Philadelphia police are investigating the shooting of a man in Overbrook Sunday night.
In a statement, Philadelphia police said two men followed the victim out of a Stop N Go at 66th Street and Lansdowne Avenue. The men approached the victim on the 1000 block of North 66th Street. Both were described as black and one, described as dark-complected with facial tattoos, fired several shots, with two of them striking the 21-year-old victim in the hip.
The victim is being treated at Lankenau Medical Center and is in stable condition.
“I am very grateful that this person is alive [and] that they are in one of our excellent hospitals in the city of Philadelphia,” said Nellie Fitzpatrick, director of the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs. “I’m glad the police are able to work to bring justice to this person who sustained this horrible attack. I wish him all the best and I know that there are excellent victim services out there for him and I have all the faith in the police and the prosecutors who will be assigned to the matter to make sure justice is obtained.”
Fitzpatrick noted that Directive 152, written guidelines for police officers to abide by when interacting with and identifying transgender individuals, aided in this case.
“At the end of the day, one of the driving points of [Directive 152] is to treat all people with the courtesy and dignity, which is inherently due to every person, as a human being,” Fitzpatrick said. “With that comes listening to people and respecting who people are and how they identify themselves. I’m very glad to see that this directive has been followed to a T in assisting this man as he navigates being a victim of crime here in the city of Philadelphia.”
There were several conflicting reports regarding the victim’s gender identity in the media.
“Sometimes that is due to error and sometimes that is due to lack of capacity,” Fitzpatrick said about misgendering of crime victims. “I think we would all like to hope that it’s never done purposely or maliciously but ultimately the result is the same in that misgendering somebody is unto itself an act of dehumanizing them or victimizing them further. It is incumbent upon us that we respect someone’s gender identity.”