In March, Deanna Rodriguez, the chief of the Gang Bureau of the Brooklyn District Attorney Office since 1996, was suspended without pay for using anti-gay slurs and threats of violence in communications with her staff. According to an article in Monday's New York Post, Rodriguez was suspended for three months without pay beginning in March, and information about her future employment with the agency has not been shared. AVP knows that homophobic and transphobic violence from public figures not only endangers those targeted but impacts the safety of LGBTQ communities as a whole.

 Read the full text of AVP's Community Alert here.