For every number of men who approach women with “harmless” intentions, there could be one who has vicious intentions or who turns vicious if he doesn’t get the reaction he wants. Here is a sampling of persons who were killed by their harasser, or by a harasser they tried to stop.
Note: Sadly, transgender women (especially women of color) face some of the highest rates of street harassment escalating to death. You can find a list of murdered/killed transgender persons by year on the Transgender Day of Remembrance website. An example from 2016 is Maya Young, a 25-year-old transgender woman of color, who was stabbed to death in the Frankford section of Philadelphia.
Targets of Street Harassment:
- A harasser fatally shot Tiarah Poyau at the J’ouvert festival in Brooklyn, NY, in 2016 after she asked him to stop grinding on her.
- A 15-year-old girl in India committed suicide by setting herself on fire because she could no longer bear the sexual harassment by a 24-year-old man in her community.
- In 2016, 19-year-old Sohagi Jahan Tonu‘s body was found in bushes near her campus in Comilla, Bangladesh, raped, with her head bashed in.
- Argentinians María Coni (22) and Marina Menegazzo (23) were murdered while backpacking in Ecuador in 2016, with speculation that it was due to harassment that escalated or they were kidnapped to be trafficked and then killed.
- Thirty-year-old Japanese Asami Nagakiya was performing at 2016 Trinidad Carnival when her body was found in bushes, likely raped, and murdered. The mayor blamed her based on her clothing. Outrage over that statement forced him to resign.
- Janese Talton-Jackson was killed in 2016 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after she declined a man’s invitations to go on a date.
- On New Year’s Eve 2015, consensual conversations between strangers in two cars in Denton, Texas, escalated into harassment and then to a man shooting into the other car, killing 20-year-old college student Sara Mutschlechner.
- In 2016, 15-year-old Prinki was shot by a man who had been harassing her “for some time” in India.
- In 2015, a mini-bus driver in Tarsus, Turkey, tried to rape 20-year old Ozgecan Aslan, when she resisted, he beat and killed her.
- Mary Spears was shot by a man in 2014 in Detroit, Michigan, after she refused to give him her phone number.
- In Brazil, between January and August 2014, 12 young women aged 13-29 were shot and killed by a motorcyclist as they stood in public spaces. The reason? They were young and female.
- In Vancouver in April 2009, a woman was murdered while running in a park.
- In March 2009, a 29-year-old pregnant woman was walking home from work in Manhattan with a co-worker when a van drove onto the sidewalk and hit them. Witnesses say the men in the van were “catcalling” the women, who were trying to ignore the men. The pregnant woman was killed and her co-worker was hospitalized.
- After a Bradenton, Florida, high school football game in the fall of 2009, a young man approached four young women who were in a car and propositioned them for sex. When they refused, he came back with a gun and fired at them. One young woman died from her wounds.
- In Orlando, Florida, in June 2008, there were two cars sitting at a red light with young men in one car and young women in the other. When asked, the young women refused to give the young men their phone numbers and so the men shot at them. One of the women died a few days later from her gun wounds.
- In Washington, DC, in September 2008, a young woman was eating dinner on her front porch. When she refused to comply with the demands of an unknown young man passing by, he went home and came back with a gun and shot her. She died from the gun wounds, too.
Witnesses/Bystanders of Street Harassment:
- A harasser in Florida in 2016 shot a man after that man told him to stop disrespecting his wife.
- A Chicago man was killed in 2014 by a harasser in front of his 15-year-old daughter after he confronted the man for making “inappropriate gestures” at her.
- An Egyptian teenager was stabbed to death in 2014 while stopping to help young women experiencing harassment.
- In Germany, in 2014, Tugce Albayrak, a 23-year-old student died at the hands of a street harasser when she spoke out to protect two teenage girls.
