the night of her death<\/a>, Black had left a gender reveal party to charge her phone, Gianino said. She returned to her apartment, charged her phone, then went outside to wait for a ride while FaceTiming with a friend. Towards the end of the call, her killer approached her. She ran around the building, screaming for help, and was shot to death in front of one of the apartment doors.<\/p>\nDeputies believe that \u201ca number of people\u201d witnessed Black\u2019s death and the physical fight two days prior. Some might have information about the whereabouts of the murder weapon, Gianino said.<\/p>\n
The newly identified person of interest has a history of violence in the area and is currently serving a sentence for a different violent crime, Gianino said, though he would not provide specifics on the length of the sentence. He hopes that this discovery will help encourage witnesses to come forward who might have otherwise been fearful of retaliation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always a challenge to come out to the public and get that one perhaps apprehensive witness who\u2019s seen exactly what happened, but is afraid to come forward,\u201d Gianino said. \u201cSo that\u2019s why we\u2019re here today, to ensure the public that the person of interest is incarcerated, is no longer a threat. And I think that he will be no longer a threat to anyone for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Black\u2019s niece, who asked that her name not be used, still lives in the area where Black was killed.<\/p>\n
She told reporters after the news conference that she and Black were very close and essentially grew up together, raised by her grandmother. Black was \u201ca big-hearted person\u201d who loved dancing and having fun, she said. But she still doesn\u2019t know what took place that night; the surveillance cameras across the street don\u2019t work, and no one in the neighborhood came forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat kind of made us angry because we know that people seen it and they\u2019re not coming forward or saying anything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Pompano Beach Commissioner Beverly Perkins, who was also at Tuesday\u2019s news conference, said she knew Black before her death, just from walking around the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody loved Bree,\u201d Perkins said, adding that whenever Bree was around, \u201cit was just a lot of love.\u201d<\/p>\n
She reiterated Gianino\u2019s remarks about needing someone to come forward. Officials with Broward Crime Stoppers and the Florida Sheriffs Association are offering a combined $10,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people feel if I talk, if I say something, I will get in trouble or someone will try to harm me,\u201d Perkins said. \u201cBut you have to look after the person that is deceased and the family that\u2019s grieving. Just do it on their behalf. You know, I know a lot of people say, \u201cWell, you\u2019ll snitch. You won\u2019t talk. Well, sometimes you need to snitch. You know, if it\u2019s going to help a grieving family, I think we should do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyone with information should contact Gianino at 954-321-4376 or Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS (8477).<\/p>\n
This is a developing story, so check back for updates.\u00a0Click here<\/a>\u00a0to have breaking news alerts sent directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over five years since the murder of a transgender woman in Pompano Beach, Broward Sheriff\u2019s deputies have identified…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,112,28,249,251,250,114,266,115,8928,109],"class_list":["post-240670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-florida","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pompano-beach","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}