Queens DA Won’t Investigate Attack On Transgender Woman Leslie Moya As Hate Crime

The Queens County District Attorney has decided against investigating a beating on transgendered woman Leslie Moya as a hate crime. Leslie was walking home from a club on Roosevelt Avenue when she was attacked by two individuals who called her a “maricón” as they hit her repeatedly with a belt buckle. Police arrived to find her on the floor, nearly naked and covered in blood.

The attack left Lesley with bruises all over her body and required her to get stitches on her scalp. Her alleged  attackers - Trinidad Tapia, 19, and Gilberto Ortiz, 32 - fled the scene but were found and arrested soon after the attack.

According to Wikipedia, a hate crime is defined as “crimes motivated by enmity or animus against a protected class. Although state and federal laws vary, typical protected characteristics are race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability.”

The article goes on to explain that statutes currently in place allow federal prosecution of hate crimes committed because of a person’s race, color, religion or nationality when engaging in a “federally protected activity.” 

And then there’s this:

Legislation is currently pending that would add gender, sexual orientation, gender-identity, and disability to this list, as well as remove the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally protected activity

We think, as with the case of  slain transgender woman Angie Zapata, that the DA should deeply consider labeling this incident a hate crime. Not only was this attack one against women and the GLBT community, it was also, in a very real sense, an attack on Latinos. The circumstances of the event (Latinos attacking a Latina in a primarily Hispanic neighborhood using Spanish-language slurs) work to bolster the mashismo and homophobia splitting certain Latino communities apart. Defining this as a hate crime would send a message (Hopefully? Is our thinking to naïve?) to Latinos that violence against women and queer individuals won’t be tolerated. 

Beating up a “maricón” and leaving her to bleed out on a sidewalk isn’t what a man does. It isn’t what a person does to another person. And it’s an act that should be called out and punished accordingly. 

Transgender Woman Brutally Beaten in Queens Bias Attack - TLDEF Demands Full Investigation Into Hate Crime [TLDEF]