A Black transgender woman was killed this week in a swell of violence Philadelphia authorities have deemed an "epidemic” against the local trans community.

On Monday morning, officers found Mia Green, 29, shot in the neck in the passenger seat of a car driven by 28-year-old Abdullah Ibn-El-Amin Jaamia, NBC News reports. Police were stopping Jaamia for running a stop sign when he informed them his passenger suffered a gunshot wound.

Police said they escorted Jaamia to a local hospital to receive medical attention for Green, who was pronounced dead around 9 a.m. on Monday. On Tuesday, authorities charged Jaamia with murder after further investigating the case, per NBC News.
Police have not provided any details regarding a relationship between Green and Jaamia, a possible motive, or the man’s arrest.

Philadelphia’s Office of LGBT Affairs released a statement Tuesday, extending its “deepest sympathies” to Green’s family.

“We know that the loss of yet another trans community member of color is especially painful, no matter the circumstances,” the city wrote. “This latest act of violence against a member of our community is a somber reminder of the epidemic of violence against trans individuals."

Green’s untimely death is evident “there is much work to be done in the pursuit of full equality, respect, and justice for us all," the statement said. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney responded to Green’s death on Twitter on Tuesday.

“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,” Kenney began. “To our LGBTQ community: we see you and we grieve with you as you mourn the loss of Mia Green."

While civil unrest and the coronavirus pandemic has commanded national attention, violence against transgender people is surging well past previous numbers, as Blavity previously reported.

Since the beginning of the year, there have been at least 29 instances of fatal violence against trans and gender nonconforming people in the U.S., with a majority of the victims being Black and Latinx transgender women, according to the Human Rights Campaign. The number of killings thus far in 2020 has already exceeded the number of slayings throughout 2019. 

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