Uproar after arrest of trans woman in D.C.

[Jamie D]

Uproar after arrest of trans woman in D.C.

Washington Blade | Lou Chibbaro, Jr.

Local LGBT activists on Facebook were in an uproar over the weekend when transgender advocate Ruby Corado posted a message claiming hostile D.C. police officers traumatized a group of young transgender and gay passengers in her SUV on Feb. 28 when they handcuffed and arrested a transgender woman for driving the vehicle without a valid license.

"I sat in my car as a passenger as we are driving my clients home after a support group when a police officer stopped us and in three minutes I witness a D.C. police officer turn into a very homo-transphobic cop," Corado wrote in her Facebook posting....

Officer Ramon I. Moe states in a police report that he conducted a "traffic stop" after observing that two people were sitting in the vehicle's cargo area "not occupying a seat without a seatbelt restraint." He stated in the report that he requested an I.D. check for Williams by radio to the Fourth District dispatcher and discovered that Williams did not have a valid driver's license.

"Suspect 1 [Williams] was placed under arrest for No Permit and transported to the Fourth District Station for processing," Moe wrote in the report.

According to Corado, the transporting of Williams to the police station came after an ordeal in which the arresting officer and at least one other officer spoke to both Williams and Corado in a hostile manner. She said as many as three or four police cars arrived on the scene....

In her Facebook posting, Corado said, "Looking at his facial expressions, listening to his demanding voice, watching his intimidating body language as he questions and quickly arrests my black trans sister make my advocate persona come out and start questioning why my black sister is being arrested."

Full article at the link

[Missy~rmdlm]

I'm sorry this fails my annoyance test, if you simply eliminate the trans factor any officer would be suspicious and hostile to safety violations combined with lack of a valid license. case closed.
And folks, keep your paperwork in order.

[Hikari]

If accurate they will likely get into trouble over this, the police chief is already dealing with the fallout of a report that said the lgbt liaison has been weakened by poor policy.

I suspect though that it wouldn't have mattered all that much if she were trans or not though if you are black in DC you are already guilty in the eyes of the law and seeing as the majority of DC's population is black this presents some serious issues. I love DC but the city has some serious issues with race.

[Jamie D]

There is a lot more wrong with this entire incident.  Read the whole article, especially the part where they misgender the driver, and she is so nervous she can't find her learners permit.

[Hikari]

There is a lot more wrong with this entire incident.  Read the whole article, especially the part where they misgender the driver, and she is so nervous she can't find her learners permit.

Oh I am not disputing that I was just saying that pulling over a black person in DC is basically a forgone conclusion that someone is going to jail. There is no doubt the police were in the wrong in a bunch of ways but, I believe they won't get away with it, not with amount of pressure that is being put on the MPD for failing at LGBT outreach recently. The political climate is such that the culture of the MPD will be forced to change.

[suzifrommd]

Sorry, I'm with Missy. I read the whole article yesterday. I read it over again, and I still can't get worked up. I can't buy the claim that the stop was the result of discrimination. True the officers might have been more polite, and probably escalated the situation unnecessarily when Corado challenged them, but to me that's evidence of surliness, not transphobia.

[ThePhoenix]

From talking to Ruby, the issue here is really about the fact that the officers do this to people coming out of Casa Ruby on a regular basis.  D.C. police are pretty infamous for their treatment of trans* people in general and transwomen, in particular.  Problems have included profiling transwomen as sex workers, neglecting to investigate murders of transwomen, and even shooting at them off duty. 

This particular incident involved, among other things, being stopped on a freezing cold night for about two hours (why in the world did it take so long?) under orders to leave the car engine turned off (so there was no heat) as well as slurs and harassment.  The misgendering of the arrestee (with whom I am also acquainted) was only the tip of the iceberg.  But the misgendering does, itself, violate the general order in place on dealing with trans* people. 

So in short, the issue here really is not about the idea that the arrestee was doing everything right and got picked on by the cop.  It's about the police targeting a certain population (Casa Ruby clients) and mistreating them in the course of the incident.  It's about bringing attention to a big, big, big ongoing problem with the D.C. police.  There's a reason that report indicated problems in the ways the police deal with LGBT persons.  This is just exhibit #18,451.

[ThePhoenix]

This article goes into a bit more detail about exactly what happened and what was wrong with it for those who are interested:

http://www.metroweekly.com/news/?ak=8900

[suzifrommd]

This article goes into a bit more detail about exactly what happened and what was wrong with it for those who are interested:

http://www.metroweekly.com/news/?ak=8900

Now I see what the issue is. The metroweekly article highlights a lot more of what happened. If it's all true (no reason to believe it isn't), the Blade article seems a bit incomplete.

Yes. This is gross. To me, the use of the f-word was the most damning evidence that this was a hate-motivated.