Pride Month isn’t just a celebration. It is also a chance to bring awareness to the issues the LGBTQ+ community faces. One of the most prominent issues is the killing of trans women of color. LaDamonyon Dewayne Hall, 47, died May 26 while in custody of Dallas police. According to CBS News, her death is now under investigation.
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Deputy Chief Terrance Rhodes from the Dallas Police Department Criminal Investigations Bureau said police received a 911 call responding to a disturbance. Rhodes said Hall was under the influence of drugs or alcohol and clearly agitated. Per body camera footage of the incident, officers asked if they could take her to the hospital for a mental evaluation.
Frantic, she began yelling at the officers and tried to strip her clothes which led to them pushing her to the ground to handcuff her.
More details on the incident from The Daily Mail:
They place a spit hood on her as she’s loaded in an ambulance, with the officers outside appearing to laugh and joke about the situation. Hall continues to scream inside the ambulance as a paramedic and officer tried to calm her down.
‘Calm down before we get to the hospital so they don’t have to tie you back up like that,’ the officer says. ‘Try to breath, ok.’
At about 1:34 p.m., the paramedic and officer notice that Hall has fallen silent. ‘Sir can you talk to me,’ the officer asks, addressing her as a man. Seeing that she’s unresponsive, they remove the spit hood, and the paramedic starts performing chest compressions as they arrive at Baylor University Medical Center.
Hall was pronounced dead at 2:05 p.m and her death wasn’t reported until 13 days later, per CBS’ report. The delay was due to the Dallas Police Special Investigation Unit opening an investigation into Hall’s death, per police spokeswoman Kristin Lowman. The department met with her family to review the body camera video. The Dallas Medical Examiner conducted an autopsy but results are still pending along with the toxicology screen.
The Human Rights Campaign reported 14 transgender individuals had been killed this year. These are only the people who’s deaths were accurately reported and most of them were Black or Latinx.
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