A transwoman was shot by the police on a Pacoima -Motel last month after she called 911 for help and then approached officers with a knife, according to video images released on Sunday by the police of Los Angeles.
Linda Becerra Moran, 30, died on 27 February after weeks of livelihood, so that her friends and proponents of the community were shaken.
Becerra Moran had told an emergency operator that she was abducted in the 10000 block of San Fernando Road on the morning of 7 February.
Images of the meeting showed officers who spoke in Spanish with a desperate Becerra Moran in the moments prior to the shooting, while they pulled their weapons while they walked in a motel room and stood in the doorway. They opened the fire after she slowly went to them, the video turned out.
Becerra Moran had reported to be held against her will in the Motelkamer as a possible victim of sex trade, said Soma Snakeoil, executive director of the Sidewalk Project, a non -profit Skid Row non -profit.
After the shooting, Becerra Moran was admitted to the hospital after the shooting, Snakeoil said, and the decision to end the livelihood was approved by the ethical committee of the hospital where she was treated after attempts to reach family members in her native Ecuador were unsuccessful. The office of the Medical Examiner from La County said that information about the case was limited because “legally besides relatives were not informed.” The LAPD did not recognize death for more than a week.
Becerra Moran left almost no online presence and mystery surrounds how she ended up in the Motel of San Fernando Valley where the police shot her.
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“This has such hair -raising connotations for survivors in LA – if they are afraid to call 911, if they are afraid that the police will shoot them when they call 911,” Snakeoil said.
The LAPD identified the officer who is responsible for the shooting such as Jacob Sanchez, a four -year departmental veteran who is currently assigned to Foothill Division.
So far, authorities have released few additional details about the deadly encounter, including whether they held Becerra Moran's alleged prisoner when they arrived.
In her conversation with a 911 dispatcher, a desperately sounding Becerra Moran is heard that a man in another room held her against her will and brought other men into the room.
“I swear for you, I have no reason to lie to you. Lord Jesus Christ,” she is sobbing in the phone.
“Do they force you to do this?” the dispatcher asks.
“Yes,” replies Becerra Moran.
A coordinator then set a warning to perform police units about a possible kidnapping and a person who was a “danger to himself”, the police said.
The video released by the police shows a group of officers who enter the room and ask Becerra Moran to sit on the bed while showing a wound that she has on the back of the head to become “many times” with a bottle.
Later, the officer who investigated her head on injuries to his colleagues suggests that the officers have to place her on mental health care “.
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When a supervisor arrives, she gets upset and demands that they stay away from her, sob and shout against the officers to leave.
“No, if you offered to help, I don't want your help,” she shouts at them. “What does she say?” the supervisor asks. She then starts pushing a mini fridge in their direction, before she grabs a knife and holds it against her neck, allowing officers to pull their weapons.
When she went in their direction, Sanchez opened the fire and fell on the bed.
As with all LAPD shoots, the incident will also be assessed by the Police Committee, the Inspector General and the office of the public prosecutor.
Snakeoil, whose organization offers services for unhuised people, said that at the end of 2023 she met Becerra Moran in Macarthur Park for the first time, when the police warned a serial killer who seemed to focus on the homeless.
At the time, Becerra Moran was “fleeing sexual violence,” Snakeoil said, and the organization worked to temporarily accommodate her in local motels. But she never stayed in one place for too long and drove between Westlake and Hollywood.
In Los Angeles County, Snakeoil said, his shelter beds for female survivors Schaars, especially for those who are transmen or who struggle with mental health.
Kim Soriano, a researcher at the Sidewalk project, recalls Becerra Moran for her independent mental.
“She was just determined to survive. She was very resilient; as if she knew what she wanted and she knew what she liked and what made her comfortable,” said Soriano, who encountered her as she investigated her dissertation in the police treatment of Trans and Queer people in Macarthur Park.
A pious Catholic, Becerra Moran owned a five-pound of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who took most of the space in the battered suitcase that she dragged around.
“She told me she had worn it everywhere and it offered her protection,” said Soriano. Once, she remembered, Becerra Moran said about the statue: “Be careful with her because she has taken a long way with me.”
In the course of the months they tied themselves, Soriano said, often talking about Becerra Moran who navigated life as a transwriter of color who supported himself as a sex worker while lived on the street. For her, threats were everywhere. Gangs. Drugs. Police.
Soriano said that Becerra Moran was one of the Park -Stam guests who expressed a resentment of the acceptance of law enforcement. Just like the others, she was swept by the seemingly endless clean -up aimed at drug use and theft in the area – tents were dismantled, possessions seized and people forced to leave. And yet she finally felt that the police were there for protection, Soriano said.
“She called them when she needed help because she was held hostage and traded and they met her with even more violence,” said Soriano. “Maybe she believed that they would be a kind of lifeline for her.”
Becerra Moran had received a home voucher, but “no one had placed her everywhere” given the shortage of the city of short shelter and housing options, Soriano said. Eventually, with the help of Soriano, she took care of a bed in a hiding place in the area.
She didn't stay long. She was frustrated because she had thrown some of her possessions away by reception staff shortly after withdrawing, Soriano said. She also remembered that Becerra Moran felt unsafe after he was placed in a room in a room with three other residents.
When Becerra Moran ended up on the street again and lost her phone, Soriano became without contact.
Soriano said she kept doing her outreach in Macarthur Park, hoping to meet Becerra Moran again. She never did that.
Leigh Laquapelle, an associated director at the Coalition to abolish slavery and human trafficking, said that the matter of Becerra Moran was a reminder why the police are not the answer to helping survivors of human trafficking. In recent years, law enforcement agencies have announced that modest alignment to curb the company along well -known 'tracks'.
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“They see them through the lens of crime instead of vulnerability and treat them as people who need support,” said LAKAPELLE. “I am so worried that this is written off as an error or as a kind of exception.”
Snakeoil, from the Sidewalk project, said that she visited Becerra Moran several times in the hospital and offered words of encouragement from her bed – praying that Becerra Moran could hear them from under a jumble of pipes that kept her alive. During the visits, the room stayed under two LAPD officers, Snakeoil said.
At one point she noticed that Becerra Moran's cherished Virgin of Guadalupe figure was nowhere to be found. A sidewalk project employee rushed away to buy a replacement, placed that snake toilet next to the hospital bed. It stayed there when Snakeoil said goodbye.
“We are angry,” said Snakeoil. “This is a vulnerable woman and a survivor of violence.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
