The death of a transgender man in Puerto Rico sparks outrage in local LGBT+ community

Samuel Edmund Damián Valentín
  • Puerto Rican police are investigating the death of a transgender man found in Trujillo Alto last week.

  • Local news outlet WAPA reported that a driver hit what she thought was an object on the road, but then realized it was a dead body with multiple gunshot wounds.

  • The Human Rights Campaign reports that at least 12 LGBTQ people were violently killed in Puerto Rico since the beginning of 2019, including six transgender or gender non-conforming people who were killed there in 2020.

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A woman was driving just south of San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the early hours of January 9 when she hit what she thought was an object.

When she got out of the car, she realized it was a dead body with multiple gunshot wounds, local news WAPA reported.

The victim was identified as Samuel Edmund Damián Valentín. Puerto Rican police initially reported the murder of a woman, but his friends and family confirmed to Noticentro that Damián Valentín was a trans man.

Lieutenant José Padín, director of homicides for the criminal investigation unit in neighboring Carolina, told the San Juan Daily Star, "His mom told me that he would always prefer for others to call him Samuel, Sam or Sammy."

Police are investigating the killing and didn't have any other information to add.

The Human Rights Campaign reports that at least 12 LGBTQ people in Puerto Rico have been violently killed since the beginning of 2019.

In 2020, at least six trans people were killed and identified as Alexa Negrón Luciano, Yampi Méndez Arocho, Serena Angelique Velázquez Ramos, Layla Pelaez Sánchez, Penélope Díaz Ramírez, and Michelle/Michellyn Ramos Vargas.

Human rights activist Pedro Juilo Serrano called on police to address the wave of homophobic and transphobic violence. In a statement on Serrano's website, he said the police and Department of Justice don't identify LGBTTIQ+ people in their incident reports.

"Samuel was misgendered in initial reports, something that was called out by activists. Police fail to comply with their protocols and ignore, make invisible and minimize the wave of homophobic and transphobic violence that haunts us like never before," Serrano tweeted.

Madison Hall and Canela López contributed reporting.

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