The first federal trial over a hate crime based on gender identity is set to begin Tuesday in South Carolina, where a man faces charges that he killed a Black transgender woman and then fled to New York.
The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that in August 2019, Daqua Lameek Ritter coaxed the woman — who is anonymously referred to as “Dime Doe” in court documents — into driving to a sparsely populated rural county in South Carolina. Ritter shot her three times in the head after they reached an isolated area near a relative’s home, according to Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, where Ritter was arrested last January.
In recent years there has been a surge in attacks on the LGBTQ+ community. For decades, transgender women of color have faced disproportionately high rates of violence and hate crimes, according to the Department of Homeland Security. In 2022, the number of gender identity-based hate crimes reported by the FBI increased by 37% compared to the previous year.
I remember when Matthew Shepherd was brutally murdered and, because of the utter brutality of his killing, federal hate crime legislation could finally be passed via the Matthew Shepherd Act (officially The Matthew Shepard And James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act Of 2009). My heart breaks now as much as it did that night in 1998 when I attended my very first protest demanding justice for a member of by lgbtq+ family.
At least there’s a clear path for that justice now and I demand it as loudly today as I did 26 years ago.
edit: wikipedia article on the history of the Matthew Shepard Act for the kiddies.
That murder has stayed with me all of these years.
I was wondering why this would be considered the first since Matthew Shepherd was quite a while ago. Didn’t realize the legislation came after that.
