FBI Investigate Brutal Murder Of Transgender Women In Rural Arkansas; Hate Crime Charges Likely; Marcal Camero Tye Shot In The Head Then Dragged Behind A Car Tuesday

KARK-TV reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigations has begun a criminal rights investigation in the death of 24 year old Marcal Camero Tye, a transgendered woman found shot in the head and dragged behind a car in Forrest City, Arkansas Tuesday. A civil rights investigation is the first step in ruling Tye's death a hate crime, said a FBI spokesperson. Local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered advocates said the murder was especially brutal. "This was a person of color, a young transgendered person in a rural community who was shot and drug behind a car," said Jeana Huie, who works as a youth program coordinator for the Center for Artistic Revolution in Little Rock. "That's not something, I can't think of many scenarios that would explain that other than hate and rage." Huie adds that Tye’s horrific murder is a sombre reminder that Arkansas does not currently have hate crime protections in place, saying that "There's no state hate crime legislation, so that's why we are strongly advocating for the federal officials to step in and do the investigation because they do have the ability to prosecute this as a hate crime.”John DiPippa, the Dean of the UALR Bowen School of Law explains that “A hate crime says if you're motivated because of a bias against someone because of their race or gender or ethnicity or sexual orientation then you still commit a crime, but you might be subject to a higher sentence because of that motivation.” Should the FBI finds Tye's death to be a hate crime, the suspect who committed the crime would be tried in both federal and state court; the state would charge the suspect with murder, the federal government would charge the suspect with a hate crime. "It's important to remember these will all still be crimes and that people will still be punished for the act itself," said DiPippa, underlining that categorizing a crime as a hate crime only allows for a more severe punishment, but regardless of if the act is a hate crime or not, the crime itself will be prosecuted. An FBI spokesperson said he did not know how long the FBI's investigation would last.