Late last month, a man called the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and said he was going to bomb the offices of the non-profit TransLatin@ Coalition in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Police Assistant Chief Blake Chow told KNX News that the guy, named Henry Nolkemper, also talked about using an accelerant to set fire to the non-profit’s building and attacking the gay pride parade in June.
As soon as cops knew the caller was Nolkemper, they started keeping an eye on his house. The LAPD says that agents finally called him and talked him into turning himself in.
Police say he was arrested on suspicion of making a fake bomb threat and is being held because he may have violated his probation, which means he can’t get bail.
Asst. Chief Chow said that Nolkemper was caught last week and that the L.A. County District Attorney’s office has charged him with making criminal threats and a hate crime increase.
The head of the TransLatin@ Coalition, Bamby Salcedo, says this is not the first threat they’ve received.
Salcedo says that several staff members have been sent hate mail and a lot of other threats. He says that something needs to be done.
“We need to do better to ensure that trans people are integrated into the tapestry of our society,” Salcedo said. “We need to do a better job of making sure that our community has the resources it needs to make a living.”
We need to do a better job of accepting that trans people exist.
Robin Toma, executive director of L.A. County’s Human Relations Commission, said, “We know that the trans community in particular experiences the highest level of hate crimes they’ve ever experienced in the history of us taking their point, which is over four decades, and the level of violence of those hate crimes is always among the highest.”
It was said by Toma that about nine out of ten hate crimes against transgender people are deadly.
