Newark mayor promises ‘full review’ of how city police handled Black transgender woman’s death – NJ.com

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka on Thursday promised a full review of how the city’s police division in April handled the death of Ashely Moore, a 26-year-old Black transgender woman.

Moore was found with no pulse outside the Newark YMCA on April 1 around 4 a.m., according to a police report. While police say her death was a suicide, advocates within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community cast doubt on that determination and raised concerns with how her case was handled.

Baraka said Moore’s “death was not ruled a homicide.” However, he agreed with the city’s public safety director that the case should be re-examined with the help of the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, which handles homicide investigations. The prosecutor’s office agreed to do so earlier this week.

“We believe the police followed all necessary policies and procedures around Ashley Moore’s death, but the handling of the case has raised concerns of her family and the LGBTQ community,” said Baraka in a statement Thursday that also offered condolences to Moore’s friends and family. “We fully expect to inform them of our police actions and answer any lingering questions they may have about Ms. Moore’s death to the absolute best of our ability.”

Newark LGBTQ Community Center Executive Director Beatrice Simpkins previously raised concerns with the lack of communication police had with advocates and the mom, Starlet Carbins. Simpkins said if police correctly identified Moore as a transgender woman they may have been able to work with advocates to find her family, who live in a different state.

Carbins previously told NJ Advance Media that no one from the police notified Carbins of her child’s death. She learned of Moore’s death through social media, had to call after 1 a.m. to speak to the original cop on the case when his shift started, and waited months to receive a police report.

The police report stated that a University Hospital doctor originally told police Moore may have been struck by a vehicle based on her injuries: a disfigured and swollen neck, ligature marks on her legs and rectal bleeding. The mom speculated those injuries could also be consistent with rape.

Elaine Helms, who runs a shelter for LGBTQ youth called the RAIN Foundation, told NJ Advance Media that Moore had stayed there for about a year beginning in 2017. She said Moore moved into a longterm unit at the YMCA in Newark and had been paying rent there for about two years while working as a chef.

Helms said she learned of Moore’s death once police contacted her and she provided the mother’s information to them. Helms was ultimately the one to notify Carbins of Moore’s death when the mom contacted her on social media after seeing “rest in peace” messages on her daughter’s Facebook page.

“She was working on her memoirs and she was documenting her life,” Helms said of Moore. “I told her mother when she went to the Y to make sure she got her book.”

Ambrose, the police director, asked the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office to review the case earlier this week. The announcement came after NJ Advance Media sent multiple questions to authorities about advocate’s concerns around Moore’s death.

“Newark Police was advised by the Essex County Medical Examiner’s Office that Ashley Moore’s death was ruled a suicide. We are awaiting their report,” Ambrose told NJ Advance Media on Thursday. “Ashley Moore’s death was ruled a suicide based on the detectives’ findings, through their investigation and interviews, coupled with the Medical Examiner’s findings.

The family told NJ Advance Media last week it had not received the autopsy report from the medical examiner’s office, a notoriously slow agency.

Police told Moore’s mom in recorded phone interviews that her daughter likely jumped from the roof of the YMCA, an 11-story building. City cameras panned out and did not capture the moments before her death and surveillance videos in the YMCA did not show Moore downstairs in the lobby.

The mayor noted that the city’s police department has undergone significant reforms. Those reforms began about five years ago after the U.S. Department of Justice found a pattern of unconstitutional practices among cops, including anecdotal evidence that officers made the “mistaken assumption that all female transgender persons are prostitutes.”

Baraka said communication with the LGBTQ community does exist. LGBTQ advocates, he said, gave their input to draw up the Newark police department’s guidelines on how to interact with those in the community. A similar directive was later adopted by the state Attorney General’s Office for law enforcement across New Jersey.

“The commitment to the health, safety and dignity of all residents despite race, gender, ethnic origin or sexual preference has been a benchmark of my administration,” the mayor said. “We live by those values and, once again, I want to assure the family of Ms. Moore they will be applied here.”

If you or someone you know may be at risk of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. If you’re a young LGBTQ person and need to talk to someone, call The Trevor Project’s 24-hour crisis hotline for youth at 1-866-488-7386. If you are a transgender person of any age, call the Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860.

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Rebecca Panico may be reached at rpanico@njadvancemedia.com.