Local
Three teens charged in gay D.C. principal’s murder
Police say victim met killers through sex chat line
Four people were arrested this week in connection with the murder of Brian Betts, the gay principal of Shaw Middle School in D.C. (Photo by Bel Perez Gabilondo; courtesy of D.C. Public Schools)
Three 18-year-old men who allegedly met gay D.C. middle school principal Brian Betts through a telephone sex chat line were arrested this week in connection with his shooting death, police said.
Alante Saunders, whom Montgomery County Police said had no fixed address, and Sharif Tau Lancaster, who lives along the 5300 block of Fifth Street, N.W., in D.C., were charged Monday with first-degree murder, armed robbery and the use of a handgun in a felony crime of violence.
Deonatra Q. Gray, who lives along the 1300 block of Southview Drive in Oxon Hill, Md., was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder, one count of armed robbery, and one count of conspiracy to commit armed robbery.
“While the motive of the crime is still being investigated, we believe that it is most likely going to be robbery,” said Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger during a news conference Monday.
Betts, 42, was found shot to death April 15 in a second floor bedroom of his house in Silver Spring, Md. Police said they found his fully clothed body after colleagues at D.C.’s Shaw Middle School, where he worked as principal, became concerned when Betts failed to report to work.
On the day they discovered Betts’ body, investigators disclosed they found no signs of a forced entry into Betts’ house, leading them to believe he invited his killer or killers inside.
Also charged in the case was Artura Otey Williams, 46, Lancaster’s mother. Police she was arrested Monday at the home on Fifth Street, N.W., on charges related to her alleged use of one of several credit cards taken from Betts’ house. She was not charged with the murder itself.
In a related development, D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles separately disclosed Monday that Lancaster and Sanders had recently escaped from a juvenile home where they were in custody by the city’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. Nickles did not say the criminal offense or offenses the two youths had been charged with to land them in DYRS custody.
Manger, when asked by a reporter at the Montgomery County Police news conference whether the chat line through which Betts allegedly met his killers catered solely to gay clientele, said, “I’m not aware of that. I don’t know.”
He said he also didn’t know the name of the chat line, saying only, “It’s been described as a sex chat line, a social networking chat line.” But he noted that investigators believe Betts met one or all of the three 18-year-old men implicated in the case through the chat line on the night he was murdered.
After the news conference, police spokesperson Capt. Paul Sparks described the system as a “national chat line” linked to an Internet site. Sparks said he didn’t know the name of the chat line or Internet site.
Many gay-oriented sex chat lines are advertised in local and national gay publications and web sites.
Manger’s news conference outside Montgomery County Police headquarters in Rockville came the same day that teams of police officers and detectives in Montgomery County, Prince George’s County and D.C. used search warrants to conduct early-morning raids on four residences where they believed evidence and suspects in the case were located.
Manger said Williams was arrested during a search of her house on the 5300 block of Fifth Street, N.W.
He said Saunders, Lancaster and the third 18-year-old man were taken into custody during the search of an apartment along the 1300 block of Southview Drive in Oxon Hill, Md., which is located in Prince George’s County.
Among the items found during the Southview Drive search was Betts’ wallet, which was in possession of one of the men implicated in the case, Manger said. He noted that police found a receipt in the wallet for a pair of Nike shoes that were purchased using one of Betts’ credit cards shortly after the murder.
Police also used warrants Monday to search residences along the 4300 block of Third Street, S.E., in D.C., and along the 2400 block of Southern Avenue in Temple Hills, Md., in Prince George’s County.
Neighbors reported seeing police remove items from the residences, including several large bags containing items from the home on Fifth Street, N.W., which is near the border of D.C. and Silver Spring.
According to Manger and statements released Monday by Montgomery County Police, investigators began piecing together evidence linking the murder to the arrested suspects less than a week after Betts’ body was discovered.
The first break came when investigators discovered that Williams had used one of several credit cards stolen from Betts’ house on the night of the murder to purchase $111 worth of groceries from a Giant supermarket in Silver Spring on April 16, the day after Betts’ body was found. The Giant is located less than two miles from Betts’ house. Police said Williams was recorded using the credit card on a video surveillance camera at the store.
Police charged her with two counts of knowingly receiving a stolen credit card with the intent to use it, attempted theft of items less than $1,000 in value, and attempted fraudulent credit card use. She was being held in D.C. while awaiting extradition to Montgomery County.
“Lancaster was identified through fingerprints obtained from the crime scene inside Betts’ residence,” says one of two statements released Monday by Montgomery County Police.
“Through the course of the investigation, it was confirmed that Lancaster has no known ties to Betts,” says the statements. “Saunders, also with no known ties to the victim, was identified through fingerprints obtained inside and outside the vehicle belonging to Betts, a 2007 Nissan Xterra, which was stolen from his residence on the night of the murder.”
D.C. police recovered the vehicle April 17, two days after Betts was found dead in his house along the 3900 block of Fourth Street, S.E.
“It was determined that several credit cards belonging to Betts were stolen from the residence,” one of the police statements says. “The continuing investigation revealed that Betts’ credit cards were used to make purchases throughout the area, including Silver Spring, Oxon Hill, Hyattsville, Northwest and Southeast Washington, D.C.”
The statement notes that surveillance photos show Lancaster, Saunders and Williams using the credit cards.
“This remains still a very active investigation,” Manger said during his news conference.
In response to reporters’ questions, he said he didn’t know whether Lancaster, Saunders and Gray used the chat line to rob or harm other people. He also told reporters that he didn’t know what promoted one of the suspects to allegedly shoot Betts to death if the motive was robbery.
“The interviews have not been completed, so we don’t have that information,” he said.
Sparks, the police spokesperson, said more arrests could be made in the case.
Officials with the D.C. group Gays & Lesbians Opposing Violence have said that law enforcement agencies in the D.C. area should issue a public alert about criminals targeting gays for robberies and assaults through online social networking sites or phone chat lines.
GLOV co-chairs Kelly Pickard and Joe Montoni said during the group’s regular monthly meeting in April, one week after the Betts murder, that plans were made to distribute flyers and other alerts urging members of the LGBT community to exert caution when using such sites or chat lines.
On Dec. 27, gay D.C. resident Anthony Perkins, 29, was shot to death in his car in Southeast D.C. by a suspect who met him through a phone chat line, according to D.C. police and the U.S. Attorney’s office. Authorities have so far declined to name the chat line.
D.C. police charged 20-year-old Antwan Holcomb with first-degree murder while armed in connection with Perkins’ death.
And in January, gay Maryland resident Gordon Rivers, 47, was fatally shot inside his car while it was parked on Naylor Road in Southeast D.C. Police later arrested 17-year-old William Wren of Southeast D.C. and 22-year-old Anthony Hager of Temple Hills, Md., on murder charges in connection with the case.
D.C. police said in an arrest affidavit that Wren admitted knowing Rivers before the murder and having called Rivers by phone to arrange a meeting with him on Naylor Road, intending to rob him.
Police and the U.S. Attorney’s office have declined to disclose how Wren met Rivers, spurring questions as to whether the two met online or through a phone chat line.
Virginia
Prominent activists join ‘Living History’ panel at Freddie’s Beach Bar
Event organized by owner of new Friends of Dorothy Café in Alexandria
Six prominent LGBTQ community leaders and elders, including a beloved drag performer, talked about their role in advancing the rights of LGBTQ people and their thoughts on how the upcoming generation of LGBTQ youth should get ready to join the movement participated in an April 23 “Living History” panel discussion at Freddie’s Beach Bar.
The event was organized by Dorothy Edwards, who plans to open Friends of Dorothy Café in Alexandria. She said the café will be an LGBTQ community “intergenerational space” that will host events like the one she organized at Freddie’s Beach Bar.
“It will be a space for connection, storytelling, and belonging, especially for LGBTQ+ youth and community members who don’t always have places like that,” she said in a statement announcing the event at Freddie’s.
The six panelists at the Freddie’s event included Kierra Johnson, president of the D.C.-based National LGBTQ Task Force; Freddie Lutz, owner of Freddie’s Beach Bar located in the Crystal City section of Arlington, Va.; Donnell Robinson, who for many years performed in drag as the icon Ella Fitzgerald; Taylor Chandler Walker, a local transgender rights advocate, author and public speaker; Heidi Ellis, coordinator of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; and Leti Gomez, an LGBTQ Latino community advocate and chair of the board of the American LGBTQ+ Museum.
Dr. Ashley Elliott, an LGBTQ community advocate and clinician who also goes by the name Dr. Vivid, served as moderator of the panel discussion, asking each of the panelists a serious of questions before opening the event to questions from the audience.
Among the issues discussed by the panelists was who was “centered” and who was excluded in the earlier years of LGBTQ organizing. Elliot also asked the panelists to address topics such as racism within queer spaces, gender dynamics, and strategies for coalition building between the LGBTQ community and other movements, including civil rights, feminism, and immigrant rights.
Each of the panelists expressed various thoughts on how the LGBTQ rights movement can make changes in response to the questions: “What can we do better?” and “Who is being left out?”
“I’m overwhelmed and so thankful that everyone on this panel said yes and agreed to come,” Edwards told the Washington Blade at the conclusion of the event. “I think every one of those people, including the moderator, was so brilliant and has done such good work for this community,” she said.
Edwards noted that each of the panelists, who have been involved in LGBTQ advocacy work for many years, talked about how they interact with younger LGBTQ people who are just beginning to become involved in activism.
“Truly, it’s an intergenerational conversation, and their wisdom and their words and their experiences can be disseminated to younger generations and people who want to do this work, people who want to fight for our community,” Edwards said.
“I was pleasantly surprised,” Lutz said. “I thought it was a good turnout, and everybody was very enthusiastic and engaged,” he said. “And I think it was great and fabulous.”
Lutz has operated Freddie’s Beach Bar for more than 25 years and has hosted numerous LGBTQ events. A sign above the front entrance door to the popular LGBTQ bar and restaurant says, “Straight Friendly Gay Bar.”
Edwards said the April 23 event was recorded and she will make arrangements for the recording to be released for others to view it. The Blade will post the link in this story when it becomes available.
District of Columbia
Second trans member announces plans to resign from Capital Pride board
Zion Peters cites ‘lack of interest in the Black trans community’
Zion Peters, a member of the Capital Pride Alliance Board of Directors who identifies as transgender, told the Washington Blade he plans to resign from the board “due to the lack of interest in the trans community, specifically the Black trans community.”
Peters continued, “Nobody has checked on me in the last two months so that shows their level of unprofessionalism towards their board members and the community as a whole.”
If he resigns, Peters would be the second known trans person to resign from the Capital Pride board since February, when longtime trans activist Taylor Lianne Chandler informed the board of her resignation in a detailed letter that was sent to the Blade by an anonymous source.
Chandler, who served as chair of the Capital Pride Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, and Intersex Committee, stated in her Feb. 24 letter that she resigned from the board out of frustration that the board had failed to address instances of “sexual misconduct” within the Capital Pride organization. The organization’s and the board’s transgender-related policies were not cited in her letter as a reason for her resignation.
The Blade learned of Peters’s plans to resign from an anonymous source who thought Peters had already resigned along with four other board members identified by the anonymous source. The others, who Capital Pride confirmed this week had resigned, include Anthony Musa, Bob Gilchrist, Kaniya Walker, and Dai Nguyen.
Musa and Gilchrist told the Blade they resigned for personal reasons related to their jobs and that they fully support Capital Pride’s work as an organization that coordinates the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events.
The Blade has been unable to reach Walker and Nguyen to determine their reasons for resigning.
Capital Pride CEO Ryan Bos and Board Chair Anna Jinkerson didn’t respond to a Blade question asking if they knew why Walker or Nguyen resigned.
In response to a request by the Blade for comment on the resignations and the concern raised by Zion Peters about trans-related issues, Bos and Jinkerson sent separate statements elaborating on the organization and the board’s position on various issues.
“We can confirm that the individuals you referenced, except for Zion, no longer serve on the Capital Pride Alliance Board of Directors,” Jinkerson said in her statement.
She added that following the WorldPride festival hosted by D.C. last May and June that was organized by Capital Pride Alliance, the group anticipated a “significant level of board transition,” with many board members reaching the end of their terms. But she said many board members chose to extend their service or apply for an additional term, showing a “powerful reflection of commitment.”
Without commenting on the specific reasons for the resignations of Peterson, Walker, and Nygun, Jinkerson noted, “As with all volunteer leadership roles, transitions occur for a range of personal and professional reasons, and we appreciate those transitions with both understanding and gratitude.”
In his own statement, Bos addressed Capital Pride’s record on transgender issues.
“The Capital Pride Alliance is committed to supporting and uplifting the Trans community through our work with the Trans Coalition under the Diversity of Prides Initiative, our partnership with Earline Budd on the LGBTQ+ Burial Fund with a focus on our Trans siblings, our collaboration with the National Trans Visibility March, and our ongoing investment in programming for Transgender Day of Visibility and Transgender Day of Remembrance,” Bos said in his statement.
“We also recognize there is always continued work to be done, and we always welcome feedback from our community to ensure our commitment remains unwavering,” he said.
At the time of her resignation in February, Chandler said she could not provide specific details of the instances of sexual misconduct to which she referred in her resignation letter, or who allegedly engaged in sexual misconduct, saying she and all other board members had signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement preventing them from disclosing further details.
Board Chair Jinkerson in a statement released at that time said she and the board were aware of Chandler’s concerns but did not specifically address allegations of sexual misconduct.
“When concerns are brought to CPA, we act quickly and appropriately to address them,” she said. “As we continue to grow as an organization, we’re proactively strengthening the policies and procedures that shape our systems, our infrastructure, and the support we provide to our team and partners,” she said.
Rehoboth Beach
Rehoboth Summer Kickoff Party set for May 15 with Ashley Biden
The Washington Blade’s 19th annual Summer Kickoff Party is scheduled for Friday, May 15 in Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Ashley Biden, daughter of President Joe Biden, has joined the list of speakers, the Blade announced. She will accept an award on behalf of her brother Beau Biden for his LGBTQ advocacy work as Delaware attorney general. (Her appearance was rescheduled from last year.)
The event, to be held this year at Diego’s (37298 Rehoboth Ave. Ext.) from 5-7 p.m., is a fundraiser for the Blade Foundation’s Steve Elkins Memorial Fellowship in Journalism, which funds a summer position reporting on LGBTQ news in Delaware. This year’s recipient will be introduced at the event.
The event will also feature remarks from state Rep. Claire Snyder-Hall. New CAMP Rehoboth Executive Director Dr. Robin Brennan and Blade editor Kevin Naff will also speak. The event is generously sponsored by Realtor Justin Noble, The Avenue Inn & Spa, and Diego’s.
A suggested donation of $25 is partially tax deductible and includes a drink ticket and light appetizers. Tickets are available in advance at bladefoundation.org/rehoboth or at the door.
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