Koko Da Doll, a Black transgender woman featured in the hit 2023 Sundance Film Festival documentary “Kokomo City,” has died, the festival announced Thursday.
Koko, also known as Rasheeda Williams, was reportedly fatally shot in Atlanta on Tuesday.
“We are saddened to hear about the death of Rasheeda Williams aka Koko Da Doll,” the festival wrote. “We were honored to have her at the Festival this year with KOKOMO CITY, where she reminded Black trans women, ‘we can do anything, we can be whatever we want to be.’ It is a tragic loss.”
The Atlanta Police Department reported an April 18 shooting was among three slayings involving transgender women this year, but did not name her in the tweet. Cops wrote they found a “person shot” at a Martin Luther King Jr. Drive SW location, where she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Daniella Carter, who also appears in the film, confirmed Koko’s death on Instagram.
Neilson Barnard via Getty Images
“The Atlanta Police Department is actively investigating three violent crimes involving transgender women this year,” the department said in the same tweet. “While these individual incidents are unrelated, we are very aware of the epidemic-level violence black and brown transgender women face in America.”
A police spokesperson didn’t immediately return HuffPost’s request for an update on the investigation.
Koko figured prominently in “Kokomo City,” which focused on her challenges along with other Black trans sex workers.
HuffPost’s Candice Frederick wrote that the documentary was full of “freewheeling, provocative conversations that you don’t often see in film today.”
The film, directed by D. Smith, won the Audience and NEXT Innovator awards at Sundance, and captured the Panorama Audience Award at the Berlin International Film Festival.