Deadline extension granted in Morris 911 case
A 30-day extension has been granted for a state agency to rule on an open-records request for 911 recordings in the Nizah Morris case.
In November 2015, PGN filed an open-records request with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office for a certified copy of its Morris 911 recordings.
The matter was in arbitration with the state Office of Open Records for several months, but arbitration was unsuccessful. Then, the matter was assigned to an OOR appeals officer.
The OOR was expected to issue a final determination on or before Nov. 16. But earlier this month, the OOR requested an extension.
PGN granted the request, and a new deadline of Dec. 16 has been set for an OOR final determination.
Morris was an African-American trans woman found with a fatal head wound in 2002, shortly after a “courtesy ride” from Philadelphia police in the Gayborhood. Her homicide remains unsolved.
Center City memorial event planned
A Center City event will be held later this month to honor the lives of sex workers lost to violence or suicide. The event also seeks to unify sex-worker communities and strengthen the responses to violence and exclusion experienced by sex workers.
The event is part of the 13th-annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. It’s scheduled for 4-6 p.m. Dec. 17 at the Thomas Paine Plaza near City Hall.
Organizers issued this statement: “People who engage in sex work either through coercion, circumstance or consensual choice continue to be silenced and shamed. Additionally, they are often on the receiving end of violence, including at the hands of law enforcement, yet are still viewed as disposable by many in our society. The combined brutal murders of sex workers and trans in Southern Jersey and Philadelphia has to stop. Our collective hopes to shed light and love to remind our community that justice for sex workers is a human-rights issue.”
— Timothy Cwiek