Marcal Camero Tye, the 25-year-old trans woman whose body was found on an Arkansas highway after being dragged behind a car some 300 feet after being shot in the head, did not die as the result of a hate crime, St. Francis County Sheriff Bobby May insists. That Tye’s body was dragged was just an accident; she was caught underneath the suspect’s car, and the suspect stopped and tried to dislodge her body, but didn’t try dragging her with a rope. In the end, this is just a sexual act gone wrong, apparently.
Though the sheriff says he hasn’t ruled out anything, he believes this is a routine murder case and not a hate crime. In an interview with FM 89 News, he conjectured that Tye might have been out looking for sexual encounters at 2:00 a.m., then gotten involved in a liaison that somehow went bad.
Must every murder involving a trans person and a sexual encounter be immediately dubbed a hate crime? Of course not. But the red flag should be immediately raised — as it was by Tye’s friend Jennifer Bohannon, who guessed Tye was killed by a man who found out she was born a man — and not so easily ignored because it makes for more paperwork.
Francis
I think it’s way too early in the investigation to make such statements. The FBI detectives need to continue to truly see what happened. Even if it was a sex encounter gone wrong, wouldn’t that be a hate crime, if the guy killed Marcal because he found out she was trans? I’m not buying it.
Kev C
This is why people in Arkansas are often abducted by UFOs. Specious speculation.
the crustybastard
When it’s a crime against the person, and the victim is a transexual — actually yes, I can>/i> assume it’s a bias crime. That would not be my assumption if it was a crime against property.
The reason small-town law-enforcement won’t assume bias crime is because they are too busy assuming the victim “had it coming.”
That attitude can no longer be tolerated.
Cam
Um….I would assume that somebody being dragged behind a truck is probably not just about a robbery.
Shannon1981
Its a fucking hate crime and we all know it. Its the same BS that happened to me when rednecks busted beer bottles over my face at a country bar and people said they hated dykes and everyone ignored it. Dammit, STOP THIS SHIT. SHE WAS KILLED FOR BEING TRANS. Shit like this happens to LGBTQIA people all the time and people ignore it. Stop hiding it. Show it for what it is: an anti LGBTQIA HATE CRIME.
sweetbrandigirl2004
@the crustybastard: Your assuming this person was a TS women and there no proof of that. It’s more likely based on the video and the story that they were Transgender and not a diagnosis HBS Transsexual. …and yes theres a difference.
It continues to amaze me that those in the transgender community are surprised when this type of violence happens, just what do you expect to happen when someone poses as the opposite gender and associates a man for sex under the gust of being female when they are clearly male…like I’ve always said you just can’t fix stupid.
gina
@sweetbrandigirl2004:
“like I’ve always said you just can’t fix stupid.”
I think that every time I read one of your posts. 🙁
Kev C
From the interview, Sheriff Bobby May:
“We’ve more or less ruled out it being a hate crime, we just think it may be something that went wrong”
“We’re going with the fact that, uh, what we think to be facts, that is, that this is not a hate crime. That it’s something else. If could be a variety of things”
So they don’t know what happened, but they’re sure it’s not a hate crime.
Mike
I run Arkansas’ GLBT magazine and understandably everyone is up in arms about the police’s ruling. When the FBI won’t rule out a hate crime, I would say that the FBI has more experience than backwoods cops and we should listen to the FBI. GLBT Arkansans are just shaking their heads…another good ole boy police force “at work” making Arkansas look ass-backwards.
It’s things like this that don’t give GLBT Arkansans (or really many GLBT people from the Deep South) hope that things will change for the better here.
Kev C
She shot herself twice and then jumped under a car. That’s my theory.
divkid
@Shannon1981: i hope you got satisfaction from the law? unlike i fear this victim ever will.
also “lgbtqia”: pleeeease gay-powers-that-be, make the acronym stop there…
its looking like a bad scrabble hand.
btw shannon happy 30th.
LookingAround
i would never guess at what happened here, but it is, after all, possible that even a gruesome crime doesn’t mean “hate crime”. Furious betrayed lovers and bitter ex lovers can kill in varied ways, including dragging behind a car.
Shannon1981
@divkid: Thanks. 🙂 It was a drunken delight.
But No, the law was pretty much of the mind that I should have “known better” than to be a redneck bar, and the guys got a slap on the wrist- misdemeanor battery. Community service and probation. But backwoods cops are like that, and I am reasonably sure that SC has nothing about sexual orientation in its hate crimes definitions…so it would have taken an act of a federal agent to force them to go further.
Poor Marcal can’t even get the reporters in her town to use the right pronouns, much less slap her murderer with a hate crime charge. That’s the south for ya. I hope the FBI takes over. Only way to get real justice.
Shannon1981
@divkid: oh and re: the acronym: I’ve seen REALLY long versions of it. LGBTTQQPIA, is, I believe the longest…
they can add whatever they like to it, but it will mostly always be LGBT.
missanthrope
Sweetbrandigirl, shut up you bigoted twit. You are the lowest form of bigot, bashing victims of hate crimes so you can continue your delusion that you are somehow better or different than other trans people. Seriously, you are on the level of Fred Phelps, do us a favor a die in fire.
You are simply a horrible, horrible person.
Jeffree
@SweetBrandyGrrrrrrrl:
HBS is not in the DSM. Narcissistic Personality Dîsorder is. So, you better go get your NPD worked on. And stop pretending to be superior to everyone else. You’re ashamed to be Trans, and that too requires lots of help too.
Jeffree
@SweetBrandyGrrrrrrrl:
HBS is not in the DSM. Narcissistic Personality Dîsorder is. So, you better go get your NPD worked on. And stop pretending to be superior to everyone else. You’re ashamed to be Trans, and that too requires lots of help.
lizbeth2010
we see this crap all the time in the midsouth. People who don’t understand transgendered people and don’t want to. I have to give alot of credit to this young lady for the strength to live openly here. I hope she rest in peace, and who ever did this is brought to justice.
Mike
Randi Romo at the Center for Artistic Revolution, a GLBT advocacy group out of Little Rock, has had people “school” the media on the correct use of pronouns for transgendered individuals, and the Arkansas TV stations and newspapers were very quick to catch on. It seemed like the Memphis stations were the ones that had the most trouble, which surprised me because it’s the least rural place.
Shannon
She ain’t like Lohan…or Spears…
Shannon
*WHITE
mel t
Marcel Tye was a great person everybody loved him and still does! Everyone that knew my brother and everyone that knew of him, knew he was born a dude so this sad ass excuse of people saying that the guy he was messing with didn’t know he was born a dude, that’s bullshit! Because evreryone knew he was born a guy! Even the guys he dated so please miss us with that dumb shit! We knew him at his best and his worse and there was not one time anybody could say they didn’t know who he actually was! I personally believed that the guy he was dating killed him because my brother was going to move out of state with me! He called me and asked me could I send him a bus ticket and of course I was but I never heard his voice again! The next call I got was my brother died! I believe that the man he was dating at the time had very high ranks in the city, ( a police officer ) who knows exactly how to do a crime and get away with it! The very force that was sworen in to protect everyone is the same ones that are just as corrupted as the crooks they put away!