Fernando Gomez aka Mercedes Demarco

How they died

Less-than-lethal force

Jaime Gonzalez Licon made a domestic disturbance call as Gomez screamed frantically for help with an unspecified threat. An officer responded. Gomez became even more erratic and ran away. The officer handcuffed and tasered Gomez, who was pronounced dead at Las Palmas Medical Center. Gomez identified as a transgender woman and used the stage name Mercedes Demarco as a drag performer. According to the Texas Justice Initiative, Gomez was intoxicated during the incident. Fatal Encounters apologizes for the occasional use of birth names for transgender people. Police and news media often report the birth names instead of the real names, so we have to have both in our name field to prevent duplications in the dataset.

Why we remember them

This record exists so that Fernando Gomez aka Mercedes Demarco, and all who are named in this archive, are never reduced to a number.

References & sources