On Monday, April 30, Chrishuan “CeCe” McDonald, a transgender woman will stand trial for second-degree murder resulting from a fight she was involved in stemming from an fight she was involved in at a Minneapolis bar. However friends of McDonald, claim she is the victim of yet another hate crime — a sexually and racially based one.
The facts: Two white women and a white man reportedly began harassing McDonald and four of her trans friends, calling them racial and homophobic slurs. One woman allegedly injured McDonald badly, when she hit her in her face with a beer mug. When 47-year-old Dean Schmitz escalated the attack, in an apparent act of self-defense, McDonald’s stabbed him with a pair of scissors she pulled from her purse.
Police arrested McDonald at the scene before taking her for medical treatment where she received 11 stitches The young woman received 11 stitches after her salivary gland was lacerated and the side of her cheek was sliced open by the beer mug. McDonald was later placed in solitary confinement after being questioned without the benefit of counsel.
Legal experts question law enforcement officials decision to charge only McDonald in the incident, stating that it’s a case of racial and homophobic provocation. The Hennepin county medical examiner also found a Nazi swastika tattoo on Schmitz’s chest.
McDonald now faces up to 80 years in prison if convicted of the second degree murder with intent charges.
Supporters of the young woman have started a website to Support CeCe and encourage those who hear this story to sign a petition to have the prosecution drop the charges.
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