Rayanna Pardo, a 26-year-old trans woman, was killed in Los Angeles after being hit by a drunk driver when trying to escape a group of harassers. According to CBS Los Angeles, Pardo was seen on surveillance footage from March 17, where she was being followed by a group of people before entering the road and being struck by a car. Her family said the group was harassing her, and want investigators to treat the incident as a hate crime and examine the possibility that she was pushed into the road.
Following her death, a candlelit vigil was held in her honour, organised by local activist group, the Trans Latina Coalition. Her brother, Armando Rangel Jr., mourned the loss of Pardo and hopes for violence against trans people to come to an end, saying: “Everybody should just love everybody. At the end of the day, all we have is one another.” Although the group of people following Pardo have not been identified, the driver has been charged with driving under influence.
If Pardo’s death is ruled as a homicide, she will be the 12th known trans person in the US to have been killed this year. Last year saw 44 trans deaths in the country, making 2020 the deadliest year on record for trans Americans. Pardo’s death comes only two weeks after another trans woman of colour, Diamond ‘Kyree’ Sanders, died in Cincinnati after being shot. Tori Cooper of the Human Rights Campaign is fearful that 2021 will be even more deadly than last year: “If this alarming rate of fatal violence persists, we will either match or surpass last year’s total number of 44 deaths.”
