Washington, D.C., police have made an arrest in the case of the July 4 murder of a young transgender woman.
According to the NBC News4, police arrested 22-year-old Shareem Hall Thursday morning in connection with the shooting death of 22-year-old Deeniquia “DeeDee” Dodds. Interim Police Chief Peter Newsham said there’s no indication that Hall and Dodds knew each other or that her killing was a hate crime.
“In all likelihood, we believe the motive in this case was robbery,” Newsham said in a press conference.
Dodds was shot in the neck and left for dead on the street near her home and was taken off life support 10 days later.
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“Whenever we lose a life in our city, we take it personally,” Newsham said. “We want folks to know that we are going to continue to work to make sure we hold people responsible for this kind of violence on our streets.”
Whether or not hate played a role in the shooting death of the young woman, Dodds’ death reflects the heightened risk of violence faced by transgender women of color.
“We always expect that we’re in harms way, in terms of robberies and assaults and things that happen, but murder? No,” local transgender activist and family friend Earline Budd told the station earlier this summer.
Dodds is believed to be the 15th transgender person murdered in 2016. An estimated 20 transgender people have been killed in the United States so far this year.
