Police made a second arrest late last week in the assault on two transgender women earlier last month, GA Voice reports.
Frederick Missick was arrested Friday, a day after the arrest of Luther Thomas in the same case, with both Atlanta residents being held on $2,500 bail and charged with disorderly conduct, according to Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority police.
MARTA spokesman Lyle Harris told GA Voice that more serious charges could not be pressed because the authorities were not getting any help from the two victims.
“The simple answer is we don’t have cooperating victims to file more serious assault charges and this is the best we can do, at least right now,” Harris said. In the meantime, the two men are being held at the Fulton County Jail, and have been suspended from MARTA.
The alleged incident began on May 20 about 11 p.m. Cellphone footage showed men verbally harassing the transgender women about their identities and taking pictures of them on their cellphones, Raw Story reports.
“I started going off on the guy taking the photos, and he said he was going to hit me and beat me up, and I said, ‘No, you’re not,’” Janell Crosby, one of the women, told the GA Voice. “He kept on threatening me and he didn’t like certain things I said to him and he kicked me.”
“They were trying to find out if we are men or women,” Tyra Woods, Crosby’s friend and the other victim, told the GA Voice.
“I shouldn’t have to disclose who I am to an innocent person who I’m not even interested in talking to,” continued Woods, who was reportedly stripped naked during the altercation.
According to a police report viewed by the GA Voice, no other passengers tried to intervene or stop the incident, instead recording the incident with cellphones and cheering.
“It’s all over the Internet and like, I’m naked,” Woods said. “I felt like since it was in a public transportation, we should’ve felt like we should’ve been secure.”
Crosby allegedly tried to report the attack, which involved kicking and punching, to a MARTA officer but was allegedly ignored—an accusation MARTA denies.
“MARTA does not condone and will not tolerate this type of behavior,“ MARTA CEO Keith Parker said in a statement, according to GA Voice. “I can assure you that we’re taking this matter very seriously.”
Crosby has since decided to move back to New York, where she has relatives, and Woods is heading to Cleveland to stay with her family.
Read more at GA Voice and The Raw Story.