Kayla Moore (1972-2013)
#SayherName, #LGBTQIA, #MentalHealthMatters, #TransLivesMatter, #AmINext, #UnknownOthers
On February 12, 2013, Kayla Moore, a transgender individual, died while being restrained and arrested by a group of Berkeley, California police officers. Relatively little is known about her case. Historically incidents involving Black trans persons have gone under reported or unreported. Moore’s case was no different.
What is known is that on the night in question, her roommate and friend called 911 at around midnight because he believed Moore was having a mental health issue. En route to the scene, police searched the name and found a “Xavier Moore” with an outstanding warrant. Believing, wrongly, that Kayla Moore was the person they were encountering, police attempted to arrest her. According to Arthur Moore v. City of Berkeley Et Al, Moore was variously restrained by officers who put weight on her lower torso, legs, and shoulder blades; handcuffs; and finally, a WRAP restraint device was used. Moore was pronounced dead at 1:34 am. Officers claimed she resisted arrest.
Officers were ultimately exonerated for using excessive force, but questions about her case lingered. Given her mental health history, Moore’s family filed an Americans with Disabilities Act claim against the City of Berkeley and the officers involved. Two questions were considered in that suit, whether officers “mistook the effects of her disability for a crime,” and whether “they did not reasonably accommodate her disability during the arrest.”
In the months and years after Moore’s death, several events marked the close of the case for those involved. The wrongful death lawsuit was dismissed in 2018. Nevertheless, in 2021, the City of Berkeley proposed a $6 million earmark to “fund a new Specialized Care Unit (SCU) that would respond instead of armed police to people in crisis due to mental illness or substance use.”