Suspects Yelled “Tra*ny Fag**t” Slur Before Shooting Pellet Gun At Trans Man In Wheelchair
thegailygrind.comA transgender man says he was attacked with a pellet gun while traveling along the sidewalk in his wheelchair in Pontiac, Michigan.
Andrew Blake-Newton, 30, said he was shot five times Saturday from a car full of people who were mocking him and yelling anti-transgender slurs. “They drove away shouting ‘t****y f****t’ at me while they laughed,” Blake-Newton wrote on Facebook. “No one should have to go through this,” Blake-Newton, who has multiple sclerosis, told NBC affiliate WDIV of Detroit. “No one.” The incident occurred just after midnight while Blake-Newton was traveling from his home to the local gas station to buy a snack, he said.
Blake-Newton told WDIV-TV that the people who shot him were in a small tan sedan and laughed at him as they drove away. “It is reprehensible that someone would do such a cowardly and despicable thing to an individual in a wheelchair, and they need to be held accountable,” Sheriff Michael Bouchard of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
Bouchard said a reward of $1,000 is being offered for information leading to an arrest. In a video interview with WDIV, Blake-Newton showed what appeared to be pellet-gun marks on multiple parts of his body, including his legs. “It was so bad I was leaking fluid, and puddles of fluid were around my legs at the hospital,” he said. “Since this happened, I can’t get comfortable.
