A Florida transgender woman and her partner were assaulted while walking to work last Sunday evening in northwest Miami-Dade in an attack they say came completely out of nowhere.
“It was all unprovoked; we were just walking,” Felyz Rodriguez told NBC Miami.
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“They were like, guys, get out of the road, idiots,” said Davin Lopez.
Lopez said a woman began yelling to them from her car, and he responded with a hand gesture. The car then turned around, and the woman yelling, along with other women in the car, attacked him and Rodriguez, a trans woman.
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“I want to know why. I want to know what we did,” he said.
Lopez said one of them pepper-sprayed him, and Rodriguez said another got physically violent with her, yanking her hard by the hair.
“I’m trying my best to not put my hands on anybody because instead of trying to make it worse I’m trying to de-escalate it,” she said.
The driver then reversed, pushing Rodriguez to the ground with the open driver-side door.
A bystander caught a portion of the attack on video, which clearly shows Rodriguez being yanked by the hair and then being pushed over by the reversing car.
By the time police arrived at the scene, the perpetrators had fled. Police have launched an investigation to find them. Rodriguez and Lopez are planning to press charges.
“It’s just sad, honestly, just thinking about it, it confuses me. I’m confused, I’m distraught, I’m just traumatized at this point honestly,” she said.
“Is it a hate crime, is it something personal, or is it simply you have nothing to do?”
“This was my life and my partner’s life on the line,” she added, “so whatever consequences come to them, they have to face it on their own.”
Lopez posted footage of the incident on social media, which shows him yelling at the women in the car to stop bothering them. He also wrote it was the 3rd time the couple has been assaulted.
“We don’t know if it’s a race thing because we are Hispanic or because my girlfriend is trans… [either] way, this was discrimination and completely uncalled for,” he wrote.
Lopez also alleged, “i was ran over into a fence b4 the witness who gave us the video was able to start recording.”
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