LA Po-Po's Looking For Suspects Who Assaulted Trans Person

Damn, can a trans person just peaceably go about their lives without being jacked with?


The Los Angeles Police Department is searching for five suspects in as they called it an 'unusually vicious'  assault on a 25 year old transperson in Hollywood that left the victim bloody, battered and with a broken cheek and jawbone.

To add insult to injury, the KTLA-TV report misgenders the victim as a 'transgender woman'.

News flash, a transgender woman is a male to female transperson or transwoman who presents herself in the female gender role.   A 'transgender man'  or transman is a female to male transperson who presents himself in the male gender role.  

Such a simple, straightforward concept that you media peeps continue to screw up.


The 5'4" and 125 pound transman lives in the San Fernando Valley and had just departed a bar near the intersection of La Brea and Melrose avenues in the wee hours of October 1.

The transman was attacked by three ciswomen and two cismen, and according to witnesses, the attackers were beating and kicking the victim in the middle of the street, said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Mitzi Grasso. The victim was kicked in the face and was hit on the head with a bottle, leaving cuts on the victim's neck before fleeing in a white Chevy Suburban.

Police has not classified this attack as a hate crime, but the investigation is continuing to find the waste of DNA who did it.

So help the LA Police out.   Anyone with information about this case is asked to call the LAPD Wilshire Division's Major Assault Crimes Section at (213) 922-9234 or (213) 922-8268. During non-business hours or weekends, callers can try 1-877-LAPD-24-7 or anonymously contact Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS, (800)-222-8477.

Tipsters may also contact Crimestoppers by texting 274637 (C-R-I-M-E-S on most key pads) using a cellphone. All text messages should begin with the acronym LAPD. Tipsters can also go to www.LAPDOnline.org, click on "web tips" and follow the prompts.

New York's Greenwich Village Halloween Parade

As much as I traveled to New York during my Air Marshal days, I never got a chance to actually see live what has become a Halloween tradition, the Village Halloween Parade.

It was founded in 1974 by Ralph Lee, with assistance from George Bartenieff and Crystal Field of the Theater of New York and coordinated by the trio for its first two years.

The spectacle of people in over 100 masks, street performers, giant puppets and others winding their way through the narrow streets of the Greenwich Village neighborhood from West Street to Washington Square not only took the neighborhood by surprise, but many people joined in the festivities.

The open participation to anyone in a costume who wishes to march has helped it grow to become a wildly popular event in New York to the point where a non profit corporation was formed in 1976 to help coordinate it
Even after the 9-11 terror attack, when events were being canceled all over the city, this parade was one of the few events held in New York during that time period at the insistence of then Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and actually gave birth to another tradition, the Dancing Skeletons puppets that lead the parade.  



It was even used a a rallying point in 2005 for New Orleans Katrina evacuees staying in the area.   That parade featured a New Orleans style jazz funeral, secondliners, the Rebirth Jazz Band and lanterns depicting New Orleans landmarks and the Magnolia housing project in the Ninth Ward.

So what will the theme be this year?    You'll have to tune in to find out.

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Finnie's Halloween Balls

One of the things I was fascinated to discover when I started perusing the digital copies of EBONY and JET magazines that are now online thanks to Google's deal with Johnson Publishing Company was that they covered the Finnie's Halloween drag ball in Chicago and another affair at the Rockland Palace in New York.

Finnie's Ball got its start in 1935, and quickly became a must attend event for gay and straight South Side denizens.   It blew up to the point that it was attended by thousands of people and was featured in a 1952 EBONY magazine article on it and a similar event in New York.

Through the 50's, 60's and 70's if you peruse the issues of JET published in November it was almost a given that pictures of the drag kings and queens from the Finnie's Ball would be appearing on its pages.

Alfred Finnie didn't live long enough to see the ball he started grow to become the elaborate must attend Halloween event it did and garner the media coverage it did for decades.   

But seeing these pictures of Halloweens past is making me wonder if they will be having any type of ball on the South Side tonight?