Last week in Atlanta, Georgia, Rasheeda Williams, a 35-year-old Black trans woman who had been featured in a recent documentary on trans sex workers, was killed. Unidentified male suspect, 17, has been taken into custody by police.
Police discovered Williams at a west-central shopping area on April 18 at 10:42 p.m. She was unresponsive, not breathing, and appeared to have been shot. According to a statement from the Atlanta Police Department (APD), homicide investigators declared her deceased at the scene.
Her murder is being investigated, according to the APD, and homicide investigators have been called. No explanation for her killing was given, and the police withheld information regarding the 17-year-old suspect and his potential involvement in the crime.
In their statement, they added that an investigation was ongoing into the gunshot deaths of two other local trans women in addition to Williams. A mere week before Williams’ murder, on April 11, one woman was killed in a “dispute”. The other was killed on January 9, possibly by a male suspect.
According to the APD, the killings are unrelated and don’t seem to be “random acts of violence.” There was no evidence that the women had been singled out for being transgender, according to APD detectives.
