Photo via @waterspider__/Twitter
July 19, 2021, 11:20 am
Video of a woman keeling over after being shot at point-blank range with a rubber-coated bullet by a police officer is spreading online, adding fire to widespread calls to defund and demilitarize police forces in the U.S. The woman can be heard repeatedly shouting “don’t shoot” at a line of cops pointing various less-lethal weapons at a crowd of people on the sidewalk for reasons which are not entirely clear.
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The crowds and police were in the area due to a hateful anti-trans protest outside of a spa where there was an incident involving a cisgender woman loudly complaining that there was a trans woman in the changing rooms— something that police now suspect was a hoax to begin with. However, the video of this shouty cis woman was enough to rile up transphobic forces in the area, resulting in a protest against the spa and a corresponding counter-protest.
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As is now a common sight across the country, police soon became violent with those who were counter-protesting against bigotry.
The Wi Spa in Los Angeles has said that while no transgender customers were recorded as having appointments at their establishment on the day the incident occurred, but regardless are supportive of their trans clients. Unfortunately, reactionary networks including mainstream right-wing media outlets have ignored the evidence of the whole thing being a hoax and have used it as a lightning rod for spreading bigotry-fueled conspiracy theories.
Transphobes protesting the spa brought along signs with slogans like “Save Our Children,” which is a notorious QAnon slogan based on their theory that the Democrats are running an international child trafficking ring. What this has to do with some random spa in LA is unclear, but the bigoted assumption that trans women and other LGBTQ+ persons are all pedophiles is an old one among the political right and predates QAnon itself.
Why any of this should culminate in a cop shooting a woman in the gut by a rubber-coated bullet from just a few feet away is beyond all reasonable comprehension, but here we are.
The LAPD, already under fire for blowing up an entire street in a botched attempt to show off their failed explosive containment truck, reportedly declared an unlawful assembly after transphobes and counter-protesters started getting physical with people around noon on Saturday.
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When some refused to disperse, officers became violent. One on-the-ground reporter caught footage of an officer stomping on and ripping a trans pride flag from its pole, which counter-protesters have pointed to as exactly the kind of reason why they refused orders to leave.
People want to say this wasn’t a demonstration about transgender rights? Here’s @LAPDHQ, after defending transphobes, destroying a transgender flag.
Anybody who reports on Wi Spa without mentioning the transphobia at play by the far right & LAPD are disingenuous.
caropej (IG) pic.twitter.com/1BzVYRQvb7
— Vishal P. Singh (@VPS_Reports) July 17, 2021
Police reportedly arrested 38 people as a result of them declaring the demonstrations unlawful. It’s unclear how many of these were right-wing transphobes and how many were supporters of the rights of trans women to use services available to everybody else. Guardian journalist Lois Beckett recorded video of the anti-trans protesters throwing water and bottles at her as they chased her away, saying that police would not offer her refuge until the crowd threw her to the ground.
The LAPD has not commented on the shooting of the woman in the video or said if she was seriously injured by the attack. Rounds referred to as “rubber bullets” are metal rounds coated in a rubber polymer that can and have killed when striking people in the chest or head at close range, including further away from the victims than what is seen in this video from LA.
*First Published: July 19, 2021, 11:20 am
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