News (USA)

Transgender hatchet attack victim faces sex assault charges

Transgender hatchet attack victim faces sex assault charges
Photo: WBTV

A North Carolina transgender woman who was attacked with a hatchet earlier this week has been charged with statutory sexual assault against a minor suspect in the attack.

Ralayzia Taylor, 24, told police she was attacked in broad daylight in a Charlotte park, and officers promptly arrested three teenagers —18-year-olds Destiny Dagraca and Dajion Tanner and a 15-year-old boy — and charged them with attempted murder. Her injuries required dozens of stitches.

Taylor initially speculated that the attack was a robbery turned hate crime, saying that the suspects used gay slurs while cutting her.

“They probably just wanted to rob someone that day and then when they found out I was a transgender, it got worse,” Taylor said. The teens chased her into a wooded area, she said, yelling slurs and swinging the hatchet at her back while attempting to rob her.

But she later told police that she performed a sex act on the 15-year-old suspect earlier in the day, WSOC-TV reports.

“What we’ve learned, this is not a random act of violence,” Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said Friday. “There was an agreed upon meeting in the park that day.”

But police did not say that the attack was in retaliation for the sex crime.

“There’s information that leads us to believe that there’s potential drug activity involved,” explained Lt. Tom Barry, “we’re still putting those details together.”

Watch an earlier interview with the victim of the hatchet attack below.

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