RIP: Duanna Johnson
10 Nov
This summer a video from a Memphis Jail circulated of a Black transgender woman who was repeatedly punched in the face by a police officer while she sat in the precinct. for which she was suing the police department:
According to news reports out of Memphis, she was found shot dead this weekend in Memphis. Eyewitness news reports:
Lawyer Murray Wells confirmed to Eyewitness News that the person who was killed is his client Duanna Johnson. He says Johnson was often in the area where she was killed.
Murray says Johnson was trying to leave Memphis and go back to her hometown of Chicago. According to Murray, Johnson was just about homeless trying to live in Memphis. He says the apartment where Jonson was living did not have power. Murray says he was helping Johnson buy a bus ticket to Chicago.
I get sick of blogging these stories, but somebody besides the coroner has to record what happens to us.
Tags: duanna johnson
This is awful.
This is really sad. I’ll post this in my blog too. it’s a shame that with prop 8 stuff going on this will be completely overlooked in CA…
Sad indeed… The lives some of us lead are not at all easy. You just gotta try to do the best with what you got… RIP — AND FLY — lil Bro…
i had seen the video but hadn’t heard that she was killed. its depressing (she was living in an apt without power while trying to get to chicago!) and i feel angry and impassioned- “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” there was a video about her case on the memphis news, and the cop was fired, but as usual the mainstream media picked up and sensationalized a story and then abandoned it (and her). i wonder what orgs there (if any) are in memphis (or surrounding cities/states-arkansas for instance) addressing this type of violence against trans folks…maybe folks from song would know or are doing organizing around it?
I am a local radio talk show host in memphis who has been following this case. I received a call early Monday morning on my cell about 5;45 I didn’t answer the phone but a message was left where a person was whispering stating that Duanna Johnson was dead and that Memphis police were going to state that 3 black men shot her.
What I find strange is that the person knew the ID before Duanna’s name was released. It is my belief that Duanna was the victim of a hit by police. The are that Duanna was killed was on the street where she lived where she would not have been working since all in the area knew what her real gender happen to be.
something is wrong with this case which homicide is not working hard to solve.
And by the way I copied the message and have played it on my radio show