25 Year-Old Transgender Taxi Driver Fatally Shot in New Year’s Murder
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The McAlester, Oklahoma Police Department is seeking a suspect in the New Year’s Day murder of taxi driver Dustin Parker, who was 25 years-old and transgender.
According to Tulsa World, “The shooting occurred in the 200 block of West Delaware Avenue about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, Capt. Kevin Hearod of the McAlester Police Department said. A responding officer found a Rover electric taxi that had been hit by gunfire multiple times, Hearod said. Dustin Parker, 25, was found dead in the driver’s seat.”
“We’ve still got investigators out running down leads right now,” Hearod said. “(Parker was) just a working man, making a living for his family, and he didn’t get to come home.”
Parker, who was transgender, was a founding member of Oklahomans for Equality McAlester, according to a post on the group’s Facebook page.
Police have yet to find any evidence suggesting that Dustin Parker’s shooting was motivated by his gender identity. “Right now, it doesn’t look that way,” Hearod told the World. “But obviously, we’re not taking anything off the table. … We don’t have anything indicating that right now.”
Nationally, at least 24 transgender or gender-nonconforming people were killed in 2019, the Human Rights Campaign reported. The National Center for Transgender Equality reports on its website that “transgender people face extraordinary levels of physical and sexual violence, whether on the streets, at school or work, at home, or at the hands of government officials. More than one in four trans people has faced a bias-driven assault.”
