On May 31, Aurora Rush and Shae Sanders, a transgender couple, were attacked by a mob of about ten people at Cypress Black Bayou Park in Bossier Parish, Louisiana, after Sanders used a women's restroom, something fully legal under Louisiana law. Sanders was knocked unconscious and needed stitches above their eye. Rush suffered a concussion, head trauma, and injuries across her body. Neither of them fought back.

Police did not arrest anyone from the mob that day. Instead, they charged Sanders and Rush. Rush, despite the female marker on her ID, was brought to a jail for men, patted down by a male guard, and logged in under a name she'd never gone by before. After her release, she looked up that name and recognized the face staring back: it belonged to one of the men who had attacked her.

Weeks later, the Bossier Parish Police Jury unanimously passed one of the most severe anti-trans bathroom ordinances in the country, reportedly at the request of the sheriff who oversaw the response to this very attack. The couple's attorney believes what happened to her clients was a targeted hate crime, not a mutual altercation, and the facts support taking that seriously.

Rush and Sanders are still recovering, both physically and financially, while facing criminal charges for simply being attacked. That is backwards. The people who surrounded, threatened, and beat them should be investigated and charged. Rush and Sanders should not be.

Sign this petition to demand Bossier Parish prosecutors drop the charges against Aurora Rush and Shae Sanders, open a real hate-crime investigation into their attackers, and reject Ordinance No. 22.