27-year-old Ashanti Carmon was fatally shot on March 30.

/ Photo courtesy of Earline Budd

Activists and loved ones are holding a candlelight vigil tonight for Ashanti Carmon, a 27-year-old transgender woman who was fatally shot this weekend in Fairmount Heights, Md., close to the border of Prince George’s County and D.C.

Carmon was discovered by police in the early morning hours of March 30 in the roadway, according to the Prince George’s County Police Department. Officers were responding to a citizen who called 911 at around 6:20 a.m. after hearing gunshots. Carmon had been shot multiple times and was pronounced dead on the scene.

“Life was going well for this young woman, and all of the sudden it’s just gone,” says Earline Budd, a transgender activist who knew Carmon because the 27 year old would stop in at HIPS to visit friends, though she was not a client at the D.C.-based harm reduction agency. “The real hurt is that she was taken in such a horrible and tragic way—shot multiple times and left on a road there.”

Now, Budd is among the organizers of a candlelight vigil for Carmon, who was a resident of Alexandria, Va., per PGPD. Budd says that the vigil, held at the location of Carmon’s murder, will include her fiance and other loved ones.

“Until I leave this earth, I am going to continue on loving her,” Phillip Williams, Carmon’s fiance, told NBC Washington. “She did not deserve to leave this earth so early, especially in the way she went out.” He said that he last saw Carmon on Friday when they went to a movie and dinner, and then she went out with friends while he went to work.

Transgender activist Ruby Corado, the founder of Casa Ruby, says that area is a well-known location for sex work. “It’s really a very dangerous area, given the fact that the police push sex work out of the downtown area into the margins,” says Corado. “People go there because it is secluded.” But it remains unclear why Carmon was in Fairmount Heights.

Budds emphasizes that many transgender people congregate in that part of Fairmount Heights “because their friends are there” and there are few places for trans folks to congregate. “Everybody out there is not prostituting,” she says. “All I care is that she was a human being and she lost her life.”

Carmon was killed the day before International Transgender Day of Visibility. Corado says many gestures of allyship she saw that day fell short, like politicians displaying transgender pride flags outside their Congressional offices. “Putting a flag outside of a congressperson’s door doesn’t do much, when we know that what is really killing people is poverty,” says Corado. “This is another example of what poverty is. She was very young. Young people, instead of having a chance at life, have to grow up in the margins and die.”

Budd says that the vigil will both remember Carmon and “hold P.G. County to the fire, that they will make sure that they follow through and give all of the support they give to other murders to this case.”

PGPD is asking anyone with information relevant to this investigation to call detectives at 301-772-4925.  Callers wishing to remain anonymous may call Crime Solvers at 1-866-411-TIPS (8477), go online at www.pgcrimesolvers.com, or use the “P3 Tips” mobile app.

Filed Under: casa ruby, HIPS, lgbt, meanwhile in maryland, transgender,