Crimes against the LGBT community on the rise in Memphis

BY Jasmine Morton
November 29, 2014

Crime against the LGBT community is on the rise in Memphis with 53 reported incidents
since 2009, more than doubling every year.
That number does not include the likely many Memphis citizens who have declined to
come forward as a crime victim fearing the stigma of coming out as gay or of being judged by
the police and other law enforcement workers.
Of the 53 cases, 17 of those cases occurred in 2014 compared to only two cases in 2009.
Memphis is not alone.

Number of crimes against LGBT

citizens in Memphis
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
0

10

15

20

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation reports that crimes in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
and Transgender community have risen each year since 2011 in the state. Also, most of the
crimes are hate crimes, but sometimes its domestic assault, which is rarely reported due to how
people view domestic assault within the LGBT community.

One example of domestic violence within the LGBT community occurred in September
of this year. On Sept. 18, Angela Millbrooks reported that her girlfriend, Kashia Russell, hit her
with a car. Russell was angry with Millbrooks after an argument and got in her car and hit her
girlfriend twice. Millbrooks suffered minor injuries and was released from the hospital that day.
I think that crime in the LGBT community has really escalated in the past two years,
and it will continue until police officers actually do their jobs, Joseph Echie, a college student
and member of the LGBT community, said.
In August Shelby Countys two largest law-enforcement agencies appointed liaisons to
work with the local LGBT community: Barbara Farmer-Tolbert, a Shelby County Sheriffs
detective, and Memphis police officer Davin Clemons.
Martavius Hampton, HIV program coordinator at the Memphis Gay and Lesbian
Community Center, learned that a liaison was needed through forums from the CommunityPolice Relations project of the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center. He reached out to the
sheriffs office and Farmer-Tolbert volunteered. Then he asked Clemons if he would be
interested. http://glbt411.com/?p=9585
Hampton is currently pursuing a Masters in public health at The University of Memphis.
He said that he wants to be a voice for people in the LGBT community and educate them.
Farmer-Tolbert has been a Shelby County Sheriffs officer for eight years and works in
the Special Victims Unit.
Farmer-Tolbert said that she volunteered as a liaison, because she has friends who are a
part of the LGBT community, and she saw many incidents where people were targeted as victims
of crime because of their choice to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

A lot of people dont know why they dont accept the LGBT community. Its just that
they go on what theyve heard but not what they know, Farmer-Tolbert said. As a liaison, she
wants to help the local community learn more about the LGBT community.
I would like to see more people in Memphis that have a broader range of thinking and
understanding, and I want them to know that they dont have to necessarily like the decisions
that the people in the LGBT community have made, but respect them, she said.
Clemons is an officer on the Memphis Police Department TACT unit, as well as an elder
at the Cathedral of Praise Church of Memphis. He said that he has received a lot of negative
feedback since taking on the position as a liaison for the LGBT community.
I recently received my first hate mail, he said.
Someone emailed Clemons to tell him that it was wrong for him to be a minister and
support the LGBT community.
Clemons said that he wants to be the bridge between the police and the LGBT
community, because there is stigma on both ends.
There are people who believe that the police are not LGBT friendly Some police
have biases and things that they may not understand, so I have to point them in the right
direction, Clemons said.
Clemons has a lot of experience with the LGBT community. He is not only a part of the
community, but his mother is lesbian and recently married her wife legally in Chicago. Clemons
and his mother, Gwendolyn, currently have an LGBT radio show that launched in October and
first aired on Nov. 22. The show is titled, The Unleashed Voice for the LGBTQ Community. It
can be heard on AM 990 at 5 p.m. on Saturdays. http://www.relationshipunleashed.com/

On Oct. 29 Clemons and Farmer-Tolbert came to the Memphis Gay and Lesbian
Community Center for an event titled, Unmasking the Violence in the LGBT community.
http://mglcc.org/ Hampton coordinated the event for the center along with the help of the Family
Safety Center.
A group, Playback Memphis, was part of the entertainment for the event. Playback
Memphis is a group of improv actors who act out scenes based on information given or
statements made by audience members. During the event they acted out different scenes about
how people in the LGBT community felt, and how people who wanted to help them felt.
They also mentioned domestic violence in LGBT relationships a lot.
One of the incidents mentioned numerous times was the beating and stabbing of a
homeless transgender woman, Alexia Taylor. Police found Taylor screaming and bleeding On
Oct. 15 at Sacred Heart Church on Jefferson Ave.
Taylor was sleeping in the stairwells of the church and woke up to a man. She said the
man dragged her down the stairs, beat her with a brick, stabbed her, took her purse and ran away.
Taylor was stabbed in the side and back and had a head injury and punctured lung.
Clemons said that he went to the hospital to visit Taylor, because she was his old high
school classmate. The hospital workers told him that police officers usually do not visit patients
from the LGBT community. Clemons wants to encourage other officers to build bonds with
victims like Taylor.
Clemons and other audience members said that Taylors case was in the news for a few
days and disappeared.
It was like she wasnt important enough. As soon as the news found something else to
talk about, Alexia was forgotten, Clemons said.