Two men are in custody and a third is at large after a group of people were caught on video jeering as three transgender women were assaulted and robbed in Hollywood earlier this week, police said Thursday.
The primary suspect, 29-year-old Carlton Callway, was arrested Thursday in Bakersfield on suspicion of robbery with a hate crime enhancement, said Justin Eisenberg, deputy chief for the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Bureau.
Willie Walker, 42, was arrested Wednesday in Hollywood on suspicion of extortion, Eisenberg said.
The men in custody Thursday were identified through tips from the public and social media with help from LGBTQ activists, said LAPD Capt. Steve Lurie.
Lurie also said Walker lives on the streets in Hollywood and officers who patrol the area recognized him “as soon as they saw the video.”
The suspect still being sought, 22-year-old Davion Williams, is accused of assault with a deadly weapon. Police did not provide information on his suspected whereabouts.
The three women were “viciously attacked” around 2 a.m. Monday on the 6500 block of Hollywood Boulevard, in an incident broadcast live on Instagram by people who didn’t try to help the victims.
“What was particularly callous about these crimes was the actions of the onlookers, who are recorded and appear to celebrate the assaults rather than render aid and assist the victims,” Eisenberg told reporters in a news briefing Thursday.
Lurie has said the incident is being investigated as a hate crime because the assailants made “horrible, derogatory remarks” about the women’s gender identity during the onslaught.
The case prompted LAPD Chief Michel Moore to post a video message to declare that such violent, hateful incidents “have no place in Los Angeles.”
“The Los Angeles Police Department stands fully in support of your rights, your dignity and the respect to each of you as individuals,” he said. “We will not allow this to occur here, and we will do everything within our power to ensure it does not.”
Officials say the three men identified as suspects zeroed in on the victims as they were socializing along Hollywood Boulevard.
The man identified as Callway allegedly approached one of them with a metal bar and demanded she hand over her personal belongings. The victims say their purses, cellphones, money, shoes and jewelry were taken.
Callway is also accused of hitting another woman with a bottle and knocking her to the ground.
A woman who reached out to KTLA and identified herself as a friend of the victims’ said one of the women was hit with an object that split the back of her head open, causing her to lose consciousness.
Videos of the attack uploaded to social media show bystanders watching and laughing as the victims’ plead for help.
At one point a police SUV approaches with sirens blaring and some involved believe officers will intervene, but the car drives past the scene.
Lurie said that unit was responding to an unrelated emergency, but the department is continuing to investigate the details.
Transgender women of color are among the most vulnerable people in society. Last year, at least 27 transgender or gender non-conforming people were killed in the U.S., the majority of them Black, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
This year’s toll is expected to exceed that, said Assistant Chief Beatrice Girmala, LAPD’s LGBTQ outreach coordinator.
L.A. City Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell, whose 13th district includes Hollywood, roundly condemned that attack and those who failed to stop it, “as though it were some sort of spectator sport.”
“To see this level of violence celebrated gleefully, so much so the perpetrator himself posted it on social media — it’s like a sucker punch to all of us who believe in civilized behavior and humane treatment of one another,” he said.
O’Farrell warned people who engage in such conduct they “are not welcome here at all, under any circumstance.”
The councilmember requested those who were onlookers to contact him so that they may issue an apology to the victims.
