Dallas police have launched an investigation after a transgender woman was found dead in a lake less than two weeks after the unsolved murder of Muhlaysia Booker.
Dallas authorities are urging the community to “stay vigilant” after 26-year-old Chynal Lindsey became the latest black transgender woman involved in a string of unsolved slayings against transgender victims of color in the city. Lindsey’s body was pulled from White Rock Lake on Saturday and police said her body showed “obvious signs of homicidal violence.”
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Police have asked the FBI to help investigate after Lindsey became at least the third transgender woman of color to be killed in Dallas in the past year. Lindsey’s murder comes less than two weeks after 23-year-old Muhlaysia Booker was found shot to death less than a mile from where Lindsey’s body was recovered, CBS News reports.
Booker’s death came a few weeks after she made national headlines after a viral video showed her being physically assaulted by a group of men in a Dallas parking lot. Dallas police Chief Reneé Hall said at a news conference on Monday that city and federal investigators are looking into the possibility of the two slayings being linked.
“The Dallas Police Department has reached out to the FBI because as we know this is the second individual who is transgender who is deceased in our community,” she said, according to The New York Times. “We are concerned ― we are actively and aggressively investigating this case and we have reached out to our federal partners to assist us in these efforts.”
Asked whether a serial killer was on the loose, Hall urged caution.
“Right now we don’t have the evidence to substantiate that,” the chief said. “But what we are asking each and every one of our community members is to stay vigilant.”
The FBI was “prepared to assist” Dallas police if “information comes to light of a potential federal civil rights violation,” a spokeswoman told ABC News.
Dallas police are now investigating at least four unsolved homicide cases involving transgender women of color since 2015, CNN reports.
“Right now is a really scary time,” Lou Weaver of LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas told the paper. “We literally just celebrated the life of Ms. Booker last week and on Saturday night they find another transgender woman whose body has been left in a marshy area.” “People are afraid. We’re wondering if someone is targeting the transgender community,” Weaver said.
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