Local
D.C. woman guilty in shooting of gay man at IHOP
Defendant claims she’s bisexual, denied she was shooter
D.C. woman was found guilty in the March 2012 shooting of a gay man inside an International House of Pancakes restaurant. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
A D.C. Superior Court jury on Friday found a woman charged in the March 2012 shooting of a gay man inside an International House of Pancakes restaurant guilty of aggravated assault while armed and six additional firearms related charges.
The verdict followed a four-day trial in which prosecutors played for the jury a video obtained from the restaurant’s security cameras that they said showed Lashawn Yvonne Carson, 28, pull out a handgun and shoot Dante Thomas in the chest.
Thomas has since recovered from what Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Cannon, the lead prosecutor in the case, said was a gunshot wound to his liver that could have been fatal if he had not received immediate medical attention at a nearby hospital.
Police and prosecutors have said the shooting took place after two groups of friends were eating at separate tables at the restaurant in the city’s Columbia Heights section about 5:30 a.m. on March 11, 2012. An altercation leading to the shooting started after someone sitting at Carson’s table called Thomas and one or more of his friends a “faggot,” according to testimony at the trial.
The U.S. Attorney’s office last year dropped a D.C. police classification of the shooting as a hate crime, which calls for a more stringent penalty.
But prosecutors instead obtained a grand jury indictment against Carson on the aggravated assault while armed charge and six other charges, including assault with a dangerous weapon and carrying a pistol without a license. When combined the charges carry a possible maximum sentence of 77 years in prison.
Superior Court Judge Michael Ryan, who presided over the trial, scheduled sentencing for Dec. 9.
Prosecutor Cannon presented to the jury a separate video showing a police interview with Carson at the Third District police station in which she confessed to having shot Thomas. The interview took place about two weeks after the shooting and shortly before her arrest.
That video, which Cannon also played during closing arguments, shows Carson sitting behind a table saying she shot Thomas “because he hit me.”
Cannon told the jury that Carson’s statement during the police interview and a similar statement she made to someone she knew, Norman Lee, that she shot Thomas because he hit her during the altercation at the IHOP restaurant indicated she had a motive for the shooting.
“It couldn’t be anybody else” that did the shooting, he said. “She is the only one who can take a shot at Dante Thomas.
Defense attorney Patrick Christmas disputed the contention by Cannon that the taped confession by Carson and the video footage proved Carson shot Thomas.
Christmas pointed to Carson’s dramatic testimony as the lead defense witness that she was pressured into making the confession by a police detective at a time when she was drunk. He argued that Norman Lee was an “unreliable” witness and should not be believed. In addition, he called Thomas a “violent person” based on a prior criminal record of acts of violence.
Christmas noted that Carson testified she, in fact, didn’t shoot Thomas. He noted that she also testified that she is bisexual and expressed disapproval at the table where she and her friends were sitting when one of the friends used the word “faggot” to describe one or more of the men sitting at Thomas’s table.
He told the jury that based on claims by several people who thought they saw a male shoot Thomas during the altercation at the restaurant they could not find beyond a reasonable doubt that LaShawn Carson shot Dante Thomas.
Christmas also argued that none of the eyewitnesses, including victim Thomas, could state definitively on the witness stand that they were certain who actually shot Thomas. Christmas noted Thomas was among the witnesses that initially told police they thought it was a male who shot him.
“The best witness for my client is strangely the man who was shot,” Christmas told the jury.
According to a police charging document, the initial exchange between the two groups triggered by the anti-gay slur led to a physical altercation.
“As the victim was attempting to walk to the cash register to pay his bill, Carson and a male friend inadvertently stood directly in his way,” a statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s office says. “The victim attempted to squeeze by and accidently bumped into Carson. Words were exchanged and the defendant’s male friend used a homophobic slur,” the statement says.
Government witnesses at the trial testified that a fight then broke out between the opposing groups of friends and an off-duty D.C. police detective who was seated nearby stepped in to break it up.
“At that point, according to the government’s evidence, Carson walked over, adjusted her hair, pulled out a firearm and shot the victim once in the chest,” the U.S. Attorney’s statement says.
The jury reached its verdict after deliberating for about three hours and returned a separate guilty verdict for each of the seven counts of the indictment: Aggravated assault while armed; possession of a firearm during a crime of violence or dangerous offense; assault with a dangerous weapon; possession of a firearm during a crime of violence or dangerous offense; carrying a pistol without a license (outside home or place of business); possession of unregistered firearm; and unlawful possession of ammunition.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.
A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8th St., N.W. in D.C.
“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.
Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.
He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.
Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.
Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.
“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”
The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.
Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.
Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th
Maryland
Md. Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlines 2026 priorities
Expanded PrEP access among objectives
Maryland’s Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlined legislative priorities for the remainder of the General Assembly’s 2026 term during a press conference on March 5.
State Del. Kris Fair (D-Fredrick County) led the press conference. State Del. Ashanti Martinez (D-Prince George’s County) and other caucus members also spoke.
Caucus members are sponsoring 12 bills and supporting four others.
Martinez is sponsoring House Bill 1114, which would expand PrEP access in Maryland.
“PrEP is 99 percent effective in preventing HIV transmission,” he explained, noting PrEP’s cost often turns away potential users.
The bill aims to extend insurance coverage and expand pharmacists’ ability to prescribe PrEP along with other HIV treatments and testing. Martinez is working with state Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Anne Arundel and Howard Counties) and FreeState Justice on the bill.
The House Health Committee had a hearing last week that included HB1114.
“Ending the HIV epidemic is about expanding access and providing these life-saving tools to all persons in Maryland,” Martinez said.
Several other pieces of legislation were highlighted during the press conferences. They included measures focused on youth and education, birth certificate markers, so-called conversion therapy, and hormone medications.
State Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery County) is cosponsoring Senate Bill 950, which would update and strengthen conversion therapy laws. State Del. Bonnie Cullison (D-Montgomery County) has introduced an identical bill that would extend the statute of limitations on individuals who facilitate conversion therapy.
Kagan explained the bill would allow conversion therapy victims to come to terms with their experience undergoing the widely discredited practice that “creates shame and it silences survivors.”
When questioned, Fair explained the press conference happened late into the legislative session because “we [the caucus] are constantly having to respond in real time to what’s happening in Washington” while drafting and considering pieces of legislation.
The Frederick County Democrat described this session’s bills as the “most ambitious list of priorities to date.” Fair also described the caucus’s goals.
“It’s decency, it’s dignity, and its humanity,” he said.
District of Columbia
Owner of D.C. gay bar Green Lantern John Colameco dies at 79
Beloved businessman preferred to stay ‘behind the scenes’
John Colameco, owner of the popular D.C. gay bar Green Lantern, has died, according to a March 7 announcement posted on the bar’s website and Instagram account. The announcement didn’t provide a date of his passing or a cause of death.
Green Lantern manager Howard Hicks said Colameco was 79 at the time of his passing.
“It is with great sadness that Green Lantern announces the death of our beloved owner, John Colameco,” the announcement says. “Most of our patrons might have heard John’s name, but might not have known his face,” it says.
“He was a ‘behind-the-scenes’ kind of guy who avoided the limelight,” the announcement continues. “He preferred to stay in the back of the house with staff and team ensuring everything was running smoothly so that everyone out front was having a good time.”
The announcement adds, “As a veteran and businessman, John wasn’t a member of the LGBTQ + community, but he was one of the best damn allies our community has ever had.”
It says he “long provided spaces for the queer community to come together” since the 1990s when he owned and operated a popular restaurant on 17th Street, N.W. called Peppers.
According to the announcement, Colameco and his then business partner Greg Zehnacker opened the Green Lantern in 2001 in an alley off of 14th Street, N.W., between Thomas Circle and L Street, N.W.
The announcement points out that the Green Lantern first opened in the same location in the early 1990s before it later closed when the original owners decided to purchase and open other bars, one of which was the gay bar Fireplace near Dupont Circle. Colameco and Zehnacker were able to reopen the bar with the Green Lantern name.
“When Greg died unexpectedly in February 2014, John remained steadfastly committed to carrying on their vision and ensuring that Green Lantern remained part of the fabric of D.C.’s queer community,” the announcement says.
“Over the years, through Green Lantern, John has provided support to many community organizations, most notably Stonewall Sports, the Gay Men’s chorus of Washington, and ONYX Mid-Atlantic with Green Lantern serving as a gathering hub for their activities,” it states.
The announcement adds that Colameco’s family was planning a memorial for him in his hometown of Philadelphia.
“His Green Lantern family will celebrate his life by operating the bar as usual and we encourage you to stop by and join us,” it says. “Community coming together and having a good time – it’s exactly what John would want.”
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