A North Philadelphia man has been charged with the murder of Mia Green, a transgender woman who was fatally shot earlier this week.
Officers pulled over a Jeep Wrangler just after 8 a.m. Monday after it blew threw a stop sign at 41st Street and Westminster Avenue in West Philadelphia, authorities said.
Green, 29, who was in the passenger’s seat, had a wound to her neck, and the driver, 28-year-old Abdullah Ibn El-Amin Jaamia, told the officers that she had been shot, police said. She died less than a half-hour later at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.
Jaamia was arrested Tuesday and charged with murder, possession of an instrument of crime with intent, obstruction, lying to authorities, tampering with evidence and reckless endangerment. He was held without bail, according to court records.
Investigators have not provided a motive for the killing, but the city’s Office of LGBT Affairs called it “a somber reminder of the epidemic of violence against trans individuals.”
“Violence against transgender people—especially trans women of color—is a crisis in this country,” Mayor Jim Kenney said on social media. “We’re glad a suspect was quickly arrested and charged.”
The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group, has documented 28 transgender or gender nonconforming people that have been killed in 2020, the most at this point in the year since the group started tracking violence in 2013.
A majority of the victims have been Black and Latina transgender women. Green was Black.
In June, the dismembered body of 28-year-old Dominique Fells, also Black transgender woman, was found in the Schuylkill River.
“It is a crisis that cannot be allowed to persist any further,” the Office of LGBT Affairs said in a statement.
“The countless painful losses experienced during this year alone—especially within our transgender communities of color— remind us that there is much work to be done in the pursuit of full equality, respect, and justice for us all,” it continued.
Last week, the District Attorney’s Office charged a woman for her involvement in a brutal group beating of a transgender woman in August that started outside and migrated inside the victim’s Point Breeze home.
Seven injured in shootings Tuesday night
Five people were injured when gunfire erupted in Logan, and two others were shot in separate incidents Tuesday night.
Officers were called to the 4500 block of N. 19th Street just after 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, where they found a 34-year-old man who has been shot twice in the abdomen. He was rushed by police to Temple University Hospital, where he is in critical condition.
They also transported a 45-year-old man who had been shot in the left arm and foot and a 34-year-old man who had been struck in his pinky finger. Both are in stable condition at Einstein Medical Center, police said.
Two other victims, a 53-year-old man and a 31-year-old man, showed up to Temple Hospital in a private vehicle. Neither had life-threatening injuries, according to authorities.
Just before 11:45 p.m., a 24-year-old man arrived at Temple Hospital with a gunshot wound to his left leg, police said. He told investigators that he was shot on the 2900 block of Kip Street in Kensington by someone inside a silver Nissan.
The victim is in stable condition, authorities said.
In North Philadelphia, a 34-year-old man was shot in the buttocks at around 9:45 p.m. on the 1600 block of N. 17th Street, police said. He is being treated for nonlife-threatening injuries.
Authorities reported no arrests in connection with any of the shootings.
