The Fresno Police Department is investigating the death of KC Haggard – a transgender woman who was murdered early Thursday morning – as a homicide. But community members and activists are calling her murder a hate-crime.
KC Haggard, 66, was walking north on Blackstone Avenue early Thursday morning, when a light-colored SUV pulled over and the occupants began talking to her.
A surveillance video supplied by Most Wanted Tattoo shows Haggard speaking with the driver and passenger of the SUV.
Haggard is then seen leaning closer to the vehicle when she is stabbed in the neck. The SUV sped off.
Haggard was left holding her neck and trying to flag down passing cars.
“The way we seen it … it was cold-blooded murder,” Augie Rubio, owner of Most Wanted Tattoo, told Fresno KSFN-TV. “You didn’t have to, man – you could have just drove away.”
Haggard was not robbed during the attack.
“I viewed the police feed and she was obviously targeted as a transgender woman,” Karen Adell Scott, founder of TransCare, told the Guardian.
Scott says Haggard was one of only a few people on the street at that time, which is proof that it was a targeted attack.
“They ‘clocked’ her, or saw her as transgender and then selected her as their target over the others,” Scott said. “They had time to interact with her at the window of her car and finalized their decision to violently murder her based upon this final analysis of who she was.”
“This woman was representative of all of us,” Scott said. “She was trying to be authentic as her real self.”
“She died alone and uncared for, treated as an expendable entertainment, a piece of garbage, for those who do not see transgender people as actual human beings,” she continued.
With Haggard’s death, 2015 looks set to be the most violent on record for trans women, marking the 11th transgender woman to be killed in the US this year.
A comprehensive report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs found that 2014 saw a 19% rise in murders of LGBTQ people.
The Fresno LGBT Community Center is hosting a vigil for KC on Thursday, July 30th at 6pm.
This gathering at the Fresno LGBT Community Center on Thursday July 30th is in memory of KC Haggard, the local transgender woman who was viciously murdered on July 23rd, as well as all other victims of transgender violence across the country.There will be a march through the Tower District and brief speeches from local community members.If you’d like to help in making signs for the march please contact Zoyer Zyndel zoyerzyndel@yahoo.com or KarenAdell Scot karenadellscot@gmail.com . You can also visit the LGBT Community Center during open hours to make your own signs (we have materials available).Phone number for the LGBT Center is 559-325-4429. You can also email Gay Central Valley at info@gaycentralvalley.org or Chris Jarvis at chris@gaycentralvalley.orgLocal mediawill be invited to this event.The march and speakers will take place outside, but the Center will be open with air conditioning, water, snacks and bathrooms. It’s supposedto be a hot day but we’ll do everything we can to make it comfortable for all.We encourage people to wear red to signify the rates of transgender violence in the U.S. and use the hashtag #TransRemembranceRedEveryone is invited to this event so please invite your friends.
Join the event page on Facebook.
