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Three arrests made after stabbing of a transgender woman at Northeast laundromat, police say

31-year-old victim, Nysia Armstead, spent days in the hospital after the attack.

Three people have been arrested by D.C. Police as part of an investigation into a stabbing attack of a transgender woman last Sunday at a Northeast laundromat, according to the department in a statement to WUSA9.

Asia Whitehead, 28, Rhonda Whitehead, 27, and Melvin Taylor, 29, were the three people that were arrested for the attack, said D.C. Police. 

The reported attack happened at the Capitol Laundry Mat on Benning Road, NE. It was caught on tape and D.C. Police has investigated the attack as a hate crime, according to previous statements from the department. 

31-year-old victim, Nysia Armstead, spent days in the hospital after the attack. She told WUSA9 that the attackers screamed anti-gay slurs at her during the beating she suffered.

"I got stabbed in my head, where I have 18 stitches right here," Armstead said in an exclusive interview in her Southeast, D.C. apartment. "And I have like 40 stitches in my right arm."

Armstead is furious that the three people who attacked her with their fists and a large pocket knife are still at large. 

"Like really mentally stressed and depressed," she said. "I don't want to be sad. I don't want to be around nobody."

She asked WUSA9 to blur her face, fearing her attackers will come after her again. 

"I'm alive — that's the most important thing," she said.

The Human Rights Campaign said so far this year in the U.S., at least 28 transgender or gender-nonconforming people have been murdered. Most of them are Black or Latinx transgender women, HRC said, including Danika "Danny" Henson, who was shot to death in Baltimore last month.

Armstead said she feels very vulnerable. 

"I feel really really bad," she said. "It's like every day I'm looking at it that my life is almost been taken away."

Armstead said it started as a disagreement over a washing machine and escalated into an attack that nearly cost her her life.

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