Local
Gay cop says dog shooting was necessary
Caretaker, animal rescue group call for police investigation
Editor’s note: This story has been updated since it was posted as the Blade’s Lou Chibbaro Jr. received returned calls from sources he hadn’t heard from when he initially filed. The additions are in bold text. Subsequently some of the initial reader comments are addressed in the additions.
A gay D.C. police officer and a gay caretaker of a dog named Parrot have become involved in a highly emotional dispute following the officer’s decision to shoot the dog before dozens of bystanders at D.C.’s annual Adams Morgan Day festival on Sept. 12.
Dale Edwin Sanders, an attorney representing Officer Scott Fike, said extensive media coverage of the incident has failed to report that Fike is a dog lover assigned to the department’s canine unit and takes home each night one of the unit’s German Shepherds.
“He’s being portrayed as a monster by bloggers and it’s totally unfair,” Sanders said. “He’s the last person in the world to shoot a dog if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”
But Dupont Circle resident Aaron Block, 25, who was caring for Parrot through a dog foster care program run by the local group Lucky Dog Animal Rescue, told the Washington Post that Fike shot and killed the dog without justification after Parrot and a poodle being walked by a woman got into a fight on the street.
Fike said he isn’t authorized to speak to the media and referred a reporter to Sanders for comment.The owner of the poodle, Adams Morgan resident Sheila Martins-Silva, could not be reached.
John Valentine, an attorney representing Lucky Dog Animal Rescue, said Block told him Fike took hold of Parrot after Block had already subdued the dog and had him under his control.
Block said Fike forcefully pressed the dog into the pavement with his knee then tossed Parrot into a stairwell before shooting him in the neck and killing him in the stairwell.
“There were dozens of people watching,” Block said. “I can tell you that if you ask any of them they will tell you this was so unnecessary. There was no reason for that police officer to shoot Parrot.”
Sanders points to a police account that Parrot locked his jaws on the poodle’s paw as Block and others who rushed to the scene tried to free the poodle from Parrot’s mouth. Sanders said Fike told him Block had not been able to regain control over Parrot and the dog – who has been identified as a Shar-pei-pit bull mix breed – posed a threat to the safety of nearby festival goers.
Sanders said Fike, who was on patrol duty at the Adams Morgan Festival at the time of the incident, reported what he described as a chaotic scene, with festival goers screaming and a young man later identified as Block on the ground with his hand inside Parrot’s mouth.
“There was blood all over the place,” Sanders quoted Fike as saying in describing Block’s hand and arm. Sanders said Fike’s immediate observation was that Parrot was not under control and that Bock was being injured and he and others in the crowd were in imminent danger.
At the time Fike arrived on the scene, the Poodle had already been disengaged from Parrot’s mouth and Fike initially didn’t know another dog was involved in the incident, Sanders said. All Fike saw upon his arrival was Block’s hand locked inside Parrot’s mouth.
It was at that time when Fike kneeled on the dog and pulled on his leash, enabling Block to free his hand from the dog’s mouth, Sanders said.
Block called that account “not even remotely true,” saying he freed his own hand from Parrot’s mouth. He said he scraped his own fingers and hand as he pulled open Parrot’s mouth to secure the release of the poodle’s paw. He said his injury “was not big deal” and he didn’t need medical attention.
Sanders said Fike claims Parrot bit him as he tried to subdue the dog. Fike threw the dog into the stairwell as part of a “conservative measure” to try to injure and subdue the animal without having to use lethal force, Sanders said. But Sanders recounted Fike’s claim that Parrot began to charge at Fike from the staircase, prompting Fike to shoot the dog to protect himself and others standing nearby.
“If Scott hadn’t done what he did that dog could have gone into the crowd and killed somebody,” Sanders said.
Block said he was looking in another direction when the confrontation between the two dogs started and he did not see which dog started what he called a fight between the dogs. Valentine said other witnesses on the scene reported that the poodle inflicted injuries on Parrot’s face and they were unclear as to which dog started the fight
The poodle’s owner has said she allowed her dog to walk over to Parrot while both dogs were on leashes and without any indication that the dogs would get into a fight, Valentine said.
Block said Parrot has no history of biting anyone and described the dog as gentle and friendly to people. Valentine and Block said many witnesses who have come forward have backed up Block’s version of what happened.
Block said he doesn’t believe Parrot bit Fike and believes the injury reported on Fike’s hand was likely caused by chaffing from Parrot’s leash.
Valentine notes that a police report refers to Fike’s hand injury as an “abrasion” rather than a dog bite.
Sanders calls that account “absolutely false,” saying a police evidence technician examined and photographed Fike’s wound and observed puncture marks, confirming it as a dog bite. He said a police official also alerted Fike that he may have to undergo rabies shots if an autopsy of Parrot tests positive for rabies.
In a development that alarmed Fike and police investigators, according to Sanders, officials with Lucky Dog Animal Rescue couldn’t immediately find records showing whether or not Parrot had been given rabies shots. Sanders said that Fike was also concerned that Block wasn’t using an appropriate dog leash for taking Parrot into an area crowded with people, noting that Block should have used a “looped” leash that can be pulled over a dog’s snout and is far better suited to control a dog.
Block said Lucky Dog Animal Rescue, for which he is a volunteer, had all the necessary records for Parrot, including Rabies immunization records.
Sanders said witnesses, including a local judge whom he did not identify, have come forward to support Fike’s version.
Sanders said that before leaving the scene of the incident, Fike responded to pleas for help by Martins-Silva, the owner of the injured poodle, by arranging for a police officer in a cruiser to take the poodle to an animal hospital in Northwest Washington, where the dog received emergency treatment.
He said police officials have put Fike on temporary administrative leave as the department’s Internal Affairs unit investigates the incident.
The dog shooting, which received national media coverage, took place on 18th Street, N.W., with hundreds of festival goers standing nearby and dozens watching in horror as the incident unfolded.
The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].
Congratulations to Carla Lester, LICSW on her new position as Chief Program Officer with SMYAL. Upon accepting the position she said, “SMYAL deeply aligns with my passion for honoring, protecting, and upholding the rights of all individuals, particularly LGBTQ+ youth and others who have been historically underserved, to belong to communities that affirm their identities, treat them with dignity and respect, and support their well-being. At this point in my career, I was ready to transition to an organization whose mission more closely reflected my values and was rooted in the community. SMYAL offered the opportunity to serve both an organization and a population whose mission not only resonates deeply with me but also intersects with my own multiple identities.”
Lester is a healthcare and human services executive with more than 20 years of experience in behavioral health, federal and state health insurance programs, housing, health care, education, and community-based services. She has held senior roles at Carelon Behavioral Health, Pathways to Housing and N Street Village, leading clinical programs, Housing First initiatives, homeless outreach, trauma-informed services, and integrated case management.
She earned master’s degrees in Social Work and Divinity, and maintains active clinical social work licenses in D.C. and Maryland.
Congratulations also to Tad Czyzewski on his new position as Chief Development Officer at SMYAL. On accepting the position, he said, “While I’ve spent much of my nonprofit career in the arts, the current social and political environments made me want to apply my skills and passion more directly toward supporting and strengthening our community. SMYAL and this role felt like the right place to do that.”
Czyzewski brings more than two decades of experience in nonprofit leadership and strategy, fundraising, and business development. Prior to joining SMYAL, he served for eight years as executive director of The Choral Arts Society of Washington, where he led fundraising, financial management, and community engagement. During his tenure, he helped raise more than $15 million in contributed revenue. He guided the organization through a major rebrand and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prior to that Czyzewski served as Business and Development Director for Washington Revels, and held leadership and advisory roles with Chorus America, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He began his career in the corporate sector, including at Capital One, where his work in product development and marketing contributed to new financial products and more than $2 billion in deposits.
Czyzewski is a lifelong musician, has performed professionally as a classical singer, including with the Washington National Opera and the National Symphony Orchestra.
District of Columbia
Gay ANC commissioner sues D.C. over police ‘failure’ to pay reward money
Lawsuit says information led to conviction in murder, armed robbery cases
Gay D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Tom Donohue on Aug. 11 filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court charging that D.C. police acted improperly and violated a local law by not paying him $30,000 in reward money for his role in helping police identify and arrest — and obtain the subsequent conviction — of one man charged with murder and another man charged with armed robbery in separate cases.
Although the lawsuit alleges improper action by D.C. police in carrying out the city’s Crime Solvers reward program, it names as defendants the District of Columbia and the Office of the Attorney General for D.C., which, among other things, defends the city against lawsuits.
Donohue, who is a member of the city’s ANC Rainbow Caucus consisting of LGBTQ elected ANC members, held a news conference outside the D.C. Superior Court building on Aug. 11 to talk about the lawsuit before entering the courthouse to officially file it.
The lawsuit states that Donohue “provided key video evidence that led to the arrest and conviction” of a man initially charged with first degree murder for allegedly running over a bicyclist with his car after the two got into an argument.
The lawsuit states that police had offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the defendant in that case, but police “arbitrarily slashed the payment to $5,000 without prior notice or policy justification.”
Court records show that D.C. resident Eric Beasley was charged with first degree murder for killing David Farewell, 45, by hitting him with his car on Sept. 4, 2020, on the 2100 block of Young Street, S.E. The records show the evidence for the case was based in large part on video camera footage of the incident obtained by police. Donohoe has said he provided that video camera evidence.
The records show that during Beasley’s October 2023 trial a jury was unable to reach the required unanimous verdict, and the judge declared a mistrial.
According to the records, Beasley later agreed to an offer by prosecutors to plead guilty to a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced in September 2024 to eight years in prison, a development that angered the victim’s family members who called it a “slap on the wrist,” according to a Fox 5 News report.
Donohue’s lawsuit says the second case in which he provided police with pivotal information involved a series of armed robberies known as the Fairlawn Serial Armed Robbery Spree that occurred in the Fairlawn neighborhood in Southeast D.C. in 2023 near where Donohue lives.
The lawsuit says evidence consisting of video surveillance footage provided by Donohue to police enabled police to determine they initially wrongfully arrested an 18-year-old male for the robberies. “Using Plaintiff’s security video, MPD identified, arrested, and convicted the actual robber, David Crocker, who was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison,” the lawsuit states.
It says one of the detectives investigating the case recommended a $10,000 reward for Donohue’s help in the case based on the police Crime Solvers reward program. The detective’s recommendation was approved by then-Assistant D.C. Police Chief Kyle Ramey on Aug. 4, 2025, according to the lawsuit.
But it adds, “Nevertheless, MPD improperly withheld payment.”
When contacted by the Washington Blade for comment on Donohue’s lawsuit allegations, a D.C. police spokesperson said “MPD does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.”
Gabriel Shoglow-Rubenstein, who serves as press secretary for the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, which will be defending the city against the Donohue lawsuit, said he would look into obtaining a possible comment but said the office has a similar longstanding policy of not commenting on pending litigation.
“This action arises from the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department’s arbitrary, bad-faith, and legally unsupportable failure to honor its public reward promises and administrative obligations to Plaintiff,” the lawsuit states.
It says the MPD violated the city’s Freedom of Information Act or FOIA law by not responding to Donohue’s request for information and documents related to the decision not to pay him the full reward money.
“MPD’s reduction of Plaintiff’s homicide reward from $25,000 to $5,000, and its withholding of his approved $10,00 robbery reward, were undertaken completely devoid of written standards, making such decisions inherently arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of administrative discretion,” it says.
It calls for Donohue to be awarded $30,000 in compensatory damages consisting of the $20,000 “unpaid balance” for the homicide case reward and $10,000 for the robbery case reward. It also calls for reimbursement for “reasonable” litigation costs and attorney’s fees. Donohue told the Washington Blade that at this time he is representing himself without an attorney.
Donohue told the Blade that the refusal by D.C. police to pay him the full reward money also limited his plans to donate some of that money to the family of murder victim David Farewell to help pay for a burial stone. He said that due to the family’s limited resources Farewell is buried in an unmarked grave
Delaware
New LGBTQ visitor center slated for Wilmington, Del.
The Collective to feature gift shop, queer museum, more
During Pride month this year, the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective (DSGC) announced plans for The Collective, which will become Delaware’s first LGBTQIA+ visitor center and Wilmington’s first dedicated LGBTQIA+ space in nearly 40 years.
“We’ve been talking about the concept of a brick-and-mortar space for a long time,” said Noah Duckett, co-founder of DSGC.
A licensed clinical social worker, Duckett co-founded DSGC with his mother, Julissa Coriano, in 2018. DSGC is an independent nonprofit organization that provides vital clinical and educational support, social programming and direct-need support to the LGBTQIA+ community.
Some of the programs DSGC offers include a free clothing closet for the trans community, meal support for people recovering from gender-affirming surgery, connections to pro bono legal services, a biannual Pride Market featuring over 100 LGBTQIA+-owned small businesses, and more.
“Our vision for The Collective is a place where our community can come to learn, create, work and be inspired,” said Coriano.
The Collective will feature a visitor center and gift shop highlighting LGBTQIA+-owned businesses in Delaware.
“I think that this is something that’s going to benefit our community so much,” said Duckett.
Some of the LGBTQIA+-owned businesses that DSGC has already partnered with include Stress Induced Art Attack, Moonbeam Art Collaborative, Voce Coffee, Groovy Gemini Co., Scout Cafe, Macaron Social and Huxley and Hiro.
“Specifically in Wilmington, we haven’t had an LGBTQIA+-dedicated space in almost 40 years,” said Duckett.
The Griffin Community Center, which operated from 1986 to 1990, was Delaware’s first LGBTQ+ community center. The Griffin was founded by Ivo Dominguez Jr. and James C. Welch and provided a range of community services during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, including AIDS hotlines, organizational offices and meeting space. The center ultimately closed because of a lack of financial support.
Duckett said DSGC hopes The Collective will carry on The Griffin’s legacy while building a sustainable space for the LGBTQIA+ community.
“I think now more than ever, there’s more and more spaces closing their doors. More and more spaces are losing funding, seeing reduced funding and reduced access, especially LGBTQ+ organizations and communities,” said Duckett.
The Collective will also feature Delaware’s first LGBTQ+ history museum, curated by LGBTQ+ historian Carolanne Deal.
“We don’t have any permanent displays in the state about Delaware’s queer history, and we want people to be able to access that history any day of the year, not just during Pride Month,” said Deal.
With a master’s degree in art history for museum professionals, Deal has more than seven years of experience in curatorial work and hands-on collections care.
“It’s mainly going to be a graphic display with photographs, articles and accessible text that draws people in and creates a story for the community,” said Deal.
Although the museum will not initially have an object collection, Deal said she hopes to add physical archival pieces in the future.
“Delaware has been at the forefront of a lot of queer civil rights, and it’ll be really amazing to have that enshrined in a permanent display that’s not only up for Pride Month,” said Deal.
Duckett said DSGC is currently raising funds with the goal of beginning construction this summer and opening by the end of the year.
Duckett told the Blade that fundraising efforts have reached just under $29,000 and that the organization is awaiting several major donations from community partner organizations.
However, he said DSGC continues to be denied many grants tied to federal or state funding because of restrictions on those funds being used for LGBTQ+-serving organizations.
“Private and corporate donations are absolutely vital,” said Duckett.
Anyone interested in supporting the construction and renovation of The Collective can donate online or contact [email protected] for more information.ose funds being used for LGBTQ-serving organizations.
“Private and corporate donations are absolutely vital,” said Duckett.
Anyone interested in supporting the construction of The Collective can donate online or contact [email protected] for more information.
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Comings & Goings
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