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January 31, 2014

Protesters Demand Justice for Slain Transgender Woman Islan Nettles 
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A group of transgender women and their allies gathered outside New York
City Police Department headquarters to demand justice for Islan Nettles.
Nettles was a 21-year-old transgender woman of color who was taunted
with anti-gay slurs and then beaten to death in Harlem last August. A
suspect was arrested on assault charges, but the case against him was
later dismissed. So far no one has been charged with murder in the case.
Protesters accused police of mishandling the investigation.

Lourdes Ashley Hunter, Trans Women of Color Collective of Greater New
York: "With Islan Nettles, she was beaten until she could move no more,
outside of a police station. She was in a crux of three different police
stations in a gentrified neighborhood of Harlem where 10 different
cameras are not working. This goes beyond just brutality and
discrimination and against transfolks. What about the safety of all New
Yorkers? How could it be in the middle of Harlem and cameras don't work?
This could happen to anyone. If it happened to a white woman, would we
be standing out here right here in the freezing cold fighting for
justice six months later?"

 

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