Local
Police seek help in solving male rape case
Victim abducted, assaulted by 8 suspects
The victim reported being abducted near the intersection of 14th Street and Parkwood Place. (Washington Blade photo by Lou Chibbaro, Jr.)
D.C. police are seeking help from the public in identifying as many as eight suspects reportedly involved in the abduction and sexual assault of an adult male victim in Columbia Heights on Friday evening, July 31.
A statement released by police says that at approximately 8 p.m. on July 31 one of the suspects approached the victim near the intersection of 14th Street and Parkwood Place, N.W., and forced him at gunpoint into a white van.
A police incident report obtained by the Washington Blade says the same suspect and as many as seven other suspects “drove him around” in the van.
According to the report, the victim told police that while inside the van “Suspect 1 through Suspect 5 anally sexually assaulted him against his will and without his consent.”
The separate statement released by police on Aug. 2 says the incident has been listed as a first-degree sexual assault while armed (gun) and a kidnapping.
It describes the suspect believed to have forced the victim into the van as a Hispanic male, 6 feet one inch to 6 feet two inches tall, between 22 and 27 years of age with a slim build and short black curly hair, and armed with a gun.
A second suspect is described as an “unknown male, heavy set, 17 to 19 years of age” and having a light complexion.
The police incident report made available to the public identifies the victim only as being a white male of “Hispanic origin.”
A box on the incident report that asks the reporting officer whether the incident is a “suspected hate crime” was left blank. The reporting officer, Det. Douglas J. Carlson of the department’s Sexual Assault Unit, wrote the word “none” in a separate box that says, “Describe injury.”
A police source familiar with how police incident reports are prepared said the hate crime box is left blank when investigators don’t have sufficient evidence that an incident was a possible hate crime at the time the report was made. That assessment could change at any time during the course of an investigation as new evidence surfaces, the source said.
Neither the police statement nor the incident report discloses the victim’s age or whether he identifies as gay, straight, bisexual or transgender.
The area surrounding the 14th Street and Parkwood Place intersection, where the victim was abducted, includes numerous shops and restaurants that cater mostly to a Latino clientele.
Police are asking anyone who has information that might be helpful to their investigation into the incident to call police at 202-727-9099. The police statement says an award of up to $1,000 is being offered for tips that lead to an arrest and conviction in the case.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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