A transgender taxi driver was found shot to death in his car recently in McAlester, Oklahoma, according to NBC.
Dustin Parker was only 25 when his life was tragically cut short. He was a married man and a father of our children. McAlester police responded to a 911 call in the morning of New Year’s Day and they found him dead in his car with the windows shot out. John Browne, mayor of McAlester said that the police and law enforcement are doing everything they can do find who committed this crime. He also said that “McAlester lost a supremely nice person who had such a positive outlook in his life” and that Parker loved his job as it allowed him to help people. It’s tragic that the year ended just as soon as it started for Parker and I do hope that McAlester law enforcement finds out who did this because nobody deserves to be killed, especially if they did nothing wrong.
Brian West, owner of Rover Taxi, the company that employed Parker said that he was the first person to be hired in the company. West called Parker and said that he had an idea to build a company and Parker helped build Rover Taxi, which shows that he really does enjoy helping people. The two also worked together to launch the McAlester chapter of Oklahomans for Equality last May. West commented that he felt that Parker was family.
West referred to Parker as an “awesome person” and that he couldn’t have been a better friend or employee.
According to TulsaWorld.com, McAlester police said that they don’t suspect this to be a hate crime. Captain Kevin Hearod said that “Right now, it doesn’t look that way… but obviously, we’re not taking anything off the table. We don’t have anything indicating that right now.” I don’t know the person who did this or the motivation behind this killing, but I’m always suspicious when a transgender person is murdered for no reason, as trans people are overrepresented in violence and killing statistics. What do you think? Do you believe that this was a hate crime or just senseless violence? Personally I don’t think most people would go up to someone sitting in their car and shoot them to death, but I could be wrong.
Source: NBC , TulsaWorld.com