prostitution-related activity. Authorities think their deaths have more to do with sex work than being trans. And the department says it's difficult to know someone's gender 1 identity if they're found deceased.

MATEO DE LA TORRE: That is why precisely 6 you build a relationship with your community, your local transgender community. They will have the answers for you.

KILBRIDE: Mateo De La Torre with the National Center for Transgender Equality is working on a project grading police department's trans-inclusive policies, which Jacksonville doesn't have.

DE LA TORRE: There is a reason why according to the U.S. trans survey that 57 percent of transgender people do not trust to call the police when they're in need.

KILBRIDE: De La Torre says one of the most effective ways to repair that relationship is continual police training. Four years ago, Seattle's police department began training after appointing LGBTQ Liaison 7 Officer Jim Ritter.

JIM RITTER: You wanted to make sure the officers really understood what transgender folks go through in their life.

KILBRIDE: Officers in Seattle now have to watch a training video and take a quiz on it. And the department made a policy saying officers have to use people's preferred pronouns and names, even including them on official documents. Jacksonville advocates hope the sheriff's department will follow a similar course. Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams eventually agreed to an LGBT community meeting earlier this summer. From the stage, he tells the audience he's now assembling an LGBT Liaison Team.

MIKE WILLIAMS: It shouldn't take a crisis like this, but because of this crisis I think that the team is an absolute necessity.

KILBRIDE: And offstage, he explains how he thinks the team can help.

WILLIAMS: These incidents really highlighted the need for us to have the ability to, again, to speak directly into the community.

KILBRIDE: And in the last couple months, Williams says his office has begun referring to the victims as transgender and by several names, their legal ones and the names they actually used.

WILLIAMS: There's an investigative benefit to identifying someone by the way that they were identified in the community.

KILBRIDE: The new liaison team has already had its first meeting and new training is in the pipeline 8. It started reviewing material from an array of agencies, including Seattle's police department. For NPR News I'm Lindsey Kilbride in Jacksonville.

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