- A high schooler in
Chicago has confessed to killing a woman after she told him she wastransgender , according to police. - Orlando Perez told officers he shot Selena Reyes-Hernandez twice in her home, then came back and fired into her body again, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
- "It's even more heinous
crime ," a rep for the Chicago Police Department told reporters. "Like, 'I'm going to kill someone because of how they choose to live their life.'" - Reyes-Hernandez is at least the 16th transgender person killed so far in 2020.
A high-school student in Chicago has confessed to killing a transgender woman after she disclosed her gender identity to him, according to police.
Orlando Perez told law enforcement he shot Selena Reyes-Hernandez twice in her home, then came back and fired his gun again into her body, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
At a press conference on Wednesday, a Chicago Police Department representative said detectives believe Perez, 18, and Reyes-Hernandez, 37, met some time around 5:30 a.m. on May 31 and then went back to Reyes-Hernandez's basement apartment in Marquette Park.
While there, police say, Perez asked Reyes-Hernandez if she was a girl. When she said she was transgender, he told her he had to leave.
According to prosecutors, surveillance video shows Perez leaving, then returning with a dark face covering around 6 a.m., according to the Sun-Times.
Footage also shows Perez taking out a handgun and jumping the gate outside Reyes-Hernandez's home, then leaving several minutes later, the Sun-Times reported.
He told detectives after finding her door open, he walked in and shot Reyes-Hernandez in the head and back.
"He thought that was enough so he ran out," Assistant State's Attorney James Murphy said during Perez's bond hearing. "But he kept seeing her face, so he went back there to do it again."
Perez shot her body several more times, Murphy said, then moved her car before fleeing the scene.
"It's even more heinous crime, like, 'I'm going to kill someone because of how they choose to live their life,'" a CPD rep said Thursday.
After hearing noises, family members went downstairs, discovered Reyes-Hernandez's body, and immediately called police.
A gun with the same type of bullets used to kill Reyes-Hernandez was discovered at Perez's home, prosecutors said.
Perez was arrested Sunday. Officers were able to track him down using video on Reyes-Hernandez's cellphone.
'We must fight and fight hard to keep our trans community protected'
The killing took place the same weekend more than 1,200 people were arrested in Chicago during protests over the police killing of George Floyd. Other demonstrations nationwide have decried the killings of Black Americans and transgender people of color.
On Sunday, an estimated 15,000 people marched in Brooklyn in support of Black trans lives.
Perez now faces a first-degree
"Black and Brown trans lives matter," Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot tweeted on Wednesday. "Selena Reyes-Hernandez's life matters."
Condemning the murders of trans women of color, Lightfoot said, "being outraged is not enough."
"We must fight and fight hard to keep our trans community protected and demand their attackers are brought to justice."
At least 27 transgender and gender-nonconforming people were killed in 2019, according to HRC. This year, there have been at least 16 trans people killed, including Dominique Fells, whose mutilated body was discovered earlier this month in Philadelphia.
In 2018, Illinois banned the so-called "gay panic" and "transgender-panic" defenses, barring attorneys from suggesting their client was reasonably provoked to violence by learning their victim's actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.
Used in about half of US states, panic defenses have resulted in lesser charges and lighter sentences.
In addition to Illinois, they have been banned in New York, California, and a handful of other states.