The suspect accused of shooting seven people in the Kingsessing neighborhood of West Philadelphia on July 3 has been identified as Kimbrady Carriker, according to the Philadelphia Police Department.
The incident took place on the 1600 block of South 56th Street, where six gunshot wound victims were found, four of whom were pronounced dead at the hospital, and two of whom were in stable condition. On July 4, Philadelphia Police officers found another shooting victim in the same location, who did not survive. During his arraignment Wednesday, Carriker, 40, was charged with more than 30 offenses, including murder, attempt to commit murder, simple assault, aggravated assault and weapons charges.
Carriker has been described by some conservative news outlets as a “crossdresser” or a “crossdressing BLM activist” due to photos that surfaced of the suspect dressed in clothing that make them present as a woman.
Jane Roh, spokesperson for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office (DAO), told PGN, “there is no information at this time that indicates this defendant identifies as anything other than male.”
Yet individuals and lawmakers have been perpetuating the fallacy that the perpetrator is trans, and conveying anti-trans beliefs on social media. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green posted a link to an article about the shooting on the far-right social media platform gab, with the caption “another trans shooter.” A user from the YouTube account Legally Armed America published a video on July 4 called “BLM ‘trans’ nutbag is shooter in Philadelphia.”
The user said in the video, “it’s another trans person who’s messed up in the head. It’s another protected person. I mean these gender dysphoric nutbags, gender-pretending fools who everybody is trying to make excuses for, and they’re killing everybody.”
At a July 5 press conference hosted by the Philadelphia DAO, Asa Khalif, activist and member of the DAO LGBTQ+ Advisory Committee, provided more clarity in terms of the perpetrator’s gender identity and the harm that this kind of rhetoric causes the trans community. Khalif confirmed that the suspect identifies as male and will be referred to as such until further developments in the case.
“The language spewed out by conservative press is violent and dangerous, and is targeting trans women of color,” Khalif said at the press conference. “It’s rallying the community to be violent and we’re better than that. We have our trans women and our trans men living in these communities, working, thriving in the community. They are not killers; they are the most vulnerable to violence and they want to live their lives, and they have every right to do so. We will not allow conservative bigots to use that type of language to attack trans people. We will not allow trans women — and in particular trans women of color — to be the scapegoat for bigots.”
Kendall Stephens, another local LGBTQ+ activist who is also on the DAO LGBTQ+ Advisory Committee but was not present at the press conference, echoed Khalif’s sentiment.
“The far right frequently uses fear-mongering tactics like this — misinformation and disinformation — to create negative narratives about transgender individuals,” Stephens told PGN. “They exploit tragedies such as this unfortunate shooting to spread dangerous stereotypes in a concerted effort to portray transgender people as a threat to societal norms and traditional values. The fact that this person wasn’t even trans-identified makes it even worse. It’s part of a larger, targeted agenda from the far right. Any little thing that they can harp on, they’re going to use to discredit trans-identified individuals. Utilizing and weaponizing our identities against us is a very effective way to prevent trans people from gaining rights and protections legislatively.”