A trans sex worker called 911 to report being kidnapped. LAPD officers shot and killed her
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A trans woman was shot by police at a Pacoima motel last month after she called 911 for help, then approached officers with a knife, according to video footage released Sunday by the Los Angeles Police Department.
Linda Becerra Moran, 30, died Feb. 27 after weeks on life support, leaving her friends and community advocates shaken.
Becerra Moran had told an emergency operator she was being kidnapped in the 10000 block of San Fernando Road on the morning of Feb. 7.
Footage of the encounter showed officers speaking in Spanish with a distraught Becerra Moran in the moments leading up to the shooting, keeping their guns drawn as she paced inside a motel room and they stood in the doorway. They opened fire after she moved slowly toward them, the video showed.
Becerra Moran had reported being held against her will in the motel room as a possible victim of sex trafficking, said Soma Snakeoil, executive director of the Sidewalk Project, a Skid Row nonprofit.
Becerra Moran was hospitalized in grave condition after the shooting, Snakeoil said, and the decision to end life support was approved by the ethics committee of the hospital where she was being treated after attempts to reach family members in her native Ecuador were unsuccessful. The L.A. County Medical Examiner's Office said information about the case remained limited because "legal next of kin have not been notified." The LAPD did not acknowledge the death for more than a week.
Becerra Moran left behind almost no online presence, and mystery surrounds how she ended up at the San Fernando Valley motel where police shot her.
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“This has such chilling connotations for survivors in L.A. — if they’re afraid to call 911, if they’re afraid that police are going to shoot them when they call 911,” said Snakeoil.
The LAPD identified the officer responsible for the shooting as Jacob Sanchez, a four-year department veteran currently assigned to Foothill Division.
Authorities have so far released few additional details about the deadly encounter, including whether they detained Becerra Moran's alleged captor when they arrived.
In her conversation with a 911 dispatcher, a distraught-sounding Becerra Moran is heard saying that a man in a different room was holding her against her will, and bringing other men into the room.
"I swear to you, I have no reason to lie to you. Lord Jesus Christ," she is heard sobbing in the phone.
"Are they forcing you to do this?" the dispatcher asks.
"Yes," Becerra Moran responds.
A dispatcher then put out an alert to Foothill police units about a possible kidnapping and a person who posed a "danger to herself," police said.
The video released by police shows a group of officers entering the room and asking Becerra Moran to sit on the bed as she shows them a wound she has on the back of the head from getting hit "many times" with a bottle.
Later, the officer who was examining her head for injuries suggests to his colleagues that the officers should place her on a mental health "hold."
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When a supervisor arrives, she becomes upset and demands that they stay away from her, sobbing and yelling at the officers to leave.
"No, if you guys were offering to help, I don't want your help," she yells at them. "What's she saying?" the supervisor asks. She then begins pushing a mini-fridge in their direction, before grabbing a knife and holding it to her neck, prompting officers to draw their weapons.
When she moved in their direction, Sanchez opened fire, and she fell onto the bed.
As with all LAPD shootings, the incident will also be reviewed by the Police Commission, its inspector general and the district attorney’s office.
Snakeoil, whose organization offers services for unhoused people, said she first encountered Becerra Moran at MacArthur Park in late 2023, when police were warning about a serial killer who appeared to be targeting homeless people.
At the time, Becerra Moran was "fleeing from sexual violence," Snakeoil said, and the organization worked to get her temporarily housed in local motels. But she never stayed in one place for too long, drifting between Westlake and Hollywood.
Across Los Angeles County, Snakeoil said, shelter beds for female survivors of human trafficking are scarce, especially for those who are trans or who struggle with mental health.
Kim Soriano, a researcher with the Sidewalk Project, remembers Becerra Moran for her independent-mindedness.
"She was just determined to survive. She was very resilient; like she knew what she wanted and she knew what she liked and what made her comfortable," Soriano said, who would run into her while researching her dissertation on police treatment of trans and queer people at MacArthur Park.
A devout Catholic, Becerra Moran owned a five-pound statuette of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which took up most of the space in the battered suitcase that she lugged around.
"She told me that she carried it all around with her and it offered her protection," said Soriano. Once, she recalled, Becerra Moran saying of the statuette: "Be careful with her, because she's come a long way with me."
Over the months, the two of them bonded, Soriano said, talking often about Becerra Moran navigating life as a trans woman of color who supported herself as a sex worker while living on the streets. For her, threats were everywhere. Gangs. Drugs. Police.
Soriano said Becerra Moran was among the park regulars who expressed a grudging acceptance of law enforcement. Like the others, she'd gotten swept up by the seemingly endless cleanups targeting drug use and theft in the area — tents were dismantled, belongings seized and people forced to leave. And yet she ultimately felt police were there for protection, Soriano said.
"She called them when she needed help because she was being held hostage and trafficked and they met her with even more violence," Soriano said. "Maybe she did believe that they would be some type of lifeline for her."
Becerra Moran had been awarded a housing voucher, but "no one had placed her anywhere" given the city's shortage of short-term shelter and housing options, Soriano said. Eventually, with Soriano's help, she secured a bed at an area shelter.
She didn't stay long. She was frustrated over having some of her possessions thrown away by shelter staff, shortly after moving in, Soriano said. She also recalled Becerra Moran feeling unsafe after being placed in a dorm-style room with three other occupants.
When Becerra Moran ended up back on the streets and lost her phone, Soriano fell out of touch.
Soriano said she continued doing her outreach at MacArthur Park, hoping to run into Becerra Moran again. She never did.
Leigh LaChapelle, an associate director at the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, said Becerra Moran's case was a reminder of why police are not the answer to helping trafficking survivors. In recent years, law enforcement authorities have announced stepped-up crackdowns to curb the business along well-known "tracks."
Read more: A slimmed-down LAPD seems here to stay. What happens to crime with fewer cops?
“They see them through the lens of criminality rather than vulnerability and treat them as people who need support,” said LaChapelle. "I'm so worried about this getting written off as a mistake or as a sort of exception."
Snakeoil, of the Sidewalk Project, said that she visited Becerra Moran several times in the hospital, offering up words of encouragement from her bedside — praying that Becerra Moran could hear them from under a tangle of tubes keeping her alive. During the visits, the room remained under guard by two LAPD officers, Snakeoil said.
At some point, she noticed that Becerra Moran's cherished Virgin of Guadalupe figure was nowhere to be found. A Sidewalk Project worker rushed off to buy a replacement, which Snakeoil placed beside the hospital bed. It remained there as Snakeoil said their goodbyes.
“We’re angry," Snakeoil said. "This is a vulnerable woman and a survivor of violence."
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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