In the age of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and alarmingly high incidence of violence against transgender women of color, the negative has been overwhelming the positive when it comes to police public relations. However, there was one case this week that deserves some praise — and another whose outcome could as well.
Late last week, a transgender woman was viciously attacked in North Philadelphia by a man who kicked and punched her until she was unresponsive, and then stomped on her head. Police say the woman’s transgender identity did not factor into the crime and that the suspect carried out similar crimes against two men around the same time. Through what has been characterized as excellent policework, the perpetrator was brought in the day after the crime and will hopefully have the book thrown at him, with an attempted murder charge lodged in regard to the attack on the woman, in addition to a litany of other charges.
The incident put the police department’s Policy 102 directive to the test, and the department carried out its tenets successfully. The directive lays down guidelines for officers who are identifying and working with transgender members of the public, whether they are victims or suspects. In this case, the department referred to the victim in its official release as a woman, with female pronouns used throughout, and no mention of her transgender identity. According to the city’s director of LGBT Affairs, department officials immediately contacted her office and had a discussion about how to publicly handle the woman’s gender identity, with some voicing concerns about “outing” her as trans.
That’s a far cry from incidents that have happened in the past in which transgender individuals have been misgendered in reports, releases and in the department’s interactions with the media. Now that a written policy is in place, however, and it has been successfully executed, the precedent has been set.
While the law-enforcement agents involved in this case illustrated the power of LGBT education and awareness, another officer unfortunately demonstrated the influence of ignorance. Officer Charles Zagursky was caught on camera by a motorist pressuring him to buy tickets for a police fundraiser in exchange for not impounding his car. During the exchange, the officer made numerous antigay comments, taunting the driver about his pink windshield wipers — installed to promote breast-cancer awareness.
Zagursky was placed on desk duty, with Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey decrying his actions, including his homophobic slurs. But clearly, an officer who extorts a member of the public — and exhibits rampant homophobia in the process — isn’t even fit for desk duty and deserves to be summarily terminated.
Progress was made with the handling of the attack on the transgender woman; however, that progress could be inhibited by incidents such as that with Zagursky — unless the department quickly makes it clear that ignorance will not be tolerated within its ranks.