Black Latine trans woman Ra’Lasia Wright fatally shot in Minneapolis

Author: Trudy Ring

Ra’Lasia Wright, 25, a Black Latina transgender woman of Puerto Rican descent, was shot to death late last year in Minneapolis, in a crime that is only now being widely reported.

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On the night of November 30, Camilla Lieng, a friend of Wright’s, received an SOS text message from Wright’s phone, Minneapolis TV station KARE reports. Lieng thought the message had been sent by accident.

But the next day, when Lieng and Wright’s other friends and family members hadn’t heard any further from Wright, some tracked her location from her phone. They found her, dead of a gunshot wound, in a driveway between two houses in a south Minneapolis neighborhood she apparently had no connection to. She had lived in New Hope, a suburb of Minneapolis.

“There are a lot of speculations … like, who were you with that night?” Lieng told KARE.

No arrests have been made. Wright’s friends and family gathered for a memorial vigil December 22 near the site of her death and called for answers about the crime.

“I’m very frustrated with [the Minneapolis Police Department,” Lieng told the station at the vigil. “No leads at all, only thing was they were trying to get warrants to get into her phone.”

“This community is too big for somebody not to see something, something is getting hidden, and if somebody knows something, they need to speak up. We will get to the bottom of this,” another of her friends said at the vigil. “We just want answers — that’s it.”

Lieng, who is also trans, said Wright was a great mentor to her. “I will never have a friend like her, ever again, to hold my hand to tell me that it’s going to be OK,” she said at the vigil, according to KARE. “Without her, there’s no me. You know, she paved the way for me, and my sister is gone. I can’t even fathom that my sister is gone.”

Wright discussed her transitioning process in videos posted on YouTube. “Voices like Ra’Lasia’s are so instrumental to the visibility and empowerment of our transgender community, and losing these voices is incredibly tragic,” Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for the Human Rights Campaign’s Transgender Justice Initiative, said in a press release. “Ra’Lasia’s life was one of transparency and honesty, and the more people we lose to fatal violence, the more we have to condemn it and continue to push for legal protections and for the safety of our communities. Ending 2024 with such news is tragic, but it is also a reminder of the work that lies ahead of us in the incoming year.”

Wright is at least the 31st trans person to die by violence in the U.S. in 2024. The actual total is likely much larger, given that many trans victims are deadnamed or misgendered by police or media, or their deaths not reported at all.

These deaths often involve gun violence and/or anti-trans bias. More than 25,000 hate crimes annually involve a firearm, according to a 2023 report by Everytown for Gun Safety in partnership with HRC and the Equality Federation Support Fund. FBI hate-crimes data from 2023, the latest available, indicated a 16 percent rise in crimes motivated by the victim’s gender identity compared to 2022.

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“We must demand better from our elected officials and reject harmful anti-transgender legislation at the local, state and federal levels, while also considering every possible way to make ending this violence a reality,” the HRC press release concludes. “It is clear that fatal violence disproportionately affects transgender women of color, especially Black transgender women. The intersections of racism, transphobia, sexism, biphobia and homophobia conspire to deprive them of necessities to live and thrive, so we must all work together to cultivate acceptance, reject hate and end stigma for everyone in the trans and gender non-conforming community.”

Minneapolis police urge anyone with information about Wright’s death to email policetips@minneapolismn.gov or leave a message at (612) 673-5845. Tips can also be left anonymously with CrimeStoppers at (800) 222-TIPS (8477) or at CrimeStoppersMN.org.

Original Article on The Advocate
Author: Trudy Ring