Addam Lee Schauer-Mayhew, the gay man who was struck in the face by a rock thrown through the front window of his house in Northeast D.C. on June 6 by a 13-year-old juvenile male says he and his husband think it’s important for the community to know more of the details surrounding this incident.

Schauer-Mayhew spoke to the Washington Blade about the incident after the Blade reached out to him for comment. He said he and his husband, Bryan C. Schauer, wanted to point out that the rock-throwing attack was the most recent in a series of incidents in which the same juvenile and others accompanying him have targeted them with anti-gay slurs and throwing rocks at their house and car since last October.

D.C. police announced on June 16 that they had arrested a 13-year-old juvenile male one day earlier on Sunday, June 15, on a charge of Assault With Significant Bodily Injury, in connection with the rock-throwing attack against Schauer-Mayhew.

A police report says the rock struck Schauer-Mayhew in the left eye causing a laceration under the eye.

A separate police statement said the charge against the juvenile was listed as a “Hate/Bias” incident and noted that “LGBTQ+ flags were displayed at the front of the home.”

Schauer-Mayhew told the Blade he and his husband have displayed at least one Pride flag at the front of their house since they purchased it in the city’s Kingman Park neighborhood four-and-a-half years ago, essentially “coming out” to their neighbors. He said the neighbors have been fully supportive of the two as a gay couple since they moved into their house.

But around October of last year, around the time of Halloween, a few juvenile males began targeting the couple at their house by yelling  homophobic slurs, including the word “faggot,” Schauer-Mayhew said, with the juvenile who assaulted him on June 6 of this year being among them.

Last November, over Thanksgiving weekend, the same juvenile male and a few of his cohorts broke into the couple’s backyard and carport while the couple was out of town visiting relatives, according to Schauer-Mayhew.

He said the break-in, as was the rock-throwing attack, was captured on video by surveillance cameras they have installed in several places on their house and property. Schauer-Mayhew said the couple provided D.C. police with video footage of the rock-throwing incident, in which he said the juvenile can be seen walking up to the house and throwing the rock through the window.

“I was sitting on our sofa in our living room, and I was just sitting there minding my own business,” Schauer-Mayhew told the Blade, while watching a tennis tournament on television.

“I heard the window break and then I felt something hit my face,” he said. “And my husband was upstairs, and he comes running down the stairs. And he was the one that called 911.”   

He added, “My face was covered with blood. My hands were covered with blood. I walked over to my kitchen sink, and I collapsed on the floor.”

But when paramedics arrived in an ambulance in response to the 911 call, he said he declined an offer to take him to a hospital.

Schauer-Mayhew pointed out that the attack occurred on the day he and his husband planned to attend the WorldPride Music Festival held at the RFK Stadium grounds located close to where they live.

“I did decline to go in an ambulance to the hospital because I very much still wanted to be able to enjoy Pride weekend,” he said. “I did receive a lovely black eye. But it has since subsided, and the wound is healing well. But I will have a gash on my face,” he told the Blade.

“And after all of this happened, and everything calmed down, I soldiered up and we went to the festival,” he said. But while there he said bleeding under his eye resumed, prompting him to go to an emergency medical services tent on the festival grounds. “I was able to get the proper attention, and then the wound kind of glued up and then I rejoined the rest of the festival.”

According to Schauer-Mayhew, people in the neighborhood played an important role in helping D.C police locate and arrest the juvenile who assaulted him. The arrest took place on June 15.

He said the youth who assaulted him and others who hung out with him were known as neighborhood troublemakers who, among other things, broke into homes and cars to engage in thefts. 

Just by chance, Schauer-Mayhew said he was in his car driving to a nearby grocery store on June 15 when he saw the juvenile who assaulted him leaning out of the window of another car driving nearby.

“And I instantly called my husband, and I said they’re back,” he said. By the time he arrived home he and his husband learned through an online “neighborhood chat chain” that others had also seen the juvenile and his cohorts and called police. The calls and follow-up sightings the next day, on June 16, enabled police to track down and arrest the 13-year-old juvenile.

“My message has always been I feel no malice toward them,” Schauer-Mayhew said when asked if he had a message for the juvenile who assaulted him and those he hung out with. “I just want them to get help and go down a better path than terrorizing people they don’t even know.”

Because court records of cases involving juveniles are sealed from public access, the Blade could not immediately determine the status of the case, including whether prosecutors with the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, which prosecutes juvenile cases, was prosecuting the case as a hate crime.

Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer signed an executive order to protect gender-affirming care on June 20 at the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center, followed by the first meeting of the newly formed LGBTQ commission, which will work to protect the rights of LGBTQ Delawareans.  

Executive Order 11 makes Delaware a shield state for providers of gender-affirming care. It prohibits state agencies from cooperating with investigations, subpoenas, or legal actions by other states against individuals or providers involved in care that is legal in Delaware.

Gender-affirming care refers to a range of medical, psychological, and social services that are designed to support transgender and nonbinary individuals towards aligning their outward characteristics with their gender identity. 

“Across the country, people are being punished for seeking or providing gender-affirming care,” said Meyer in a press release. “In Delaware, we cherish privacy, dignity, and the right to make personal medical decisions. Everyone deserves the freedom to access healthcare rooted in science and compassion.”

CAMP Rehoboth Communications Director Matty Brown said the center was “honored” to be the location for the signing. He said the atmosphere was “emotionally charged” and “joyous” with many “tears of joy.” 

“CAMP Rehoboth applauds this executive order,” Brown told the Washington Blade. “This is a clear signal to all Delawareans that all are welcome to thrive here … We know that medical care should be between the provider and the patient, so we are so excited to see Gov. Meyer uphold that.”

State Rep. DeShanna Neal spoke at the event and told a story of her fight with the state to get gender-affirming care for her trans daughter. 

“I want to thank Gov. Meyer for his actions today and helping me keep a 20-year promise to my daughter and all the families that this fight has helped,” said Neal.

At least 14 other states and D.C. have passed similar protective laws designed to shield providers and patients from laws in states where gender-affirming care is restricted or criminalized. 

“Transgender Delawareans and those traveling here for care can now breathe a little easier,” said Cora Castle, chair of the LGBTQ Commission. “This executive order reflects what science and medical experts have made clear for years: gender-affirming care is lifesaving. It also shows what happens when people with lived experience are trusted to help shape policy — we lead with both empathy and evidence. Delaware is proving what it means to protect all its people.”

At least five of the multiple exhibits displayed in D.C.’s Freedom Plaza as part of the local Rainbow History Project’s WorldPride exhibition have been damaged by one or more vandals since the exhibition opened on May 18, according to Vincent Slatt, one of the exhibition’s lead organizers.   

The most recent incident took place during the early morning hours of Sunday, June 22, when someone pulled down two of the exhibits displayed on decorated chain link fences, Slatt told the Washington Blade.

The Rainbow History Project exhibition, called “Pickets, Protests, and Parades: The History of Gay Pride in Washington,” has been available for public viewing 24 hours each day since it opened in Freedom Plaza, which is located near the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. between 13th and 14th streets.

Slatt says it will remain open until its scheduled closing on July 6, regardless of efforts by vandals to strike at its individual LGBTQ exhibits.

“Covering 1965 to the present, the exhibition explores the history of Pride in D.C. in 10 distinct thematic eras,” a statement released by Rainbow History Project says. “Each of the 10 areas are detailed in thematic cubes rich with history and visuals,” it says.

Slatt said at least two instances of vandalism, including the June 22 incident, occurred between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. during the time when a security guard working for a security company retained by Rainbow History Project was scheduled to be on duty at the Freedom Plaza site. But Slatt said the guard appears to have left before his shift was supposed to end, leaving the exhibition unsupervised.

“And so sometime during that security guard’s shift last night it happened,” said Slatt, referring to the two exhibits that were pulled down Sunday morning, June 22.

He said a decision was made later that day to fire the security company and retain another company to provide security for the 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift. Slatt said volunteers recruited by Rainbow History Project have been acting as “monitors” to secure the site during daytime and the evening up to 11 p.m. He said the group was unable to recruit volunteers to staff the shift from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Rainbow History Project, according to Slatt, received a $1,000 payment invoice from the company that has been providing the metal fencing for the exhibits under  a rental agreement  after one of the vandals damaged two ten-foot-by-ten-foot fencing strips beyond repair last week. 

Slatt said a possible suspect for acts of vandalism appeared in Freedom Plaza the day before the exhibition opened on May 17, as volunteers were setting up the exhibits.

“The first night we were out there we had a homophobe yelling at us when he saw the word gay,” said Slatt, who described the person as a white male with red hair and a red beard appearing in his 30s or 40s in age. “He’s been out here a couple of times preaching the Bible and yelling slurs,” Slatt said.

At least one witness, a homeless man who sometimes sleeps in Freedom Plaza at night, has reported seeing a man fitting that same description vandalizing an exhibit, Slatt told the Blade.

He said Rainbow History Project has reported the vandalism incidents to the U.S. Park Police, which has jurisdiction over Freedom Plaza. A Park Police officer who came to the site on June 22 to prepare a report on the latest incident advised exhibition volunteers to call police immediately if they see the male suspect return to the site.

As if all this were not enough, Slatt said a few of the exhibits that had been damaged by a vandal and were structurally weakened were blown down by high winds during the storm that hit the D.C. area on June 19. He said volunteer workers put everything back together over the next few days only to have the yet unidentified vandal or vandals pull down two other exhibits on June 22.