Investigators said the two had communicated on the app Plenty of Fish and planned to meet, as the Springfield-based news outlet KYTV reported.
Wright, 20, was killed by police officer Kimberly Potter in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota on April 11. Police initially pulled Wright over for an expired registration tag, then attempted to arrest him after realizing he had an outstanding gross misdemeanor warrant, according to ABC News.
Potter allegedly shot Wright accidentally when she mistook her gun for a taser. She has been charged with second-degree manslaughter and was released on $100,000 bail, according to Hennepin County jail records.
Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, called her son an “amazing, loving kid.”
“He had a 2-year-old son that’s not going to be able to play basketball with him. He had sisters and brothers that he loved so much,” she told ABC News. “He just had his whole life taken away from him. We had our hearts pulled out of our chests. He was my baby.”
Wright is one of 51 Black men killed by police this year and one of 1,496 Black people killed by law enforcement since 2015, according to the Washington Post. His slaying has stoked outrage during the trial of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was charged with the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, last year. Floyd’s death unleashed waves of marches against police brutality in cities across the globe.
Recent police killings, including Wright’s case and the March 29 slaying of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago, have rekindled anger toward police.
Lucious, meanwhile, is one of at least 14 transgender or gender nonconforming people killed this year, as them. previously reported. Only days before Lucious was killed, 29-year-old Black trans woman, Jaida Peterson, was found shot to death in a Charlotte, North Carolina hotel room.
Lucious’ cousin, Ciara Williams, remembered her as a loving person who overcame much in her young life, according to KYTV. She said Lucious was “more like a sibling to me.”
“We grew up together. We have lived together numerous times,” Williams told the news outlet. “[…] We were both homeless at a point in our lives when we were younger. She made sure I had somewhere warm to stay, even if she didn’t. She had a very good heart.”
The GLO Center, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group in Springfield, Missouri, said in a Wednesday Facebook post that trans women of color like Lucious are “disproportionately represented among these victims.”
“This murder and the other senseless slaying of trans folks must be contextualized within the anti-trans rhetoric and actions taken by too many,” the group stated.
Wright and Lucious may have been killed under different circumstances, but mourners at Wednesday night’s vigil saw a common theme in their deaths: that the lives of “these angels” weren’t “shielded from the strong force of white supremacy” in this “great old country of America,” Qween Jean said.
“They were not seen, they were not validated, their beings, their bodies extinguished, the very lives that they led were not of importance,” she said. “They were important to me.”
A separate vigil for Lucious is scheduled for Sunday, April 18 in Springfield.
Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for them.’s weekly newsletter here.
