A Washington, D.C., police officer pled "not guilty" today to charges connected to an August 2011 shooting rampage that injured at least two transgender women. Forty-eight-year-old Kenneth Furr is charged with assault with intent to kill while armed after allegedly shooting at a trans woman who ignored his advances. Furr was off-duty and intoxicated at the time, reports The Washington Post.
Furr entered the plea during a hearing in D.C. Superior Court. Another hearing is scheduled for April 13. Furr has been held in jail since his arrest in August. He was charged with nine offenses — including multiple counts of assault and assault with a dangerous weapon — after an incident in which, according to authorities and interviews, he tried to solicit sex from transgender women, leading to a collision between two vehicles and gunfire.
Furr was indicted Wednesday. The indictment said Furr, off-duty and intoxicated in the early hours of the morning on August 26, fired five shots through the windshield of a car in which the transgender women were riding, striking one passenger in the arm and hand.
Two transgender women were injured during the intoxicated police officer's shooting rampage, the Post reported last August. More details:
In interviews, one said Furr approached her as she walked into a CVS in Northwest Washington. “His eyes were bloodshot,” she said. “I could smell the liquor on his breath. He told me he wanted to pay me to have sex with me. He kept trying to get me in his car.”
Furr did not touch her, she said, but he continued to harass her until a male friend intervened. She left the store with the friend, and they drove off with three other people in a car, she said. ... The woman who accused Furr of harassment said she was sitting in the back seat of one of the cars when the crash occurred. She and her friends did not know then that the other car was Furr’s, she said.
"He hopped out of the car, gun drawn, and started shooting at us," said the other transgender woman, who also reported being wounded. "He was yelling, 'What now? What now? All of y’all are going to die tonight.'"
Police said that one man was hit by gunfire and that the two transgender women were injured; all three suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, police said.
Since last July, at least 22 trans women have been violently attacked in Washington DC, including the tragic killing of 19-year-old Lashai McLean who was gunned down in July 2011. Police have made no arrests. There have also been no arrests in the horrific daylight stabbing of Nana Boo Mack in August 2009.
Black transgender women face "extreme discrimination and poverty", and are more than likely to suffer from violence, physical or sexual abuse and police brutality, according to a first of its kind survey recently conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, More HERE.
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