The Justice Department will help prosecute the murder of 16-year-old Kedarie Johnson. Johnson, from Burlington, Iowa, was found dead last March. Johnson died from gunshot wounds, his body dumped in an alley. The Justice Department is investigating his murder as a transgender hate crime, The New York Times reported. 

Authorities charged Jorge Sanders-Galvez and Jaron Purham, both in their 20s, with Johnson’s murder. Purham’s trial was last month. Sanders’ Galvez’ trial is coming this month. A Justice Department attorney will help local attorneys with the prosecution.

Johnson was a beloved teen in his Iowa community. He usually identified as male, his birth sex, said his mother, Katrina Johnson. Sometimes he crossed-dressed and went by “Kandicee.” 

“I truly believe that it was a hate crime,” Mrs. Johnson said after his murder.

“There wasn’t a mean bone in his body,” high school counselor Shaunda Campell said following his death. She also remembered his “beautiful smile.”

Tough on Hate Crime

The move follows Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ promise to be tough on hate crime. He’s made it clear that includes hate crimes against people who identify as transgender.

“Hate crimes are violent crimes,” Sessions said at the 2017 Hate Crimes Summit in June. “We will not tolerate the targeting of any community in our country.” 

He highlighted the 49-year prison sentence handed to Joshua Brandon Vallum. Vallum murdered 17-year-old Mercedes Williamson in 2015. “This is the first case prosecuted under the Hate Crimes Prevention Act involving the murder of a transgender person,” Sessions said. President Barack Obama signed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009.

In March, six lawmakers asked Sessions to investigate murders of trans-identified African Americans. And he took it seriously. “I personally met with the Department’s senior leadership and the Civil Rights Division” about those cases, he said in the June speech. He added that the Justice Department would collaborate with the FBI to support state and local law enforcement in similar crimes.

Past Criticism

LGBT activists have criticized Sessions for rolling back transgender rights. Earlier this month, he announced the law banning sex-based workplace discrimination does not encompass gender identity. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits workplace discrimination based on sex.

Sessions’ memo reversed a 2014 memo by then-Attorney General Eric Holder. Holder mandated that the Title VII sex-discrimination ban include gender identity. Sessions holds that “sex” means only male or female. However, he insisted the ruling should not “be construed to condone mistreatment on the basis of gender identity.” 

“The Department of Justice cannot expand the law beyond what Congress has provided,” Devin O’Malley said at the time. O’Malley is a spokesman for the Justice Department. “Unfortunately, the last administration abandoned that fundamental principle.” 

Vanita Gupta led the Justice Department’s Civil Rights division under Obama. Now president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, she says Sessions’ policies “promote discrimination and hate that can end it death.” She acknowledged it’s “good that D.O.J. is aggressively pursuing” Johnson’s case.

According to O’Malley, the aid being given in the Johnson case “is just one example” of Sessions’ commitment to the law and protecting civil rights.