Muhlaysia Booker, a black transgender woman from Dallas who went viral when she was assaulted on camera, was found dead on a Dallas street this past weekend.
Booker, 23, was shot and killed.
Authorities said they did not have any evidence linking the killing to the attack on Booker last month. She was found Saturday morning “lying facedown in the street, deceased from homicidal violence” per Major Vincent Weddington.
One of Booker’s assaulters last month, Edward Thomas, was no longer in police custody though he still faces charges over the assault.
On April 12, Booker was assaulted by several men in the parking lot of a Dallas apartment complex shortly after she was involved in a car accident. Video of the attack surfaced online of Thomas and other men repeatedly punching and kicking Booker while yelling anti-gay slurs. Thomas was offered $200 to beat up Booker. Eventually a group of women helped Booker flee and she was hospitalized with a concussion and a fractured wrist.
According to HRC, in 2018, advocates tracked at least 26 deaths of transgender people in the U.S. due to fatal violence, the majority of whom were Black transgender women. These victims were killed by acquaintances, partners and strangers, some of whom have been arrested and charged, while others have yet to be identified. Some of these cases involve clear anti-transgender bias. In others, the victim’s transgender status may have put them at risk in other ways, such as forcing them into unemployment, poverty, homelessness and/or survival sex work.
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