Charges have been brought against two Compton men accused of committing a hate crime in the robbery and assault on three transgender women in Hollywood on Aug. 17, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said.
Carlton Callaway, 29, and Davion Williams, 22, are both facing the possibility of multiple years behind bars if convicted of the crimes recorded by onlookers.
Callaway reportedly walked up to the women and offered to purchase items for them from a local store; he then refused to pay for the items, the women left, and then he “approached one of the victims with a metal bar and demanded her shoes and bracelet,” police said.
After their encounter, the woman was able to escape, but then her friend was attacked by Callaway with a bottle, reports continue.
Davion Williams, 22, allegedly assisted in the assault, robbing one of the women. He reportedly used a rideshare scooter as a weapon, while Callaway allegedly used a steel rod.
After the incident, one of the victims, Jaslene Busanet, stated during an Instagram Live video that she was hit in the head with an object because she identifies as transgender and that spectators just stood around. No one called the police.
“When I got hit in the back of my f—ing head, and I fell to the ground, do you know what people did? Everyone crowded around me, laughing at me, recording me, telling me I deserved that,” she said in the video.
Los Angeles police deputy chief Michel Moore called out the inaction of onlookers who recorded the attack early Aug. 17 rather than helping those attacked. He condemned the assault and said that “these types of instances of hate and violence have no place in Los Angeles.”
As a result of the incident, Callaway has been charged with grand theft from the person of another, second-degree robbery, criminal threats, attempted second-degree robbery, assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, and battery with serious bodily injury. Meanwhile, Williams was charged with just grand theft and assault with a deadly weapon.
A third person, Willie Walker, a homeless man, was previously arrested in connection with the assault, but the district attorney’s office declined to move forward with the charge of extortion due to lack of evidence.
According to the district attorney’s office, Callaway faces up to 13 years and four months in prison if convicted, and Williams faces up to 8 years and four months in prison.
Terra Russell-Slavin, director of policy and community building for the Los Angeles LGBT Center, praised the charges brought against the two men.
“I think we’re really encouraged to see that the prosecutors moved forward with both filing charges and ensuring the charges had a hate crime enhancement,” Russell-Slavin said, adding that “hate crimes are really an attack on the whole community.”
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