NYPD Reopens Investigation Into Death Of Trans Activist Marsha P. Johnson

When the body of Marsha P. Johnson, a transgender entertainer and activist, was discovered in the Hudson River in 1992, the police declared it a suicide. But friends and community advocates felt there were still unanswered questions. (There were reports she had been harassed near the spot where her body was found.) Now, 20 years later, the NYPD agrees and is reopening the case. Michael Musto reports the Manhattan D.A.’s office has assigned someone “to look more closely at what really happened.” One of the city’s best known trans women of the times Johnson was a leader in clashes with the police amid the Stonewall Riots.[2][3] A veteran of the Stonewall Riots, Johnson co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with Sylvia Rivera in the 1970s, providing shelter and support to young trans women in New York.