Transgender Woman Kiesha Jenkins Shot and Killed in Philadelphia
Transgender woman Kiesha Jenkins was shot in the back and killed in Philadelphia on Tuesday morning, BuzzFeed News reports. Jenkins's death marks the second homicide of a transgender woman of color in the city in the last five months.
“These murders are happening in incredibly violent situations to a very small population, over and over again, from one coast to the next,” said Helen Fitzpatrick, director of LGBT affairs in the mayor's office in Philadelphia. “We just continuously see this violence go by in the media, and it hits close to home far too often, but it is throughout the entire nation."
At a police briefing on Tuesday afternoon, Captain James Clark said five or six men assaulted Jenkins after she got out of a car at 2:30 a.m. in North Philadelphia. While she was on the ground, one of the suspects shot her twice in the back.
No one has been arrested, and it has not yet been named a hate crime, the Philadelphia police department told BuzzFeed News. The motive is unknown and investigators are digging into whether Jenkins's identity was a factor.
According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, 20 transgender people have been killed in homicides this year. Eighteen of them were people of color.
Transgender woman London Kiki Chanel, 21, was stabbed to death in North Philadelphia in May.
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(Photo: Kiesha Jenkins via Facebook)
