CRIME
Black Trans Woman
Killed in Indianapolis
Ke’Yahonna “Yaya” Stone died at the age of 32.
BY MATT TRACY
A Black transgender
woman who was shot
outside of a nightclub
in Indianapolis on December
26 died of her injuries two
days later when she was removed
from life support.
Ke’Yahonna “Yaya” Stone’s family
and friends said she was in the
parking lot at Epic Ultra Lounge
in northeastern Indianapolis
when she intervened in a fi ght and
wound up getting shot. According
to FOX 59, a local TV station in Indianapolis,
police offi cers responded
to the scene at around 3 a.m.
and Stone, 32, was transferred to a
local hospital in critical condition,
but was unable to recover.
Stone became the 51st and fi nal
known transgender or non-binary
individual to suffer a violent death
in the United States in 2021.
Indianapolis police could not immediately
be reached for comment
on January 3. No arrests have
been made.
Stone’s close friend, LaTroya
Rucker, launched a GoFundMe
page in an effort to raise money for
proper burial services.
HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN
“Ke’Yahonna Stone ‘Yaya’ was
loved by so many and always looked
out for anyone she loved,” Rucker
wrote on the GoFundMe page. “We
are devastated and heartbroken.”
“I feel whoever did it, they moved
off of impulse,” Rucker said, according
to WISH TV,, a CW affi liate
in Indianapolis. “Some things
you got to walk away from. It don’t
make you a punk or nothing to
walk away. She was breaking up a
fi ght, trying to defuse a fi ght that
was going on. My sister didn’t have
nothing to do with nothing that
was going on out there.”
Stone was known to open her
home for others who need a safe
space, according to WISH TV.
Stone had recently started working
at Trans Solutions Research
and Resource Center, a social service
agency for the transgender
community in Indianapolis.
Stone’s murder concluded yet
another record-breaking year of
deadly violence targeting the community.
The death toll surpassed
the 44 known transgender or nonbinary
individuals who were murdered
in 2020 — and that was already
signifi cant jump from the 25
such cases logged in 2019.
JANUARY 13 - January 26, 2 16 022 | GayCityNews.com
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