LOCAL

Who killed Brian Powers? Police have no leads, loved ones want answers

Seyma Bayram
Beacon Journal

When Brian Joseph Powers called his friend Carlton Amos on a Saturday morning in early June, the pair did what they had done since they were kids in South Akron. They shared their dreams. 

As a child, Powers dreamed of becoming a backup dancer for Janet Jackson or Paula Abdul. As he got older, he told Amos of his aspirations to start his own T-shirt company. But on that June 6 morning, he was happy to be at home in his own apartment. After struggling with substance abuse and housing insecurity for much of his adult life, Powers had been sober for seven months. Finally, he was closer to his dream of stability.

A lifelong Akron resident, he had also turned his other passion — cooking — into a career as he worked alongside his friend Hertistine Price for her catering company.

But Powers’ dreams were abruptly cut short. A week after that phone call to Amos, a groundskeeper found Powers lying face-up and motionless on the sidewalk outside of a church near downtown Akron.

He wore long brown curls — a break from the usual bright blue, green, yellow and pink braids that Powers loved to don. “Unicorn braids” he would affectionately call them after each time his cousin braided his hair.

Authorities later declared that Powers, who is transgender and is also known as “Egypt,” was a homicide victim who died from wounds caused by a single bullet that pierced both thighs. He was 43.

More than a month later, family and friends continue to search for clues. Police have not turned up any information on a suspect or a witness. Investigators did not recover bullets or casings at the site — only Powers’ cellphone — and the medical examiner does not know the time of death. Powers’ last phone call was shortly after 3 a.m., about five hours before his body was found.

His family worries that, because he is Black and transgender, Powers’ killing is not receiving the attention and resources they believe it deserves from the local community and law enforcement.

For Vivian Powers-Smith, the silence around her brother’s death is confounding.

“He knew so many people. … He never met a stranger in his life. By the time you talked to him for five, 10 minutes, it’s like you’ve known him forever,” Vivian said last week at Hardesty Park, where the family held a memorial to celebrate his life.

“I would think someone, you know, would know something. Nobody’s saying anything. … The police, they say they have no leads,” she said.

Investigators determined that Powers walked about a hundred yards after he was shot before collapsing near the church, Vivian said.

“He was spiritual. He knew God loved him,” she said. “I always told him ‘God made you and he knew what he was doing when he made you. ... You are who you are supposed to be.’”

That someone could leave her brother to die on the street hurts Vivian. But she finds momentary comfort in the thought that their older brother and grandparents were looking over Powers in his last moments.

“I have to make up in my mind that they were there, instead of him just being on the ground,” she said, wiping away tears.

The family wants to see more urgency in the investigation into his death. They made a GoFundMe page to raise reward money, hoping that it might entice someone with information to come forward. “Money talks,” a police officer told Vivian.

An Aug. 29 vigil to demand justice for Powers is planned. The event will also highlight crimes against the LGBTQ+ community in Akron and elsewhere. Given the high rates of violence against LGBTQ+ people in America and Powers’ own experiences with transphobic attacks, his loved ones fear he may have been the victim of a hate crime.

“I just want to keep him relevant. I don’t want people to forget about him. Not just the fact that he was murdered. I want them to know; he was a good person. He was a brother and a son and an uncle and a friend,” Vivian Powers said.

“He mattered. His life mattered to the people who loved him.”

‘All Black Lives Matter’

At least 27 transgender people were slain in America last year, the Human Rights Campaign reports. Some of those victims were targets of hate crimes by either people they knew or by strangers. Others were exposed to the risk of violence due to homelessness or unemployment — factors that can force some transgender people to enter sex work in order to survive, the report found.

Black trans people — especially Black trans women — are disproportionately impacted by violence.

Four days before Powers was killed, Riah Milton, a 25-year-old Black trans woman, was killed in Liberty Township, one hour southwest of Akron. Dominique “Rem'mie” Fells, a 27-year-old Black trans woman, was also killed on June 9 in Philadelphia. Their deaths coincided with nationwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality, and sparked an outcry among Black LGBTQ+ activists.

Local advocate Steve Arrington of the Akron AIDS Collaborative remembers meeting Powers at a drop-in center for LGBTQ+ African Americans. When Arrington learned about Powers’ homicide and noticed the lack of community mobilization around it, he was furious.

“I got angry. … I wasn’t one of his close, dear friends … But I knew he existed,” Arrington said in a phone interview. “I knew he was a transgender person. I knew he deserved some respect and our community should be standing up for him.

“We need to be talking about how stigmatized the Black community and white community is about transgender life and death. We don’t want to talk about it, [we] sweep it under the carpet,” Arrington said.

Racism has always existed within the LGBTQ+ community, he said. But Arrington also noted contradictions within the Black Lives Matter movement. When Na’Kia Crawford was killed on June 14, one day after Powers’ death, the community immediately came together in protest, but didn’t demonstrate similar outrage over Powers’ killing. Crawford’s homicide was at first suspected to be a white on black crime.

“I’m kind of disturbed when they say ‘Black Lives Matter,’” he said. “I say, ‘Whose lives, my life? Or just heterosexual Black peoples’ lives? What about my LGBTQ brothers and sisters? They’re Black. Do their lives matter?’”

Arrington recently started a program called All Black Lives Matter, including T-shirts printed with the slogan. He will join other Black Lives Matter activists on Copley Road on Saturday to demand a more inclusive movement for Black lives and nurture a dialogue between the LGBTQ+ community and the larger Akron community.

Discrimination against LGBTQ+ people

Brian Powers grew up in South Akron in the 1980s and 1990s at a time when transgender rights were not as visible in public discourse. But he never hid who he was.

“Growing up he had it hard. He was a Black man [in] South Akron. He was expected to be tough and rugged, and he was to a certain extent, but he was always himself. And that did get him in a lot of fights,” sister Vivian said.

“The only thing I ever worried about was how the world was going to treat him. Like, was someone going to hurt him, because he was gay, because he was different?” she wondered.

Powers, who towered at 6 feet 4 inches, was not one to back down in the face of violence. He always fought back, not just for himself but for others who could not stand up for themselves. At his memorial in June, one young Black gay man pulled Vivian aside to tell her how Powers had protected him from a predatory man at the transit center. They always talked before catching their buses after that day.

Vivian wondered if her brother had gotten into a dispute with someone before his death.

“I even asked the detective, ‘Was there signs of a struggle?’ because, you know, Brian’s been gay since the gate, so he’s been a fighter. He’s had to fight sometimes. And people would tell you … that boy can fight.”

There were no signs of a struggle, the detective told her.

Price and Amos, however, said Powers told them he had been in a fight in the week before he died with at least two strangers who had called him a derogatory name.

“I had to show them who I was,” Price said Powers told her. Police said they were not aware of the incident.

Price now finds herself returning to that conversation. She said she wondered if his death had anything to do with that conflict.

If Powers is the victim of a hate crime, it could be difficult to prosecute his case as such under Ohio law.

Ohio is one of 14 states where hate crime laws — or “ethnic intimidation laws,” as they are called — do not encompass gender identity and sexual orientation. The Columbus Dispatch has reported that this exclusion often leads to a lack of prosecution of crimes based on sexual orientation, gender identity and even disability.

Advocates have fought for the past 10 years to add a nondiscrimination clause for LGBTQ+ people to state law.

Some Ohio municipalities, meanwhile, have incorporated ordinances to address hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people. Akron’s ethnic intimidation ordinance includes language around sexual orientation and gender identity, but Akron officials have not yet responded to questions about its prosecutorial ramifications.

Investigating Powers’ killing

Vivian Powers-Smith is struggling to understand why there has been little progress made in solving her brother’s homicide.

While suspects have been arrested in the Crawford case and other recent homicides, she worries that her brother’s case is not receiving equal attention.

“It’s like he’s put on the back burner. That’s how I feel. … Like it’s not important to them,” she said. “I don’t know if its because he’s transgender or because he’s a gay male. I don’t know.”

She described inconsistent communication from detectives. On July 16, she said more than a week had passed since someone returned her last phone call.

Akron police spokesperson Lt. Michael Miller said the department is devoting ample resources to Brian Powers’ case. He said detectives are at an impasse because no witnesses have come forward and there is no surveillance footage showing Powers on the night of his death.

“The only facts that we have are what was known the day that the call came in, which is essentially where he was found, how he died. ... There [are] essentially no additional leads on any suspects. That’s an unfortunate part. We are waiting or hopeful that somebody comes forward,” he said in a phone call last week.

He said the lack of information makes it impossible to determine a motive for Powers’ killing.

“Until we identify and/or have a suspect in custody, it’s really hard to infer that his lifestyle was a contributing factor. … I hate to even suggest that that even played a role,” he said.

Powers’ sexual orientation or gender identity do not impact the department’s approach or rigor on the case, he emphasized.

“Certainly we can’t control any opinions or sentiments that some members of the community may have, but I can tell you, unequivocally, undeniably, that the investigators, the collective group of folks up in that unit, are very passionate, dedicated, and are committing the same resources to Mr. Powers’ investigation, with the same diligence and purpose as we would any other investigation,” he said.

“Our solve rates with some of the previous homicides reflect people across different demographics … There’s no room on our end for any bias to change our motivation. They’re equally motivated on this, as they would be on any prior or future investigation,” he said.

A Beacon Journal analysis of homicide solve rates in Akron over the last decade shows racial disparities. Though Black people account for the majority of homicide victims in Akron, homicides involving Black victims have the lowest solve rate. Between 2010 and 2019, the solve rate for Black homicide victims averaged 63%, compared to 87% for those involving white victims.

Miller confirmed that the Akron Police Department does not track sexual orientation of homicide victims. The department records a victim’s gender based on official records such as driver’s licenses, he said.

Remembering Brian

Carlton Amos was unable to sleep on the night of Powers’ slaying. When his neighbor called him to tell him that Powers had died, Amos was in shock.

“I thought it was a bad dream,” he said.

On more than one occasion, Powers told Amos that he worried he might suffer a violent fate.

“I just pray that his murder doesn’t go unsolved because he was just another Black man in Akron, Ohio, who happened to be gay,” Hertistine Price said. “I have faith that we will find who took our friend from us.”

Seyma Bayram is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Learn more at reportforamerica.org. Contact her at sbayram@gannett.com or 330-996-3327 or on Twitter @SeymaBayram0.

FYI ...

• Powers’ family has set up a GoFundMe page to solicit contributions for a reward that could help solve his murder.

• A vigil, titled Justice for Brian, is scheduled for 4 p.m. Aug. 29 at Hardesty Park in Akron. Contact justiceforbrian@gmail.com for more information.

• Anyone with information about Brian Powers’ death can call Akron detectives at 330-375-2490. Callers may remain anonymous.

In the top photo, young women show T-shirts they wore to commemorate Brian Powers during a memorial service at Akron's Hardesty Park. In the lower image, Powers has colorful braids, a style his family said he often wore.
Vivian Powers-Smith shows photos of her brother Brian "Egypt" Powers on Thursday in Akron.