Number 9 of 2017

 photo chay_zpssk5lcgs3.jpgTransgender woman Chay Reed, 28, was shot and killed in the Miami-Dade community of West Little River on Friday. Reed grew up in Carol City and Opa-locka, FL and graduated from American Senior High School in Hialeah.

A witness, whose home surveillance footage is being reviewed by detectives, told Local 10 News Reporter Layron Livingston that he saw several people down the sidewalk sometime before 5 a.m.

He said one person started running across the street and then he heard six to seven gunshots.

He said he saw one person fall to the ground.

Several shell casings were found at the scene.

Police originally misgendered the victim...until they were corrected by family and friends of Reed.

The shooter fled the scene and is unknown. There is also no known motive, according to authorities.

On Saturday, her friends and relatives remembered her courage and sense of humor when she challenged the norms and came out as transgender.

Reed's social media profiles said she loved the Oscar-winning film "Moonlight" and was passionate about spoken word, fashion and cosmetology.

On Facebook, her friends Di'Angelis Brookins and Alexis Smith described her as "so sweet," and Kendra Lockhart said she was a "good person."

My heart is so broken ... we have lost such a wonderful person.

--Lizleime Fernandez

She was a light, always trying to make everyone around her happy. I don’t even remember her getting into anything. I don’t remember seeing her in an altercation out there with anybody in a bad way. I’ve never seen that.

Longtime friend, Patina Peterson

Reed, who was sometimes referred to by the nickname, Juicy, is the ninth known transgender woman to be a victim of a homicide this year.

In another case, murder charges in South Florida were dropped against a transgender woman only identified as Ms. Campbell, when it was determined that the deceased man both stalked and attacked Ms. Campbell and that she stabbed the man in self defense.

Campbell and her attorney argued that if she was a cisgender woman, she would not have been charged with murder. “I do feel like that it may have been different if it was a woman in my situation,” Campbell told NBC 6. Her attorney, Herbert Erving Walker III, also supported this belief saying, “I think it’s without question that if [she] were a biological female, this case would be handled differently.”

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