Black Trans Icon Layleen Polanco Discovered Lifeless In Her Jail Cell
Layleen Polanco, a 27-year-old Black trans girl, was discovered lifeless in her jail cell on Rikers Island final week and it’s sparking outrage.
Polanco, also referred to as Layleen Xtravaganza, was arrested in mid-April for allegedly assaulting a cab driver in Harlem and possession of a managed substance. She has been jailed in New York Metropolis’s Rikers Island Jail for almost two months.
Out Journal stories Polanco was discovered unresponsive in her jail cell on the Rose M. Singer girls’s facility on Friday afternoon (June 7). Medics reportedly tried to revive her earlier than she was pronounced lifeless.
The Division of Correction says Polanco was housed in a unit meant to scale back violence towards transgender individuals and promised a full investigation.
“It is a tragic loss and we lengthen our deepest condolences to her household,” commissioner Cynthia Brann mentioned in an announcement, in line with ABC7.
Members of Polanco’s household and the LGBTQ neighborhood deliberate a rally right now (June 10) exterior the New York Felony Court docket constructing to demand justice.
Layleen Xtravaganza was a member of the house-ballroom neighborhood Home of Xtravaganza and has develop into the tenth Black trans girl to die this 12 months.
“This tragic lack of yet one more member of the trans neighborhood comes simply days after the beginning of Pleasure season,” the organizers of Monday’s rally relayed in an announcement. “There isn’t any pleasure available whereas trans people proceed to face an epidemic of deadly violence.
“We demand a full investigation into the dying of Layleen Polanco Xtravaganza and transparency with [the] neighborhood,” the assertion continued.
Melania G Cubilette, Layleen’s sister, has established a GoFundMe to pay for Polanco’s funeral prices. Up to now, it’s raised greater than $12,000 of the preliminary objective of $9,000.
Our ideas are with Layleen Polanco’s household and mates throughout this troublesome time.