Now that the District Attorney Beth McCann released a letter calling the cop shooting of an unhoused trans BIPOC womxn during a suicidal mental breakdown justified, relieving the officers from any sort of charges, and simultaneously managing to misgender her in her death based on how the “medical examiner identified him”, let’s revisit the slew of incriminating information that came out after the body cam footage our community demanded was released.
Our team struggled to watch the footage and you will to… But if you do watch, you’ll see that the entire incident takes no longer than 10 seconds from the moment cops start talking to her, to when they shot two tasers (that reportedly could’ve partially missed contact) and then 12 rounds of gunfire into her. They then handcuff her as she lays dying on the ground, as if she still posed some kind of threat. All of this comes as she first starts by asking the officers to kill her in Spanish. That is the only communication we hear from her. Those end up being her last words.
What clearly should have been treated as a mental health crisis, as also evidenced by the third caller (who DPD initially failed to mention to press) saying that she’s telling drivers to hit her and kill her. Instead, three trigger-happy officers, two of which have only two years on the force, arrive at the scene and take no more than 15 seconds to assess the situation and then end her life. When asked why mental health experts or police alternatives weren’t called following the call saying she was asking drivers to hit her, and another witness clearly saying they didn’t feel she was being threatening, Police chief Ron Thomas attempts to suggest that STAR van and mental health co-responders that ride with officers “wouldn’t have been appropriate because of the presence of a weapon”… The callers were not feeling threatened, but rather feeling concerned for her safety being that she was in the middle of the road and clearly using suicidal language. In fact, she was carrying a bunch of bags that were weighing her down as she was having her mental breakdown. It is manipulative of Chief Thomas to suggest that her having a knife on her person justified the use of deadly force on her. It is even more manipulative for the District Attorney’s letter to omit the previous statement that she had been handcuffed even though the shots were immediately fatal.
Furthermore, it is not illegal to carry a knife, and would make sense as a form of personal protection for a gender-nonconforming unhoused person. In fact it is common for a woman, cis or especially trans, to carry some sort of personal protection walking down the street… Yet this case shows how what is perfectly acceptable for white cis rich people becomes fatal for poor black or brown queer people in the eyes of the authorities.
They claim she was threatening the individuals. It is not threatening to tell someone to kill you. This should have instead been disarming, and cause for more of a conversation to take place to de-escalate the situation – not immediately reach for weapons.
Finally, it is critical to mention the role of race and ethnicity in this situation. Not only have they been unable to identify next of kin of the deceased, but they aren’t even sure of her nation of origin. This brings into light the anonymity that migrants to our country receive that intentionally dehumanizes them and can make them more vulnerable for attacks, their deaths more often unreported to loved ones. This group blurring and judging is common for those who aren’t white in general, let alone from another country. The D.A.’s letter is simply the latest evidence of the state and the legal system codifying and protecting racism, classism, sexism, and prejudice towards the unhoused.
If it was not her, it could have been you. As our world seemingly continues its downward spiral into deeper dystopia, anyone struggling with a mental health episode could end up having police called instead of mental health support, and be at risk of a similar outcome… THIS is why we must fiercely advocate for mental health supports. If you happen to be having a crisis and don’t have the safety of somewhere indoors or less public to do so, you become a spectacle and a “public threat” instead of someone in need… THIS is why we must fiercely advocate for housing for all, and in the meantime, trauma-informed shelter, so that people have somewhere safe and private to process past and present trauma. If you happen to be queer of any kind, that trauma you experience in your everyday life, let alone in the cycle of poverty that poor/unhoused people face, will be exacerbated tenfold by the misogyny/queerphobia/transphobia of our patriarchal society… THIS is why we must fiercely advocate for more queer-centered, queer-led houseless services that provide not only safe spaces, but do so with an understanding and education of the specific issues queer houseless people face, specifically in Denver. For example, most houseless shelters are strictly gendered-based and while some offer general housing or food resources, none have clear information on accessing gender-affirming care, let alone safe places to try gender-affirming clothing. If you happen to speak a native language other than English, or deviate at all from the white, anglo-Saxon, eurocentric standards of appearance by being BIPOC, then cops might decide to ignore your heart-breaking cries for help and take your desperation as aggression… THIS is why we must fiercely advocate for more protections for black and brown people, especially migrant newcomers who are quickly joining our unhoused population by the hundreds and who are not being given anywhere near the same houseless resources as their US-born counterparts.
Newcomers who are both queer and/or migrants come here with hopes and dreams of acceptance and a better life than that from which they are escaping. When Denver wears a liberal mask of painted rainbows and fake smiles, the reality is far from the Mayor’s flowery words of allyship. It’s time we rip of the mask and face the ugly reality of ever-increasing policing, state-sanctioned violence, and criminalization of poverty, queerness, and immigration status.
We must demand an appeal of this decision and a re-investigation of the police who decided in a matter of seconds that a poor, suicidal, melanated trans womxn with nowhere to go was any sort of threat to their three fully armed, supposedly trained, trigger-happy selves.
We must make sure that third, party, non-police, insulated entities, such as a Citizen Review Board with strict stipulations preventing them from having affiliations with the accused, be the ones to investigate such cases. This CRB could look like having elected representatives from each district who have civil immunity as officers do, who are strictly prohibited from communicating with the accused, who are not intimately connected to any former or present law enforcement officers, let alone be one themselves, and who are empowered to award any officers who whistleblow/speak out against the injustices they observe, for starters. Instead, the letter states, “this investigation was conducted by the Denver Police Department in conjunction with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Colorado State Patrol”. These are incredibly biased entities operating under the same department that would clearly seek to cover their own tracks to avoid persecuting their own people.
We must defund the police and not allow them to be the go-to option for mental health crisis, and instead invest in queer-based houseless services that lead to safe, private, long-term housing. These services must be run by those with lived experience themselves and provide support at all levels of gender identity, including connections to gender affirming care and safe overnight stay, so individuals need not resort to exposing themselves to danger at gender-segregated shelters, risking sleeping alone on the streets, or seeking undesired sexual transactions in order to have somewhere to stay for the night.
We must reverse the direction the Mayor’s administration has taken to strip away migrant supports and instead continue investing in the successful integration of migrants into American society while celebrating their cultural identities. Denver has turned its back on new migrant arrivals, limiting sheltering to only 3-days (if you’re lucky enough to not be immediately put on a bus back out of town) in either a literal warehouse without any access to a shower or a gymnasium where the shower access and kitchen were stripped to be “equitable” to the warehouse. This empty act of supposed support is reserved for those who are less than 30-days in the country, not the City, making most illegible and resulting in dozens of migrants in the already over-capacity shelter systems, paying an average of $400 per week at hotels using money from window washing, or in our streets and jails due to lack of opportunities, the inability to legally work, and increased criminalization of survival.
We must not let members of our community become unknown Jane Does whom noone knows where they came from. Get to know your neighbors, offer warmth and support, and don’t let false narratives of fear of the “other” prevent you from actively engaging in the integral community network building we must do to keep ourselves safe and well-resourced.
We protect us.
Leave a Reply