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https://www.blackenterprise.com/footage-released-of-black-transgender-activist-slain-in-walgreens/
A Black transgender organizer was killed by a Walgreens security guard on April 27 in San Francisco. Banko Brown, 24, was recently denied a housing opportunity he’d long been pursuing. Turned away from numerous homeless shelters, he eventually resigned to sleeping on the metro. Brown eventually ventured into a downtown Walgreens hoping to feed himself, and was confronted by a security guard accusing him of theft. A scuffle ensued, and minutes later, Brown was dead—he had been fatally shot.
The San Francisco community reacted in anger and shock at the subsequent handling of Brown’s death and the conditions that contributed to the organizer’s circumstances.
After the public insistence on answers, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who has declined to pursue charges against the security guard, released footage of Brown’s death on May 15.
In the video, Brown is shown attempting to exit the convenience store with a bag of items when he is stopped by the guard, Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony. After Brown pushes Anthony’s shoulder and Anthony pushes him back, the two become involved in a brief struggle. The pair eventually fall to the ground, where Anthony is seen engaging Brown in a chokehold-like manner while on the victim’s back. During this altercation, Brown allegedly threatened to stab the security guard multiple times, and after Anthony allowed Brown to stand, he once again attempted to flee with the items. Then, Anthony draws his weapon while aiming it at the ground. After Brown makes a lunging motion, Anthony shoots him in his chest. Soon after, Brown dies from a single gunshot wound.
In a press conference on May 15, District Attorney Jenkins said, “We do not believe there is sufficient evidence to overcome what we would expect his defense of self-defense to be,” Jenkins said. “[Anthony] has specifically articulated to the police, more than once, the facts surrounding the incident and explained that he believed he was in imminent danger, and at this time we don’t believe there is anything to overcome those statements.”
However, the video is not all of Brown’s story. Brown’s families and friends spoke to the Guardian, describing Brown’s desperate cries for help. “It hurts me that another trans person of color is gone without being seen,” said Juju Pikes Prince, a close friend of the victim and a transgender woman who has previously struggled with being unhoused herself.
Brown’s death also comes on the tail-end of San Francisco’s rising homelessness crisis and targeted attacks on the unhoused, despite the city’s efforts to improve housing for the transgender community. Just two weeks ago, news broke that San Francisco’s former fire commissioner Don Carmignani had been linked to several attacks on the homeless using bear spray. Throughout the country and in the wake of the murder of Jordan Neely, many unhoused people have been faced with dire circumstances, and Brown exemplifies the country’s failure.
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