On Nov. 17, San Diego sheriff’s officers were called to the residence of Vanessa Facen, a 35-year-old pre-operative transsexual woman. Pre-op transsexuals are individuals who have made a personal decision to live as the gender opposite their natal bodies.

When officers arrived, Vanessa was naked and covered from head to foot in blood, after she apparently crashed through a sliding-glass door at her residence. She informed the officers that she was HIV positive. The officers transported her to the hospital via ambulance. During the ride, she became violent and smashed out one of the vehicle windows.

Paramedics sedated her on the scene, and again upon arrival at the hospital. Later in the day, the hospital released her to the Sheriff’s Department for transportation to San Diego’s downtown jail, which is an all-male facility.

Lt. Tom Bennett told the San Diego Union-Tribune that “although Facen had breasts and lived as a woman, the Sheriff’s Department was treating her as a man because she had male genitalia.”

Maybe it was something the transporting officer said, or maybe it was the concept of being incarcerated in an all-male jail that sent her into a rage. The fear for her personal safety must have been incomprehensible. Upon arrival at the jail, she became enraged again and deputies had to subdue her.

After the scuffle, she stopped breathing. She died four days later in the hospital.

Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Tom Bennett said “an unknown number of deputies fought with Vanessa when she was inside the intake area of the downtown jail known as a ‘sally port.’”

Why was Vanessa released from the hospital so soon?

Within a few minutes of her arrival at the detention facility, it was determined that Vanessa was not breathing, and the alarm was sounded for a cardiac arrest in progress.

What happened during the intake procedure at the sally port?

Sgt. Rick Empson, a San Diego homicide investigator, said deputies noticed Vanessa had stopped breathing during that struggle, and he called for an ambulance.

Did the jail’s medical staff meet her at the detention facility?

The San Diego Sheriff’s Department’s intake procedure states that “immediately upon arrival at the jail the inmate is examined for any medical conditions that need immediate treatment. A nurse will conduct a private screening to make sure the inmate is not injured or in need of immediate medical treatment.”

Most pre-op transsexuals can empathize with Vanessa Facen. She might have been screaming, “I am not a man, I do not belong here,” to no avail. One does not need to be transgender to imagine her pain as Vanessa was wrestled to the floor by the officers shortly before she died.

Any reasonable individual looking at this case can only arrive at one conclusion: There needs to be a better way to treat San Diego’s transgender population while they are in custody at the San Diego Sheriff’s Department facilities.

San Francisco has established protocol for transgender prisoners. In short, their law enforcement personnel must find ways to recognize and prevent behavior that harasses transgender people. The jail staff must always address the transgender inmate by his or her adopted name even if the inmate has not received legal recognition of that adopted name. The inmate will be housed in the appropriate location according to his or her gender identification.

The San Diego Sheriff’s Department failed to recognize that Vanessa Facen’s true identity was female. Being referred to and treated like a man is the ultimate insult. Sheriffs failed to understand that Vanessa, a pre-op transsexual, considered herself a woman despite her male genitalia.

We may never know the real reason for this needless death, but it is obvious that the San Diego Sheriff’s Department requires more sensitivity training on this issue. If law enforcement personnel had had the proper training, Vanessa Facen’s death might have been avoided. Sending any pre-op male-to-female transsexual into a modern jail facility with a male population should never be considered satisfactory procedure.

It is time for San Diego city and county law enforcement personnel to address this crisis in our community by drafting procedures similar to San Francisco’s. An adequate separated holding area for any transgender person is not merely a suggestion, it is imperative.