Tampa – Police are trying to find out what happened to a 25-year-old transgender woman whose body was found at a Tampa community center playground July 21.
Samuel Clarke, who identified as female and went by the name India, was discovered by an employee of the University Area Community Center as it was being opened just before 9 A.M.
Clarke had suffered blunt-force trauma to her upper body, according to the police report.
“We are working on some leads,” says Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Larry McKinnon, who identifies India with male pronouns. “We look at the fact that he might be a transgender as a possible factor in the homicide, but we look at all factors. We have to look if it is drug related, prostitution related, is it robbery related. The fact he was a transgender, there’s nothing to indicate he was murdered solely because he was or was not a transgender.”
Investigators are waiting on an autopsy to be completed before they release an exact cause of death.
Clarke’s death marks at least 10 transgender women murders in the United States, the second in Florida, so far in 2015. All but one of the victims were black or Latina. This according to an issue brief released by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Trans People of Color Coalition (TPOCC).
“The level of violence targeting transgender people, particularly transgender women of color, is a national crisis that the LGBT movement has a responsibility to confront,” says HRC President Chad Griffin in the issue brief. “This issue reveals how far we still have to go in order to ensure that all members of the LGBT community have equal access to basic dignity and fair treatment.”
The brief mentions how local media routinely misidentify the genders of victims and often police emphasize victims’ arrest records to diminish and miscast the lives of the murdered.
McKinnon says local media outlets are accusing the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office of being insensitive by not addressing Clarke as female within police reports and in statements.
“I’m telling you that his biological birth status was a male,” McKinnon said. “I’m not insensitive one way or the other to transgender, transsexual, transvestite, trans whatever. From a law enforcement perspective we just have to look and find out who brutally killed this guy or this person, this human being and find justice for his family and I think that’s what’s important.”
Police are investigating Clarke’s death as a homicide, but are not treating it as a hate crime.
“We’re not going to diminish our resolve to find the killer of a person who happened to be in the middle of a drug deal that went bad and got killed,” McKinnon said. “We’re not swayed either way by his sexual orientation, we just want to find the killer because he’s still a human being who deserves justice, just as his family does and that’s how we roll.”
Detectives are asking for anyone with any information to call the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office at 813-247-8200. Anyone with any information regarding the identity and whereabouts of any suspect(s) and who wants to be eligible for a cash reward should call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-873-TIPS (8477) or report anonymously online at www.crimestopperstb.com.
