On September 2, D.C. Superior Court judge Ann O’Regan Keary ruled there was probable cause to try Washington, DC, police officer Kenneth Furr with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, after Furr drunkenly attacked a group of trans women.
On August 26, Furr drunkenly propositioned a trans woman outside a CVS. When she refused his advances, the 21-year police veteran harassed her and her friends, pointed his revolver at the group, drove under the influence and ultimately fired his gun five times into their car.
At Wednesday’s hearing, police verified that Furr, who scored a .15 blood-alcohol level at the scene, stood on the hood of the victims’ car and shot at them through the windshield. Two of three transgender women in the vehicle suffered non-life threatening gunshot wounds, while a male friend was treated for serious injuries.
Furr’s attorney raised questions about the facts of the night in question, noting that the victims’ car trailed Furr in the “wee hours of the morning,” and said Furr had a legal right to defend himself if he believed he was in danger.
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Does that mean the victims would have been within their right to beat the hell out of Furr for drunkenly brandishing a pistol? Somehow we don’t think John Law would be as forgiving.
Furr, who is being held without bond, is expected to go before a grand jury in the next few weeks. Good luck with that!
Image via Cliff1066
Chancery
Those African-American cops in DC, just like Atlanta, have a major trans-hatred going on, even worse than their homophobia.
Ginasf
And how do you know he’s African American? I’ve never seen a published photo of Officer Furr.
Chancery
@Ginasf: I saw him on one of the news reports. And even if I hadn’t, I know those police departments.
Afro Boricua
@Ginasf: Officer Furr is Negro and he was assigned to MPD’s 3rd District of openly white Ward 1 DC Councilmember Jim Graham’s Ward.
MattGMD
It seems whenever someone shoots at a cop, the charge is ‘attempted murder of a police officer’, whether or not the cop is wounded. Yet when a cop shoots and wounds citizens, the charge is only aggravated assault. Should add the ever popular ‘using a firearm in the commission of a crime.’ The laws should be applied in a more equitable manner.
Aiden
@Chancery: Thanks for bringing race into this. It couldn’t be irrelevant.
Chancery
@Aiden: Just wanted to cut those guys off at the pass, the ones who, when it’s the south, always say, “Do these redneck cops think they can pick on us gays because they can’t pick on blacks anymore??!!” when most of the time the southern culprits ARE black.
Razzmatazz
Fuck Queerty and all of the racist assholes that spew ignorance on this site.
As a proud gay and BLACK male, I am sick & tired of coming on this site and constantly being reminded that racism still lives on today. I am ostracized by mainstream society for being gay, and ostracized by some in the gay community for being black. It is not fair, and I am sick of it. Where do I put my allegiance when my own people don’t want me?
Race is irrelevant in this story, and it absolutely disgusts me that someone decided to bring that up. There are white homophobes too.
It’s 2011, bitch. Don’t try and fight for LGBT rights when you’ve got a backwards, Jim Crow mindset.
Razzmatazz
@Razzmatazz: I am so sorry for the profanity, but I just had to get this off my chest.
Chancery
@Razzmatazz: I understand what you’re saying. Sometimes you can feel like you’re getting it from every direction. But I’m also sick and tired of gays pretending the opposite. Every time there’s a gaybashing in the south, when its been African-Americans, anti-white racists and self-hating white gays (since they were taught in college, by frustrated ex-Civil Rights-worker professors, that if you’re white you HAVE to be self-hating) come on here pretending the gaybashers looked like the Dukes of Hazzard. I’m sick of the pretending and anti-Caucasian racism. That doesn’t mean that I, personally, wouldn’t respect you and wish the best for you as a man who just happens to be both black and gay.
Ronbo
Hold on there guys, there is enough hate to go around.
There are all kinds of bigotry and to, deny any or to clump all, is just plain wrong. So in my Obama-moment of blaiming the victims, you are all wrong.
I suggest you go to just about any Baptist church and try to hold hands with your same-sex partner. Be it black, white, any color in his sight, you will get beaten “in the name of the Lord”.
Blind adherence to outdated religious dogma is our biggest problem. That affects everyone – cops included.
If more parishners stood up and spoke to their Minister, Priest, etc… we’d have fewer incidents like this. It is the fear that keeps us down and the fear that allows the bigotry to grow.
Cam
1. The victims were stupid for following his car after the altercation. You don’t mess around with a crazy drunk cop.
HOWEVER…
2. This cop needs to go down for this and there needs to be an investigation in the dept. They’ve gotten rid of the task force specializing in glbt issues. The transwomen attempted to get the security officer at the CVS to do something but he wouldn’t because the guy was a cop. They could have called that organization if it still existed, but the new police chief in DC got rid of it first thing. Just a guess, she is a female high ranking cop. Probably is tired of people assuming she is a lesbian and doesn’t want to be seen as being friendly to the gay community.
the crustybastard
@MattGMD:
Exactly.
Imagine an extremely intoxicated person brandishing a weapon at some cops, driving off, then standing on the hood of a police cruiser and shooting FIVE TIMES at the officers inside.
There is exactly ZERO chance that person would be charged with a mere two counts of aggravated assault.
A few years ago I was called for jury duty in a case involving a police shooting. The panel was huge. During jury selection, I was frankly astonished by how many people had profoundly negative views of the police, to the point they conceded publicly that they would not believe or trust the testimony of any police officer. Naturally, they were excused.
People who do not trust cops also won’t call for assistance when they ought to, nor will they cooperate in criminal investigations to get actual bad guys off the streets. That’s why you find, in many disadvantaged neighborhoods, people won’t merely refuse to cooperate with cops — they’ll also stonewall prosecutors, investigators, defense attorneys, and they’ll find ways to get out of serving on the very juries where their experience might be extremely useful.
The fact that police leadership, police departments and police unions refuse to adequately police themselves is THE main causal factor in this profound erosion of an essential public trust. Even the self-professed “good cops” remain so insular and self-deluded they refuse to understand that they’re undermining themselves by protecting the “bad cops,” and that — by protecting bad cops — they’re bad cops themselves.
In my town, to file a complaint against an officer you must physically appear at a police station and provide all sorts of personally identifying information in the report. In an investigative report a few years ago, people said they were intimidated by desk sergeants for requesting complaint forms, harassed subsequent to filing a complaint, and many people wrote in later to say complaints they’d filed had disappeared.
Nonetheless, the police chief regarded the fact they get very few complaints and that only a tiny fraction of the complaints are treated as actionable as something to be proud of rather than something to be suspicious about.
Anyway, I’ll only be surprised if this asshole ends up facing anything worse than suspension pending successful completion of a substance-abuse program, with some negligible probation period attached.