Chicago’s LGBT community and its allies are mourning the loss of a recent homicide victim who they say identified as a transgender woman.
Known to friends and family as Tiara Richmond or Keke Collier, the 24-year-old was shot and killed Tuesday about 6:15 a.m. while sitting in a car with a man in Englewood. The gunman fled from the 7300 block of South May Street in a red vehicle, police said.
An autopsy determined Richmond, of the 6800 block of South Normal Boulevard in Englewood, died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
"She loved to dance all the time," said Retta Collins, 26, a good friend of Richmond who knew her for nearly a decade. "She was always the life of the party. Even when we got into fights, she didn’t want to fight."
LaSaia Wade, a transgender rights activist, said she met with Richmond’s family and attended a candlelight vigil with them Wednesday night in Englewood.
Richmond’s family, which includes two sisters and a brother, accepted her for who she was, Wade said. Her family could not be reached Wednesday night.
"It was beautiful," Wade, 29, said of the vigil. "They partied, they laughed, they cried trying to remember and hold on to the memories of Keke and knowing that she was loved."
Richmond’s slaying marks the second killing of a transgender woman in Chicago in six months.
Grandbetting Transgender women of color protest violence, racism after Chicago slaying Angie Leventis Lourgos
The protesters linked arms and formed a chain at Belmont Avenue and Halsted Street, chanting “transgender power” and “black power” over the honking Lakeview traffic they were intentionally blocking.
“We have nothing to lose but our chains,” the 160 or so activists yelled late Wednesday as Chicago…
The protesters linked arms and formed a chain at Belmont Avenue and Halsted Street, chanting “transgender power” and “black power” over the honking Lakeview traffic they were intentionally blocking.
“We have nothing to lose but our chains,” the 160 or so activists yelled late Wednesday as Chicago…
(Angie Leventis Lourgos)
On Sept. 11, T.T. Saffore, 28, was found with her throat slit lying near rail road tracks in the 4500 block of West Monroe Street in West Garfield Park.
Two rallies in the city are planned that will both honor Richmond and respond to Trump’s recent rollback of federal protections enacted by the Obama administration for transgender students using bathrooms in public schools.
"It’s a political mess," said Wade, a black transgender woman who runs a nonprofit that helps other gender nonconforming people. "(Trump) pretty much said he is not protecting trans students anymore and also with these last two deaths of Keke and T.T., we need to reunite the transgender and gender nonconforming community now more than ever."
In an earlier Tribune story, police and the medical examiner’s office identified Richmond with the first name Donnell.
Echerney@chicagotribune.com
Twitter: @ElyssaCherney
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