A Black Southfield man faces a murder charge after police allege he shot a Black transgender in the head after arranging to meet for sex, the latest in what some describe as “an epidemic of violence against transgender women.”

The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office recently charged Robert Ridges III, 28, with second-degree murder, carrying concealed weapons and felony firearm possession in the Feb. 9 death of 29-year-old transgender sex worker Tahiry Broom, WXYZ reports. Broom was a man living as a woman.

“Every person is entitled to live without fear of violence,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said in a statement. “Tahiry Broom had family and friends who loved her. She did not deserve to die and her killer will be brought to justice.”

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If convicted, Ridges could face a potential sentence of life without parole for the murder charge, while the concealed weapons charge is a five-year felony, and the felony firearm charge carries a two-year sentence.

McDonald contends Ridges met Broom through an advertisement for commercial sex and the two agreed to meet near Ridges’ apartment building in Southfield on Saturday morning.

Southfield Police Chief Elvin Barren told CBS News Ridges made 33 phone calls to sex workers that morning, mostly Black women or transgender women.

When Broom arrived to meet Ridges, the two argued, before Ridges allegedly pulled out a gun and shot Broom, who was lying in the parking lot of Riverstone Apartments with a gunshot wound to the right side of the head when police responded.

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Broom died at the scene, and police later arrested Ridges at Detroit’s MGM Grand Casino, according to the news site.

Barren said at a press conference this week Broom’s real name is Jamal Broom, but he promised to address the deceased as a woman, The Detroit News reports.

“I spoke to Jamal’s mother,” he said. “Obviously, she was emotional after losing a child in such a violent and gruesome manner. I made her promise that I would refer to her daughter by the appropriate pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her’ in my remarks.”

Barren said he also promised not to focus too much on Broom’s illegal occupation.

“No matter what line of work Jamal was in, this shouldn’t have happened,” he said.

When questioned, Ridges, who does not have a criminal record, told police “he acted alone and claimed he did not know Broom was a member of the transgender community,” Barren said.

Investigators executed a search warrant on Ridges’ apartment, where they recovered a Sig Sauer 9mm and ammunition. The handgun, which police believe was used in the crime, was reported stolen in Georgia in 2023.

The case is the latest in what former President Joe Biden last year described as “an epidemic of violence against transgender women and girls, especially women and girls of color.”

To combat that epidemic, Biden declared March 31, formally known as Easter Sunday, as the new “Transgender Day of Visibility,” while insinuating racial issues are playing into “violence and discrimination based on gender identity” that “continues to take too many lives.”

Other Democrats have worked hard to tie the “epidemic” of violence against Black transgender people to bigotry and racism, as well.

“When we say Black lives matter, that must include Black trans lives,” U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., said in a 2023 speech on the House floor.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has also attributed Black trans murders to “white supremacy.”

Yet an analysis by The Midwesterner of 100 Black trans murder cases highlighted by the Human Rights Campaign found the rhetoric belies the facts.

Of the 100 cases, 60 of the suspects identified were Black, two were white, and one was Latino, suggesting 95% of those responsible for Black trans murders were Black themselves.

That was obviously the case with Ridges, as well as other recent Black trans murders downstate.

Just last month, Carlos Lamar Scotland was sentenced to 17-30 years in prison for the murder of 34-year-old Ashia Davis in June 2023, when Scotland was 17 years old, WJBK reports.

Scotland shot Davis execution style in the back of the head inside a hotel in Highland Park on the first day of Pride Month.

Last year, openly bisexual state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, D-Livonia, ushered through legislation to ban what’s known as “Gay-Panic and Trans-Panic” legal defenses, which are used when alleged perpetrators commit acts of violence or murder after discovering a person is gay or transsexual.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed Pohutsky’s House Bill 4718 into law on July 30.

“Violent crimes against the trans community have been on the rise over the last two years with the vast majority of those being against black trans individuals,” Pohutsky said.