A transgender woman was attacked last weekend near the Gayborhood, although the extent of her injuries and motive for the attack are unknown.
Police say five black males in a silver car approached the 28-year-old white woman near 237 S. Broad St. at 12:45 a.m. Sept. 19. The males robbed the woman of the money in her purse and struck her in the head with a beer bottle.
Police spokesperson Officer Jillian Russell said police are not sure if the robbery and attack was spurred by the victim’s gender identity. She said the males were last seen running south on Broad Street, and police are still investigating.
Nicholas DeRoose, a gay photojournalism student at Temple University, was in the Gayborhood Saturday night and early Sunday morning working on a school project. DeRoose was interviewing Tommy Atz, a Safeguards volunteer who was in the neighborhood on an outreach mission, on Locust Street between 12th and 13th at 1:15 a.m. when he saw the woman approaching.
“I had seen her before during the night, and as she approached from 13th, I noted that her outfit looked different, and as she got closer I noticed she was bleeding from her ear down to her neck,” DeRoose said.
Atz said the woman was walking slowly and appeared dazed.
“It’s one of those things that when you see it, you don’t actually think it’s real at first, you think you’re making it up,” he said. “So I did a double-take and she actually walked right past me, so I caught up to her to see if she was OK.”
The victim said she was on her way home when the attack occurred and, after she was hit, began walking towards Jefferson University Hospital, 11th and Locust streets. Atz and DeRoose offered to accompany her, but she slumped against a pole at the corner at 12th and Locust.
A passerby called 911, and DeRoose said, after waiting about 10 minutes for the ambulance, he searched on foot for a police patrol car, which he found at 13th Street. The officer inside told DeRoose she was already on her way to the scene.
Atz said that while he waited with the woman, he attempted to reassure her.
“My main concern was just listening to her and showing her that I cared and that she mattered to me,” he said. “She had just been attacked and she needed that at that moment. A lot of people around were gawking and just looked bewildered, but I didn’t think that seemed very useful.”
Franny Price, chair of the Police Liaison Committee and owner of Spruce Street Video, was on her way to pick up her dog at the video store when she saw the victim.
“They had the door to the ambulance opened and they had her bandaged around her head, and there was a lot of blood,” Price said.
Russell said the ambulance transported the victim to Hahnemann University Hospital, not Jefferson.
Price has been in touch with LGBT police liaison Deputy Commissioner Stephen Johnson and said he is looking into the incident.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].