CROWN HEIGHTS — A transgender woman was threatened with death outside her apartment building in Crown Heights this week, police said, the second hate crime to take place within a week in the neighborhood.
Officials said that the 26-year-old woman was on her way home to her building near Kingston and Lefferts avenues Tuesday, July 6 at 10:30 p.m. when a group of men blocked her and a friend from entering the front door.
The group hurled racial epithets and homophobic slurs at the woman, then told her they would kill her, officials said.
The woman, who was not identified by police, and her friend left the building and were not physically harmed during the altercation, sources said.
The incident is being investigated by the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force, the department said. No arrests have been made as of Friday.
The incident came less than a week after a 36-year-old man was beaten with a rock and called anti-gay slurs by a group of people at the corner of Utica Avenue and Carroll Street, about six blocks from Tuesday’s crime.
Two people were arrested in that case and four other suspects are still at large, prosecutors said.
On Thursday, Crown Heights leaders and LGBTQ rights advocates condemned that incident, encouraging Brooklynites to call out such acts of violence.
“I’ve heard from too many members of the gay and lesbian and transgender community here in Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant who do not feel comfortable in their own communities. This is unacceptable,” said Public Advocate Letitia James at the press conference.
Anyone with information about either crime is encouraged to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).
Take a look at crime trends in Crown Heights in the below map, compiled by DNAinfo New York using the most recent data from the NYPD:
