A transgender woman in Buffalo, N.Y. was fatally shot Tuesday, becoming the third known trans person to be killed in 2018, GLAAD reports.
The death of Tonya Harvey, who was shot in the early evening, could be treated as a hate crime, according to the Buffalo News.
The Buffalo police originally misidentified Harvey, 35, as male, before correcting their initial statement in a new report.
“The Erie County District Attorney’s Office, along with Buffalo Police, is investigating the death of a transgender woman killed on Shepard Street,” a spokeswoman said in a press statement to the Huffington Post. “The DA’s Office is also extremely concerned about a spike in homicides of transgender people across the country and will be, as part of this investigation, looking into whether or not this is a potential hate crime.”
GLAAD has been keeping count of transgender people killed this year. Harvey was added to their list Thursday, alongside 42-year-old Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien, who was killed on Jan. 5 in Massachusetts, and Viccky Gutierrez, who was killed on Jan. 10 in Los Angeles.
“The hatred, the bigotry and the aggressive attacks on trans people is almost an everyday occurrence in our lives,” Buffalo transgender advocate Ari Moore told the Buffalo New