A 35-year-old unidentified Latin transgender woman was seriously injured after being shot multiple times in northwest Dallas on Friday night. Dallas police are treating the incident as a hate crime because the suspect in the attack, 29-year-old Domingo Ramirez-Cavente, admitted to shouting transphobic slurs before shooting the victim. She was shot along a four-lane road with apartment complexes and businesses, according to CNN.
The woman is another victim in a long string of attacks on transgender women in Dallas, Texas, over the last three years. Most of the attacks have not resulted in an arrest, though several have recently seen charges brought against suspects.
It was almost midnight on Friday when Ramirez-Cavente, driving a late-model, four-door Chevrolet pickup truck with large aftermarket rims “pulled alongside the victim, yelled a number of slurs regarding her gender identity” and shot the victim multiple times in the chest and arm, a Dallas Police Department statement said.
On Tuesday, Ramirez-Cavente, was arrested for traffic charges and admitted to shooting the victim. As of Wednesday afternoon, he was only being charged with aggravated assault. He was apprehended after law enforcement released surveillance footage of his truck to the public.
More details are not yet known in the case.
Related Article: Video: Body-camera Footage Released Proves Police Shot De’Von Bailey as He Ran Away
Texas has struggled to improve protections for transgender people in the state. State Rep. Garnet Coleman recently introduced a small measure that would have added transgender protections to the state’s hate crime law but it died in committee.
“While it may seem like a small, procedural step, hearing Rep. Coleman’s bill was a meaningful leap forward in the struggle for transgender rights, recognition and equality in Texas. Because of Rep. Coleman’s leadership, a committee heard testimony directly from trans Texans, including stories about fearing for their safety every day,” State Rep. Jessica Gonzalez, vice chairwoman of the state House’s LGBTQ caucus, told CNN.
This recent victim is the latest in an even longer series of transgender attacks. After Ja’leyah-Jamar was murdered in Kansas City, Kansas, on Sept. 13, Human Rights Campaign reported that she was the 19th transgender victim to die violently in the United States this year, with the majority of those killed or attacked being Black women.
