Friday, March 29, 2024

Act of kindness backfires

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An act of kindness has left a Kingsland, Christ Church transgender woman nursing a number of wounds to her body.

Alexa Hoffman said a man she allowed to stay with her out kindness made off with a cell phone, charger, clothing and a meat cleaver, which he used on her.  

Unknowingly to her, the man had previously admitted to two counts of theft last year and was sentenced to the Psychiatric Hospital by the courts.

Her attack prompted a response from Barbados – Gays, Lesbians and All-Sexuals Against Discrimination (B-GLAD), after Hoffman’s failed attempt to get redress through the Royal Barbados Police Force. She said the police were tardy in responding to many of the reports she had made to them.

When contacted police public relations officer Inspector Roland Cobbler also confirmed that the matter was reported to the police, and that the man was currently assisting police with the investigations.

alexa-hoffman-2

The transgender woman said her attacker’s behaviour took a bad turn in January, when he took people to her Kingsland Christ Church home without permission.

“I said, ‘That isn’t really the way to go about things because you know how some people react to me’. He had even dealt with some homophobia because there were people that assumed because he was living in my house that we were an item, but we weren’t,” she said.

One of the persons invited turned out to be his girlfriend who was visiting from Canada.

Hoffman however said she had no problem with that visitor, but she said it was his ill treatment of his girlfriend and their bickering that made her speak up.

In a statement B-GLAD released on Tuesday, co-founder Ro-Ann Mohammed backed up Hoffman’s claim of alleged police inactivity in locating the man and urged them to act faster.

“Only in reaching out to the Family Conflict Unit, today, was some attention shown to Alexa’s plight. Alexa was attacked within inches of her life and with her attacker still at large, we call strongly on the authorities who are put in place to protect and serve, above all, to recognise the humanity of vulnerable communities like gender and sexual minorities,” Mohammed said. (TG)

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