From Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/drunk-dc-cop-gets-easy-after-shooting-3-transgender-women
A Washington, D.C. police officer who fired multiple shots into a car with three transgender women and their friends is getting off easy, and the transgender community has reacted with outrage.
By Alex Kane
January 11, 2013
A Washington, D.C. police officer who fired multiple shots into a car with three transgender women and their friends is getting off easy. The officer, 48-year-old Kenneth Furr, was sentenced yesterday “to three years of supervised probation, a $150 fine, and 100 hours of community service,” the Washington Blade reports. The transgender community in D.C. has reacted with outrage.
The D.C. Superior Court Judge, Russell Canan, also sentenced Furr “to five years in prison but suspended all but 14 months of the prison term and credited Furr with the 14 months he already served between the time of his arrest and his trial last October,” the publication reported. The officer was released from jail while he awaits sentencing for his conviction on charges of assault and solicitation for prostitution. Furr was acquitted on the more serious charges of assault with intent to kill with a weapon.
The judge also ordered the officer to stay away from D.C.’s well known areas for transgender prostitution.
“This result is the product of a legal system that constantly devalues trans lives, particularly trans people of color,” Jason Terry, an activist with the D.C. Trans Coalition, told the Blade. “Officer Furr’s defense team actively sought to portray the victims as somehow deserving of this violence, and apparently they succeeded. If roles had been reversed and a black trans woman had gotten drunk and shot a gun at a police officer, the results would be drastically different.”
Continue reading at: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/drunk-dc-cop-gets-easy-after-shooting-3-transgender-women
