HRC Mourns Quartney Davia Dawsonn-Yochum
Violence has once again tragically claimed the life of a transgender woman of color. Quartney Davia Dawsonn-Yochum, 32, was fatally shot yesterday afternoon outside her Los Angeles apartment complex in what, according to police, appeared to be a dispute with her former boyfriend. Quartney was walking her dogs when the assailant approached and shot her in the head.
She was pronounced dead at the scene and a suspect has been arrested.
Media reports of Quartney’s death, as well as posts on her Facebook page, reflect the community’s love for her.
“I’m heartbroken,” her apartment manager, Anita Nelson, told The Los Angeles Times. “Our residents are traumatized, our staff is traumatized. Everybody loved her. She was very popular.”
Quartney is at least the sixth transgender person who has died from fatal violence in 2016. Several other cases are still under investigation. In addition to the fatal stabbing of Maya Young and the fatal shooting of Monica Loera, advocates learned recently of the deaths of transgender Latina Jasmine Sierra and transgender black man Demarkis Stansberry. Most recently, Kendarie Johnson, a gender fluid teenager, was fatally shot.
Two other transgender people of color, Veronica Banks Cano of San Antonio and Nino Acox Jackson of Dallas, also died in recent weeks under suspicious circumstances. And in January, 24-year-old Kayden Clarke, a transgender man from Arizona, was shot and killed by police in his home, after they responded to a call that Kayden was threatening suicide.
In 2015, advocates tracked at least 21 deaths of transgender people due to fatal violence, the most ever recorded.
HRC extends its heartfelt condolences to the friends and family of Quartney Davia Dawsonn-Yochum.
For more information on addressing anti-transgender violence, visit hrc.org/trans-violence.
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