Black transgender woman shot, killed in car in Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Police Department on Tuesday charged a local man for the murder of a 29-year-old Black transgender woman. 

According to NBC News, police on Monday morning found Philadelphia resident Mia Green shot in the neck in the passenger’s seat of a car being driven by 28-year-old Abdullah lbn El-Amin Jaamia. 

Police said in a statement that they had stopped Jaamia for running a stop sign. Jaamia then “exited the front driver’s door and approached police stating that his passenger was shot.”

Police escorted the vehicle to a nearby hospital, where Green was later pronounced dead. 

After conducting initial investigations, police named Jaamia as a suspect and charged him with murder and related offenses. NBC News reported that no additional information surrounding Green’s death or a possible motive were made available to the public as of Tuesday. 

The Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of LGBT Affairs said in a statement released on Tuesday that Green’s killing was the “latest act of violence against a member of our community [in an] epidemic of violence against trans individuals.” 

“It is a crisis that cannot be allowed to persist any further,” the office added in its press release. “The countless painful losses experienced during this year alone—especially within our transgender communities of color— remind us that there is much work to be done in the pursuit of full equality, respect, and justice for us all.” 

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney (D) shared the statement from the LGBT Affairs office on Twitter Tuesday, adding, “Violence against transgender people—especially trans women of color—is a crisis in this country.” 

Violence against transgender people—especially trans women of color—is a crisis in this country. We’re glad a suspect was quickly arrested and charged.

To our LGBTQ community: we see you and we grieve with you as you mourn the loss of Mia Green #SayHerName #BlackTransLivesMatter https://t.co/ad6VPXOD7o

— Jim #MaskUpPHL Kenney (@PhillyMayor) September 29, 2020

According to the Human Rights Campaign, there have been at least 28 deaths resulting from violence against transgender and gender nonconforming people in the U.S. so far this year, with most victims being Black and Latinx transgender women. 

In June, Philadelphia police issued an arrest warrant after finding the remains of Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, a Black transgender woman, in the city’s Schuylkill River. Investigators determined at the time that she had been murdered.