Man found guilty in 2020 murder of Black trans woman in Philadelphia

A man was found guilty in the 2020 shooting death of Tracy “Mia” Green, a Black transgender woman, in West Philadelphia, authorities said Monday.

Abdullah I. El-Amin, 40, was found guilty of third-degree murder and possession of an instrument of crime in the killing of 29-year-old Green, according to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.

Police say that on Sept. 28, 2020, officers stopped a 2016 Jeep Wrangler after the driver ignored a stop sign in West Philadelphia.

The driver, El-Amin, got out of the vehicle saying that someone had been shot.

That’s when police saw the victim in the front passenger seat with a gunshot wound to her neck. She was taken to Penn-Presbyterian Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

The DA’s office said that El-Amin shot Green several times at close range while in his car as a passenger.

“Too often, violence against LGBTQ+ people, and Black trans women like Mia Green in particular, happens in the shadows because of societal marginalization,” District Attorney Larry Krasner said in a statement.

“I’m gratified that the Philadelphia criminal legal system increasingly reflects Philadelphians’ values of inclusion, and our city’s abhorrence of discrimination and bigotry,” he added.

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Green was one of at least 44 transgender people killed in the U.S. in 2020, according to data compiled by the Human Rights Campaign — the deadliest year on record for transgender and gender non-conforming people in the U.S. at the time.

The following year saw a sharp increase in the number of killings of trans people — at least 56 deaths — setting a new record. Nearly all of them were trans women of color.

According to the HRC, 2022 has already seen the deaths of at least 27 trans people.

“The amount of violence, gun violence … that’s happening toward trans women is at an alarming rate that at some point, you just get numb to it all,” Tatyana Woodward, a local community activist, told CBS Philly.

Woodward, who was a friend of the victim, said that the conviction will help the community start to heal.

“Justice for Mia is also justice that this doesn’t happen again,” she said.

El-Amin is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 4.