Local
Hearing postponed for cop charged with shooting trans women
Affidavit says D.C. officer stood on hood of car, fired through windshield
An off-duty D.C. police officer charged with firing a pistol at three transgender women and two male friends last Friday was in handcuffs Tuesday morning as marshals led him into court for a preliminary hearing.
D.C. Superior Court Chief Judge Lee F. Satterfield, who is presiding over the case, granted a request by an attorney representing Officer Kenneth Furr to postpone the hearing until Friday, adding to the suspense surrounding an incident that has outraged LGBT activists and city officials, including Mayor Vincent Gray.
Satterfield ordered Furr returned to jail pending Friday’s hearing, where the judge will rule on whether the officer should remain in jail while he awaits trial.
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Furr has been on the force for more than 20 years. He was charged on Friday with assault with a dangerous weapon and driving while intoxicated following allegations by the victims and witnesses that he shot at least three of five people sitting in a car about 5:25 a.m. on Aug. 29 at First and Pierce streets, N.W.
Two of three transgender women sitting in the car were hit by bullets and suffered non-life threatening injures, police said. One of two males in the car was also struck, suffering serious but non-life threatening wounds, according to police and witnesses.
A police affidavit filed in court says the victims and on-duty D.C. police officers, who were in the area when the shooting took place, reported seeing Furr standing on the hood of the car in which the victims were sitting.
Two of the victims said he fired his gun at them through the car windshield, striking them as they screamed in horror, according to transgender activists who spoke with the victims.
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D.C. transgender activist Jeri Hughes said two of the trans women shot during the incident told her that police officers arriving on the scene handcuffed them and “treated them like criminals instead of victims.”
Hughes and other LGBT activists said police appeared to have called in the department’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit to assist in the case and quickly alerted LGBT activists through a police e-mail list used to communicate with the LGBT community.
But Hughes said the report by the victims that officers handcuffed them confirmed yet again longstanding concerns within the transgender community that D.C. police are biased against the trans community.
Officer Araz Alali, a police spokesperson, said Tuesday that the department was unaware of that allegation.
“We have not heard that the police handcuffed the complainants,” he said, adding that the department was still investigating the case and more information could surface about such an allegation.
The police affidavit says the incident began a few blocks away at a CVS drugstore at 400 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., when Furr approached one of the witnesses in the case and engaged the witness in conversation. It says another of the witnesses got into a “verbal altercation” with Furr before the two witnesses left the store.
Transgender activists who spoke with at least two of the transgender women shot in the incident said the women told them Furr approached one of them during that initial encounter at or near the CVS store and expressed interest in having sex with her. Furr reportedly became angry when the women turned down his request, the activists who spoke with the two women said.
The affidavit says that members of the group of three trans women and two male friends crossed paths with Furr minutes later on the street, when Furr made a comment to one of them while he was sitting in his car parked outside the CVS store.
“Another verbal altercation ensured, and during the argument, defendant Furr reached into the glove compartment of his vehicle and retrieved a dark-colored handgun and pointed it at witness 1” the affidavit says. It says witness 1 and witness 5, who are believed to be one of the trans women and her male friend, returned to the CVS store and reported to an off-duty police officer working there as a security guard that Furr threatened them with a gun.
According to the affidavit, witness 1 and 5 then met up with the other witnesses identified as the victims in the case and entered a car belonging to witness 1.
“While driving, witness 1 saw the white Cadillac driven by defendant Furr and followed the Cadillac in the hopes that it could again report defendant Furr for pointing a gun at it,” the affidavit says. “At some point, defendant Furr stopped his car and as witness 1 went to drive around defendant Furr’s car, defendant Furr stepped out of his car with a gun pointed toward witness 1’s vehicle,” says the affidavit.
“Witness 1 ducked down in an attempt to avoid being shot, and then heard shots fired and felt a jolt which he later realized was [his] car colliding with defendant Furr’s car,” the affidavit says. “When witness 1 looked up [he] saw defendant Furr standing on top of the witnesses’ vehicle with a handgun and firing shots into the vehicle.”
The affidavit says another of the victims identified as witness 4 “reportedly heard the man who was shooting say, ‘Ima kill all of you’ before he started shooting into the vehicle.”
Police said they suspended Furr’s police powers at the time of his arrest pending an investigation by the department’s Internal Affairs Division.
Court records show Furr was charged with driving while intoxicated in a separate incident in 2004. Records show the D.C. attorney general’s office dropped the charge after Furr completed a diversion program. Details of the diversion program couldn’t be immediately obtained from court records, but such programs usually involve requiring a defendant to undergo counseling or alcohol treatment.
Virginia
DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room
Three male high school students suspended after complaining about classmate
The Justice Department has asked to join a federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools over the way it handled the case of three male high school students who complained about a transgender student in a boys’ locker room.
The Washington Blade earlier this year reported Loudoun County public schools suspended the three boys and launched a Title IX investigation into whether they sexually harassed the student after they said they felt uncomfortable with their classmate in the locker room at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.
The parents of two of the boys filed a lawsuit against Loudoun County public schools in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. The Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center and America First Legal, which White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller co-founded, represent them.
The Justice Department in a Dec. 8 press release announced that “it filed legal action against the Loudoun County (Va.) School Board (Loudoun County) for its denial of equal protection based on religion.”
“The suit alleges that Loudoun County applied Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender ideology, to two Christian, male students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” reads the press release.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release said “students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.”
“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” said Dhillon.
Outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in May announced an investigation into the case.
The Virginia Department of Education in 2023 announced the new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students for which Youngkin asked. Equality Virginia and other advocacy groups claim they, among other things, forcibly out trans and nonbinary students.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in February launched an investigation into whether Loudoun County and four other Northern Virginia school districts’ policies in support of trans and nonbinary students violate Title IX and President Donald Trump’s executive order that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from promoting “gender ideology.”
District of Columbia
Capital Pride announces change in date for 2026 D.C. Pride parade and festival
Events related to U.S. 250th anniversary and Trump birthday cited as reasons for change
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, has announced it is changing the dates for the 2026 Capital Pride Parade and Festival from the second weekend in June to the third weekend.
“For over a decade, Capital Pride has taken place during the second weekend in June, but in 2026, we are shifting our dates in response to the city’s capacity due to major events and preparations for the 250th anniversary of the United States,” according to a Dec. 9 statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.
The statement says the parade will take place on Saturday, June 20, 2026, with the festival and related concert taking place on June 21.
“This change ensures our community can gather safely and without unnecessary barriers,” the statement says. “By moving the celebration, we are protecting our space and preserving Pride as a powerful act of visibility, solidarity, and resistance,” it says.
Ryan Bos, the Capital Pride Alliance CEO and President, told the Washington Blade the change in dates came after the group conferred with D.C. government officials regarding plans for a number of events in the city on the second weekend in June. Among them, he noted, is a planned White House celebration of President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and other events related to the U.S. 250th anniversary, which are expected to take place from early June through Independence Day on July 4.
The White House has announced plans for a large June 14, 2026 celebration on the White House south lawn of Trump’s 80th birthday that will include a large-scale Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event involving boxing and wrestling competition.
Bos said the Capital Pride Parade will take place along the same route it has in the past number of years, starting at 14th and T Streets, N.W. and traveling along 14th Street to Pennsylvania Ave., where it will end. He said the festival set for the following day will also take place at its usual location on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between 2nd Street near the U.S. Capitol, to around 7th Street, N.W.
“Our Pride events thrive because of the passion and support of the community,” Capital Pride Board Chair Anna Jinkerson said in the statement. “In 2026, your involvement is more important than ever,” she said.
District of Columbia
Three women elected leaders of Capital Pride Alliance board
Restructured body includes chair rather than president as top leader
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, announced it has restructured its board of directors and elected for the first time three women to serve as leaders of the board’s Executive Committee.
“Congratulations to our newly elected Executive Officers, making history as Capital Pride Alliance’s first all-women Board leadership,” the group said in a statement.
“As we head into 2026 with a bold new leadership structure, we’re proud to welcome Anna Jinkerson as Board Chair, Kim Baker as Board Treasurer, and Taylor Lianne Chandler as Board Secretary,” the statement says.
In a separate statement released on Nov. 20, Capital Pride Alliance says the restructured Board now includes the top leadership posts of Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary, replacing the previous structure of President and Vice President as the top board leaders.
It says an additional update to the leadership structure includes a change in title for longtime Capital Pride official Ryan Bos from executive director to chief executive officer and president.
According to the statement, June Crenshaw, who served as acting deputy director during the time the group organized WorldPride 2025 in D.C., will now continue in that role as permanent deputy director.
The statement provides background information on the three newly elected women Board leaders.
• Anna Jinkerson (chair), who joined the Capital Pride Alliance board in 2022, previously served as the group’s vice president for operations and acting president. “A seasoned non-profit executive, she currently serves as Assistant to the President and CEO and Chief of Staff at Living Cities, a national member collaborative of leading philanthropic foundations and financial institutions committed to closing income and wealth gaps in the United States and building an economy that works for everyone.”
• Kim Baker (treasurer) is a “biracial Filipino American and queer leader,” a “retired, disabled U.S. Army veteran with more than 20 years of service and extensive experience in finance, security, and risk management.” She has served on the Capital Pride Board since 2018, “bringing a proven track record of steady, principled leadership and unwavering dedication to the LGBTQ+ community.”
• Taylor Lianne Chandler (Secretary) is a former sign language interpreter and crisis management consultant. She “takes office as the first intersex and trans-identifying member of the Executive Committee.” She joined the Capital Pride Board in 2019 and previously served as executive producer from 2016 to 2018.
Bos told the Washington Blade in a Dec. 2 interview that the Capital Pride board currently has 12 members, and is in the process of interviewing additional potential board members.
“In January we will be announcing in another likely press release the full board,” Bos said. “We are finishing the interview process of new board members this month,” he said. “And they will take office to join the board in January.”
Bos said the organization’s rules set a cap of 25 total board members, but the board, which elects its members, has not yet decided how many additional members it will select and a full 25-member board is not required.
The Nov. 20 Capital Pride statement says the new board executive members will succeed the organization’s previous leadership team, which included Ashley Smith, who served as president for eight years before he resigned earlier this year; Anthony Musa, who served for seven years as vice president of board engagement; Natalie Thompson, who served eight years on the executive committee; and Vince Micone, who served for eight years as vice president of operations.
“I am grateful for the leadership, dedication, and commitment shown by our former executive officers — Ashley, Natalie, Anthony, and Vince — who have been instrumental in CPA’s growth and the exceptional success of WorldPride 2025,” Bos said in the statement.
“I look forward to collaborating with Anna in her new role, as well as Kim and Taylor in theirs, as we take on the important work ahead, prepare for Capital Pride 2026, and expand our platform and voice through Pride365,” Bos said.
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