Jessyca Sarmiento
Age 38 (born 3 Sep 1981)21 Feb 2020
Bois de Boulogne, Paris (France)
Run over
TDoR list ref: tgeu/21-Feb-2020/Jessyca Sarmiento
Jessyca was deliberately run over in a hit and run attack.
In August 2018 Vanessa Campos had been killed nearby.
A transgender [sex worker] from the Bois de Boulogne was crushed on the night of Thursday to Friday in Paris. Around 2:25 a.m. on allée de la reine Marguerite, a car with three suspects on board ran into the victim, who has not yet been formally identified. According to initial reports, the manoeuvre was deliberate.
The emergency services were alerted by two witnesses. When briefly questioned, they said that a Renault Clio with no lights had driven at high speed towards the victim (who was on the road) and then driven away without stopping.
The victim died at around 2:40 am in the hands of the emergency services and her body was taken to the medico-legal institute in Paris. Investigators from the first judicial police district are responsible for carrying out an investigation.
The police discovered some debris from the killer car. At the end of the night, a Clio which could correspond to the description given by the witnesses was found abandoned in the XXth arrondissement of Paris.
After Jessyca's murder Acceptess Transgenres released the following statement:
Death of Jessyca Sarmiento ACCEPTESS TRANSGENRES · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2020
We are once again in the sadness of the discovery of the death of one of our own. On the night of February 20-21, Jessyca Sarmiento was killed at her workplace, knocked down by a car traveling at high speed in an alley in the Bois de Boulogne. The first elements of the investigation communicated by the press indicate that the car which struck it did not even stop. We are particularly dismayed by the possibility that this act was deliberate. An investigation has been opened and must shed light on the circumstances of this new tragedy. But it also calls for a response from the political class.
Today, as it was two years ago after the assassination of Vanessa Campos, we are once again shocked by the death of one of our sisters, comrades, and colleagues. Our pain and suffering are indescribable. And our anger too. We know that we are going to have to fight against the enterprise of media trivialization already at work, in Le Parisien , whose first publication announced as usual the death of “a transvestite prostitute”, in a “high place of male prostitution”. Jessyca was a trans woman, sex worker, migrant, and she was killed at her workplace. We are dismayed to notice that the first reflex of the press is still, to stigmatize.
In France, in 2020, it is still possible to think that assaulting trans people, assaulting sex workers are acts that can leave their perpetrators with a certain feeling of impunity, even pride, because they leave to their spectators a feeling of indifference, even of approval. We immerse ourselves in horror, in sadness, and in the constantly renewed bitter observation that our lives are worth so much less than those of others.
Jessyca was a trans Peruvian woman, who came to France last year and, like all of us, aspired to a better life in this country. She had been followed for the first time by an abolitionist prostitution association, which had failed to ensure her care. She then turned to Acceptess-T. She benefited in our association from social, legal, health and administrative support, but she also found there a place of refuge and mutual aid, emotional and human support. Last month, she had started to participate in our French lessons, she was studious, applied, and generous, bringing to each session the meal for her comrades. She was “the driving force behind the group,” according to her teacher. She was preparing for the association's monthly celebration, scheduled for February 28. She had come to France to work and live there. She worked there and lived there for a year. And we cannot bear the idea that she died there for these reasons.
We are already in contact with her family in Peru, and we are making the necessary arrangements so that they can come quickly to Paris. We are organizing a vigil this evening at 11 p.m. at the Bois de Boulogne. We call on our loved ones, our comrades, our colleagues and all those who can and who think that our lives deserve so much better, to join us at this gathering.
Signatories: Acceptess T, Le Bus des Femmes, STRASS, Trans United Europe
Le ciel sur Paris est un drapeau trans en flammes, hommage à la mémoire de Jessyca Sarmiento, tuée hier, et toutes les personnes trans ou TDS sacrifiées, abandonnées, précarisées, par un système transphobe. pic.twitter.com/gYjst7OEZR
— Jena Selle ?????????? (@JenaS_elle) February 21, 2020
Jessyca had arrived in France in April 2019. A vigil for her was held in the Bois de Boulogne on the evening of Friday 21st February.
Une veillée est organisée ce soir au bois de Boulogne en hommage à Jessica, une travailleuse du sexe transgenre fauchée par une voiture hier soir. Des dizaines de travailleuses du sexe sont présentes pour lui rendre hommage #Jessica pic.twitter.com/7WAocStqzG
— Youen Tanguy (@Youen_Tanguy) February 21, 2020
We learnt of Jessyca's murder shortly after it had happened as a result of an email to tdor@translivesmatter.info. Our thanks to the person who alerted us.
In February 2020 a 20 year old was sentenced to 5 years in prison for killing her.
https://fr.news.yahoo.com/prostitu%C3%A9e-transgenre-tu%C3%A9e-au-bois-204317335.html
https://www.facebook.com/notes/acceptess-transgenres/mort-de-jessyca-sarmiento/2349671958656530/
https://www.facebook.com/FranceBleuParis/posts/3229179500443553
https://twitter.com/SOSTransphobie/status/1464664231765286917
https://twitter.com/RickyGynRobles/status/1230887577374339074
https://twitter.com/JenaS_elle/status/1230948443629203463
https://twitter.com/joeldeumier/status/1230924241031307266
https://twitter.com/JenaS_elle/status/1230862497588137991
https://twitter.com/Youen_Tanguy/status/1230975447023915008
https://twitter.com/Youen_Tanguy/status/1230979150242099200
