Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Cross-Dresser Doused With Gasoline

A 38-year old male cross-dresser was doused with gasoline by a 42-year woman who threatened to set him on fire according to the Star's Vic Ryckaert. He writes:

Jacqueline Dejournett, 42, 100 block of Detroit Street, faces initial charges of battery and criminal recklessness. She is being held without bond this morning, Marion County Jail records show.

Dejournett was arguing with Cece Miller, 38, at the Admiral Gas Station, 1435 E. Washington St., about 10:40 p.m.

Dejournett, according to a police report, filled a plastic jug with gasoline and doused Miller with fuel while threatening to light Miller on fire. Miller, police said, was dressed in woman's clothes.

The news story doesn't tell us whether Miller and Dejournett knew each other, or whether Dejournett was motivated to commit the act because of Miller's transgender status.

6 comments:

Jeff Cox said...

I normally don't agree with hate crimes legislation, but I may have to reconsider after this case if it turns out to be what it appears to be at first blush. Crimes like this have a very chilling effect on the transgendered.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Today's Star omits any reference to the victim being a cross-dresser, unlike the online version of the story posted yesterday.

Marla R. Stevens said...

Lest more like procynic be so moved, no doubt.

Hate crimes legislation is so ordinary. Consideration of motive has always been an important and necessary aspect of criminal prosecution. It's not a violation of free speech, after all, to distinguish between premeditation and heat of passion based on expression.

Further, the greater the crime, the more punishment for the crime -- and crimes with hate motivators affect not only the one we ordinarily would perceive as the victim but, as procynic is now grasping, the entire class to which the victim is perceived to belong and they tend to be more violent and they are emotionally more difficult for the victim to recover from. Greater crimes currently in Indiana are thus being illogically under-punished.

Further, these crimes tend to be progressive in nature and catching and appropriately punishing the teen vandal for the full extent of his crime and not just the seeming pranklike misdemeanor has been established to radically reduce his likelihood of being a hate murderer in his mid-twenties.

That this is so logical only serves to illuminate that the predominant reason we do not have hate crimes penalties laws on the books now is because we would not let it be passed sans inclusion of those with the highest per capita incidence of hate crimes committed against them -- gays and the transgendered. I'd prefer act to kill the bills -- and was forced to more than once -- rather than let them pass with the message that it was open season in Indiana on the most vulnerable.

Indiana now has a legal situation where criminals get a free pass on the bias aspect of their crimes and the state merely has to get the count right -- and, from what I've seen, nobody's really making them do that failing instead to use the best tool to establish need for passage of penalties legislation we could give you at the time.

It is long past time for the establishment of a stand-alone LGBTQQIA anti-violence/police-community relations organization in Indiana so this vital work does not continue to fall through the cracks.

Anonymous said...

Not that I can personally vouch, but rumor on the street has it that both the victim and the perpetrator were "working girls" with a business dispute that got taken to the gas station.

At least the E Washington site would not be inconsistent with that, and being the curious type I did take it upon myself to examine Dejournette's online rap sheet (thanks CivicNet) which is the figurative "mile long" and shows her reliably being arrested for Prostitution every few months in recent years.

The victim Williams- name too common to figure out.

Hate crimes are serious, but who's to say on this one what the motivation was.

Anonymous said...

Didn't Carl Brizzi say he was going to call for hate crimes legislation?

Gary R. Welsh said...

Anonymous 4:32--yes, Brizzi said last year he would lead the push for a hate crimes bill this year. Although he made no public statement about it, it is my understanding that GOP leaders told him--no way--and so he dropped the idea.