NYC NOW - October 27, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

New York Congressman George Santos pleads not guilty on a 23 count indictment. Plus, the MTA’s newest subway cars have been pulled out of service due to mechanical problems. And finally, WNYC’s Michael Hill talks with Jenna Flanagan, host of the podcast "After Broad and Market,”about the life and death of Sakia Gunn.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jene Pierre. Our hope was that we would see him flee and immediate resignation, and it's very clear that he is an absolute idiot. We begin on Long Island, where at least two dozen protesters rallied outside a courthouse Friday morning as Congress member George Santos pleaded not guilty on a 23-count indictment.

WNYC's Bridget Bergen has the details. George Santos appeared in a federal courtroom on Long Island, dressed in black. He entered a not guilty plea on all charges, including identity theft, credit card fraud, conspiracy, money laundering, wire fraud, theft of public funds, and making false statements to Congress. His court appearance came just a day after members of his own party introduced a measure on the House floor to expel Santos from the body. After the brief proceeding, Santos left the courthouse without speaking to the media, blowing a kiss to about two dozen protesters. He's due back in court in December with a trial date set for next September. Nearly all of the MTA's newest subway cars are already off the rails. The train cars, called R211s, were recently pulled out of service due to mechanical problems.

WMYC's Stephen Nesson has more. That's the sound of an out-of-service R-211 train lumbering through a station on the A-line. The train has a partially flattened wheel. That's what's causing the loud clinging sound. These modern state-of-the-art subway cars cost $2.7 million a piece. They have wider doors, new digital displays, and electronic signal equipment. What they don't have is a reliable gearbox. That's the device that makes wheels turn.

When they don't turn, they drag. damaging the wheel. Out of the seven new R-211 trains in service, six of them are now out for repairs. The MTA doesn't know when they'll be back in service. Stay close. There's more after the break. Now to New Jersey, where a street in Newark will be renamed for Sekea Gunn this weekend. Two decades ago, the queer 15-year-old was stabbed to death in a hate crime at a bus stop at Broaden Market in the early hours of Mother's Day. While the murder was shocking to Sekees' community, her death didn't generate very much media coverage outside of Newark.

Jenna Flanagan was a reporter at the time, assigned to cover Sechia's murder. WNYC's Michael Hill talked with Flanagan about her new podcast, exploring the impact of Sekea's life and death called After Broad and Market. Here's their conversation. Tell us about Sekea Gunn. For those who are just hearing her name, who was she? She was your quintessential 15-year-old millennial in the early, aughts. She was just a happy go lucky, very energetic, very charismatic kid by a lot of people's descriptions. But she was also very out and proud and queer and lesbian.

So he identified as AG. What does that term mean? Okay, so Ag is short for aggressive. And again, this was one of those terms that when I first heard it, I was like, wait, what? Aggressive is a term that was used in the late 90s early aughts, usually by the black lesbian community. And that was a way to describe women who were lesbians, but dressed in what we would now say gender non-conforming or in a masculine way. Perhaps another term we might have used 20 years ago was tomboy. But this is to more dress kind of like, you know, perhaps one of the boys with baggy t-shirts, baggy jeans, a du rag, that type of stuff. The incident that ended in her murder began as street harassment. Would you tell us about her death and what had meant to other young queer black kids in Newark?

As far as we know, I mean, not officially. but essentially the final word she might have said were, we're not interested, we're lesbians. And that's because Sechia and a bunch of her friends returning home, they were hanging out at the Chelsea Peers, which was a very safe space and commonplace for a lot of particularly queer kids of color to be able to be. And so when they were waiting for the bus on the corner Broaden Market,

on the morning of Mother's Day, I should add, these two men approached them in a car, one of them got out, and started hitting on some of the more, Fem presenting girls. Now, keep in mind, these are 15-year-olds, and the people hitting on them were well over a decade their seniors. So we've already got a mad power imbalance. And when Sechia stepped in to defend one of her friends and say, you know, we're not interested we're lesbians. That's when a bit of a scuffle broke out and Sekeia ends up getting stabbed in the

heart. The gentleman who stabbed her hops back in the car and they drive away. And she's held in the arms by her best friend, or, you know, if you're in the black community, her play cousin, Valencia Bailey, and literally just bleeds to death. Sekeia was killed 20 years ago. Why is her story resonating so much now? I think because for the people who were there when this happened, this was shocking, not just in what happened to her, in the manner which she was killed, but in the lack of response. I myself was a very green, very new reporter for WBGO, and this was also, I would say, four and a half years after Matthew Shepard's murder. And a year after, I believe, the film, the Laramie Project was released.

So in all of that, we got a chance to see, you know, just the level of scrutiny, of detail, of understanding the nuances within that Wyoming community where this crime took place. And I honestly thought that that was going to come to Newark, except this time it was. going to center a black girl. And that would include all of the nuances and different layers of intersectionality that Sequea lived at. I know you covered this story when it was happening. Looking back now, two decades later, how has your understanding of this story changed? You know, so much has happened in two decades. And understanding, I think, is the best word, because as we've grown culturally and as a society, not only has our understanding of the spectrum of sexuality deepened and broadened, but so has the language around how we speak about

people and where they fall on that spectrum. The whole time, at least for myself, carrying this story and never really knowing what to do with it, but just feeling as if it was never brought to any kind of conclusion, really, was that not only was Sechia's name really sort of lost to people outside of the newer queer community, but also she could be a stand-in for, so many kids in so many different locations. Like it doesn't have to be Newark. The story could have taken place in Ohio. It could have taken place in Texas. And I think that's what makes her so ubiquitous to our time is that we're still losing young queer people, particularly trans women. And the stories just are sort of getting shrugged off today still. You know,

just this summer, another young queer person was stabbed to death in a hate crime in the region. 28-year-old O'Shea Cigley was killed at a gas station in Brooklyn in July. What's changed since Ciccaia's death in terms of the safety of black, queer, young people? All right, so I can speak specifically for Newark and say that as a reaction to Sequea's murder, the city did decide to open a LGBTQ center, but it took 10 years to get that together. But I was hearing from the people who run those centers, a lot of kids not only in Newark, but in New Jersey don't know Sekea's name and they don't know her story. And they're dealing with a lot of the same issues that Sechia was in terms of feeling safe or making sure that they are

in spaces where they can be their full selves and they don't have to edit any part of their personality. Now, again, I want to be clear that wasn't necessarily the case for Sekea. She had a family who was very supportive of her. Her mother, I think in the podcast, says She didn't care how she dressed as long as she brought home good grades. But still, though, for other, again, queer kids of color, they're dealing with so many different layers of intersectionality still that don't fully get addressed. And in a lot of cases, it's because they're not fully understood. That's Jenna Flanagan, host of the podcast After Broad and Market, talking with WMYC's Michael Hill.

Before we head out, a quick note. We're dropping another special episode Saturday morning. It's the fourth installment of WNYC's five-part investigative podcast series, Eminent Danger, one doctor and a trail of injured women. We'll look at the role hospitals play in ensuring patient safety and what steps the federal government takes to prevent doctors with questionable histories from moving from state to state. Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC.

Quick shout out to our production team. It includes Sean Baudage, Ivey Carrillo, Audrey Cooper, Leora Noam Kravitz, Jared Marcel, Jen Munson, and Wayne Schoemeister, with help from the entire WMYC Newsroom. Our show art was designed by the people at Buck, and our music was composed by Alexis Quadrato. I'm Jenae Pierre. Have a great weekend. We'll be back tomorrow.