Morning Minute: San Fran Police Chief Resigns After Officers Fatally Shoot Black Woman
![Mourners Attend Wake And Funeral For Sandra Bland In Illinois](https://hellobeautiful.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2016/01/14381824571848.jpg?w=495&h=330&strip=all&quality=80)
Source: Jonathan Gibby / Getty
Police Chief Greg Suhr has resigned from the San Francisco Police Department right after one his officers shot and killed an African-American woman this week, reported a Bay Area NBC-affiliate. Mayor Ed Lee requested that Suhr step down, citing “tensions between law enforcement and communities of color.”
“The past several months have shaken and divided our city, and tensions between law enforcement and communities of color that have simmered for too many years have come into full view,” Lee said.
Suhr served more than 30 years for the city’s police department and under his leadership accusations of racism were not new or rare. In the past year, there were the fatal shootings of Mario Woods in December and Luis Gongora in April, as well as two recent scandals involving racist text messages exchanged among officers, NBC noted.
This recent death of a woman, who Suhr claims was driving a stolen car and who was shot and killed, has only exacerbated these tensions.
“Though the facts are still emerging, we know that, this morning, a young woman of color was killed in an officer-involved shooting in the Bayview. The community is grieving, and I join them in that grief,” Lee said.
Lee has tapped Toney Chaplin, former SFPD deputy chief of the Professional Standards and Principled Policing Bureau, who is also African-American, to take over for Suhr.
DC Security Guard at Grocery Store Charged With Assault After Allegedly Forcing Transgender Woman Out of Bathroom
https://twitter.com/LEOSUNIONS/status/733390056359006208
A Black transgender woman claims that she was recently verbally and physically attacked by a Giant grocery store security guard.
According to Baltimore CBS affiliate, Ebony Belcher, a 32-year-old college student and who suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, said that on Wednesday she went to use public bathroom and not too soon after, a security guard busted in and yanked her out.
“She said to me that I’m tired of you guys keep coming in here, using the women’s bathroom. I know you’re a man, you ‘he-she,’” Belcher said. “The officer then grabbed me by my arm, spun me around, grabbed me right behind my back and forcibly pushed me out the Giant.”
Police say they’ve reviewed surveillance video that matches up with Belcher’s story, CBS noted. Plus, the security guard is now being charged with assault.
This anti-trans sentiment coupled with bathrooms bills such as North Carolina’s have been a hot topic over the past few month. However, President Obama has spoken out against them, saying that “it is part of our obligation as a society that everybody is treated fairly.” He has even asked that schools allow for trans people to use the bathrooms that they choose.
Oh No! CDC Warns That Cases of Pregnant U.S. Women With Zika Have Tripled
![Brazil Faces New Health Epidemic As Mosquito-Borne Zika Virus Spreads Rapidly](https://hellobeautiful.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2016/01/14539212289019-e1453926487665.jpg?w=517&h=310&strip=all&quality=80)
Source: Mario Tama / Getty
The Zika virus isn’t just a South American or Caribbean issue, it’s also impacting American women at a rate higher than we once thought.
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the number of pregnant women in the U.S. infected with this virus has tripled from 48 to 157. In addition, there are 122 women living in U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico infected as well.
Dr. Margaret Honein, chief of the CDC’s birth defects branch, said that as of now they know of “less than a dozen” babies or fetuses who have suffered the consequences of Zika infection, but because most of the 157 pregnancies are “ongoing,” time will tell how many babies will be born with defects. “The CDC’s top priority in the Zika response is protecting pregnant women and their fetuses,” she said.
According to CNN, not one of these women contracted Zika here in the U.S., but they believe they must have gotten the virus traveling to a country where the virus is high or having unprotected sex with a man with Zika.
After being briefed about the CDC’s findings, President Obama said, “This is something that is solvable. It is not something that we have to panic about, but it is something that we need to take seriously.”
Afternoon Minute: San Fran Police Chief Resigns After Officer Fatally Shoots Black Woman was originally published on hellobeautiful.com