“The only thing I can really point out to people is that they don’t appear to be related. So it doesn’t appear to be a group of folks that’s targeting or a specific group of people that’s targeting this community,” he said.
***

“Unfortunate,” indeed, Chief Newsham.

Given his answer, I don’t think A.C. Newsham has the foggiest notion of what a hate crime in D.C. is. Or perhaps he really does know, but was dispatched by Chief Lanier to publicly downplay the seriousness of these violent anti-LGBT hate crimes.

In either sad event, Newsham is flatly mistaken. There clearly is a “group of folks” and a “specific group of people that’s targeting this [LGBT] community.” They are referred to as “hateful” or “biased” violent criminal perpetrators. It is the set of people who have been perpetrating hate violence upon LGBT people– merely for who they are– since the dawn of time.

Sheesh! If an Assistant Chief of Police doesn’t “get” that basic fact, it’s no wonder there is such a disconnect between MPD and the LGBT communities. Perhaps Chief Lanier should require intensive GLLU training for all of her Assistant Chiefs as well as her District Commanders.

Speaking of Chief Lanier, if she considers this spate of anti-LGBT hate crimes of serious concern, why didn’t she conduct the press conference for MPD– or at least, alongside A.C. Newsham? And why didn’t she have something to say on all the MPD listservs much earlier?