According to the Chicago Sun-Times, an 18-year-old has been arrested for the murder of Selena Reyes-Hernandez, a 37-year-old trans woman.
WGN9 reported that Reyes-Hernandez and Orlando Perez came back to her home together at 5:30 a.m. on May 31.
Perez admitted to police on video that when he and Reyes-Hernandez arrived at her apartment in Chicago's Marquette Park neighborhood, he asked her whether she was a woman. Reyes-Hernandez responded that she was trans, and Perez immediately left her apartment.
He came back 20 minutes later with a handgun and shot Reyes-Hernandez in the head and back. He allegedly left shortly after shooting her but went back again minutes later to fire more shots, according to the Sun-Times.
“He thought that was enough so he ran out. But he kept seeing her face, so he went back there to do it again,” Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said during Perez’s bond hearing.
The Chicago Tribune quoted prosecutors who said Perez told them he "kept seeing her face and it kept bothering him and he was mad as hell.”
The gunshots were so loud that a neighbor came to Reyes-Hernandez's apartment and found her body there.
Police arrested Perez on Sunday, and he is being held without bail before his next court date on July 6.
Investigators are unsure of whether the two knew each other before the May 31 incident, but, following the execution of a warrant on Perez's home, police were able to tie the teenager to the shooting using his gun, which held the same kind of bullets found at the scene.
Perez is also seen on security camera footage coming in and out of Reyes-Hernandez's home before and after the shooting.
The Sun-Times reported the Bogan High School senior tried to move Reyes-Hernandez's car after shooting her, believing the police would be searching for it. Police also found a video on Reyes-Hernandez's phone, showing them together in a bathroom before her death.
According to Them.us, there have been at least 15 other reported killings of trans people this year. Violence against trans people, particularly Black and brown trans men and women, continues to be an epidemic in the United States.
Less than a week ago, two Black trans women were killed within 24 hours of each other. Both Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Riah Milton of Liberty Township, Ohio, lost their lives to anti-trans violence as concerns began to be raised about how the national conversation on Black lives needed to include LGBTQ+ Black people.
The Human Rights Campaign, which has been keeping track of the number of anti-trans deaths this year, wrote that in its reporting "at least" is added in front of every number published because "too often these stories go unreported — or misreported."
"In 2019, advocates tracked at least 27 deaths of at least transgender or gender non-conforming people in the U.S. due to fatal violence, the majority of whom were Black transgender women. These victims, like all of us, are loving partners, parents, family members, friends and community members. They worked, went to school and attended church. They were real people — people who did not deserve to have their lives taken from them," a statement on the organization's website reads.
"Some of these cases involve clear anti-transgender bias. In others, the victim’s transgender status may have put them at risk in other ways, such as forcing them into unemployment, poverty, homelessness and/or survival sex work. While the details of these cases differ, it is clear that fatal violence disproportionately affects transgender women of color — particularly Black transgender women — and that the intersections of racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and unchecked access to guns conspire to deprive them of employment, housing, healthcare and other necessities," the statement adds.
Just weeks after Reyes-Hernandez was killed, Chicago held the Drag March for Change, where dozens of Black speakers discussed how they felt left out of the wider LGBTQ+ community in the city due to their race.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot tweeted about Reyes-Hernandez's death on Wednesday.
Black and Brown Trans lives matter. Selena Reyes-Hernandez's life matters. The lives of countless other murdered Trans women matter. Being outraged is not enough. We must fight and fight hard to keep our Trans community protected and demand their attackers are brought to justice. https://t.co/S0Ruv5wGpv
— Mayor Lori Lightfoot (@chicagosmayor) June 18, 2020
"Black and Brown Trans lives matter. Selena Reyes-Hernandez's life matters. The lives of countless other murdered Trans women matter. Being outraged is not enough. We must fight and fight hard to keep our Trans community protected and demand their attackers are brought to justice," Lightfoot said.
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