Transgender Day of Remembrance: part II

SFPD blew it bad on this one. In comments on the previous TDoR post, Mike from the excellent blog Civic Center has alerted me that the San Francisco Police Department has apparently just learned they were sitting on evidence pointing to who may have killed Ruby Ordenana. The guy had had time to embark "on a string of savage attacks, mostly on transgender prostitutes, beginning with the slaying of Ordenana on March 16, 2007." According to Jaxon Van Derbeken writing in the San Francisco Chronicle today:

The San Francisco police evidence lab failed to process DNA samples from the 2007 slaying of a transgender prostitute for two years, leaving the suspect free allegedly to rape and brutalize at least three other transgender women before being arrested, The Chronicle has learned. ...

Assistant Police Chief Kevin Cashman was reluctant to discuss details of the Ordenana investigation, citing [Donzell] Francis' upcoming trial on the separate kidnapping and rape charges.

But he acknowledged that the case "could have been handled better" by the crime lab. "This should have been given a much higher priority," Cashman said.

This is not our police department's finest hour. As long as things like this can happen, it remains hard to convince open minds that transgendered persons are not "less equal" in the eyes of law enforcement.