King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office wants to close a hate crime loophole
House Bill 1052 in Olympia seeks to redefine hate crime laws after a trans couple was targeted by transphobic attacks in West Seattle.
Author: Sharon Yoo
Published: 11:10 PM PDT March 31, 2025
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SEATTLE — If it looks like a hate crime, call it a hate crime. That’s what House Bill 1052 in Olympia is trying to do after a couple was retaliated against in transphobic attacks in West Seattle.
Home is where creativity flows for wives Brianna Zamora and Kiki Shepard. Shepard spends her days playing a myriad of instruments, and creating art. Zamora is also a musician.
Home is a safe haven for the two trans women, but that wasn’t always the case; at least not when they had roommates in their former apartment complex.
On May 11, 2022, a Seattle police officer responded to Zamora and Shepard’s former apartment in West Seattle for damage in their unit. In the body camera footage from the responding officer, the apartment walls are covered spraypainted transphobic statements and slurs, directed toward Zamora and Shepard. The footage also shows dirt covering the floors.
Charging documents from the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office show the mess was from two women, Inga Chernogradskaia and Patricia Shepard. Both friends of Zamora and Shepard, who were staying with them. Zamora said they graciously opened up their home to Chernogradskaia and Patricia Shepard after the two women came to them, each fleeing a domestic violence situation from their separate partners.
Zamora and Kiki Shepard soon got their own place and moved, while leaving Chernogradskaia and Patricia Shepard in their old unit. Zamora’s name was still on the lease and she continued to pay rent.
After months of being unable to pay their full share of the rent, and also after multiple noise complaints lodged against Chernogradskaia and Shepard, Zamora asked them to move out. That’s when things turned.
“If they had just written F-U on the wall, we wouldn’t have gone to trial you know? Why? Why go that far?” Zamora said.
Both Chernogradskaia and Shepard were charged with malicious mischief in the second degree and a hate crime. However, only Chernogradskaia was convicted of both charges, while Shepard was convicted of malicious mischief.
Douglas Wagoner from the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office explained why.
“It’s because those two juries struggled with the current statutory framework, they struggled with the question of: can we convict this person beyond a reasonable doubt because they targeted the victim because of their identity rather than any other reason …” Wagoner explained.
This is how the state defines a hate crime:
“A person is guilty of a hate crime office if the person maliciously and intentionally commits one of the following acts because of someone’s identity.” The words that tripped the jury were “because of.”
The attorney’s office wants to change that, through a bill, to include “in whole or in part,” to make sure bias doesn’t have to be the only motive behind a hate crime.
“Literally the writing’s on the wall, it’s literally hate speech written on my wall, and figuratively the writing is on the wall, it’s a hate crime,” Zamora said. “Like, how is that not a hate crime?”
“Clearly, this was a hate crime but because the law could be clearer we’re trying to clean up this year – we saw the result that we did with two different outcomes,” Wagoner said.
House Bill 1052 is making its way through the state Legislature. The language that includes “in whole or in part because of a bias” is modeled after California’s definition of a hate crime.