Local
U.S. Attorney prosecuting D.C. anti-trans attack as hate crime
Police chief praises decision to retain charge
D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham and Mayor Muriel Bowser were reluctant at a news conference on Tuesday to join LGBT activists in criticizing the U.S. Attorney’s Office for dropping most of the hate crime designations made by D.C. police for violent crimes against LGBT people in 2018.
Bowser and Newsham called the news conference to provide an update on the D.C. police response to an increase in violent crime, including shootings, in recent weeks. Newsham gave a report on several arrests in a number of cases. He and Bowser said the department would be requiring some officers to work one extra day in overtime each week to step up efforts to apprehend violent offenders and recover illegal firearms.
In response to a question by the Washington Blade asking for their reaction to a Washington Post investigative report in August showing that prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office dropped hate crime designations last year for nearly all hate crime charges brought by D.C. police in both LGBT and non-LGBT cases, Bowser said she was pleased that LGBT people, especially transgender women, were coming forward to report hate crimes.
“And we are sending a very clear message that we’re investigating these crimes and we expect them to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” she said.
“I appreciate the work that MPD has done,” Bowser said, adding that the increase in hate crimes based on LGBT status, religious status and other categories over the past two years in D.C. appears to be part of a national trend. “And I think we should be proud people in the LGBT community, especially transgender women, are calling us for help.”
Newsham noted that the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which prosecutes most violent crimes in the District, has retained the hate crime designation made by D.C. police for the most recent anti-LGBT incident in the city. He was referring to a Sept. 17 assault and robbery of a transgender woman on the 7700 block of Eastern Ave., N.W. for which D.C. police arrested a male suspect, 23-year-old Besufikad Tujuba, on charges of bias related assault and biased related second-degree theft.
Charging documents filed in D.C. Superior Court accuse Tujuba of yelling anti-trans and anti-gay slurs shortly before he allegedly punched and kicked the woman and stole her purse, which contained $40 in cash and her cell phone. The victim is a client of the Casa Ruby LGBT community services center, which is located about three blocks from where the incident took place.
“I think there’s been a lot of discussion about it, about the fact that there have been a lot of crimes going to the U.S. Attorney’s Office that we believe to be hate crimes,” Newsham said in response to the Blade’s question. “I’m really thankful that in this most recent case they did make the hate crime designation.”
U.S. Attorney for D.C., Jessie K. Liu, who was appointed by President Trump, has said her office drops hate crime designations for cases only after her prosecutors determine the evidence isn’t sufficient to obtain a hate crime conviction before a jury.
She has said her office continues to prosecute such cases as non-hate crimes for the underlying offense such as assault or murder.
LGBT activists have complained that prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office appear to be overly cautious about bringing hate crimes cases to trial, saying the federally appointed prosecutors often prefer to drop the hate crime designation as part of a plea bargain offer to persuade a defendant to plead guilty to a less serious charge.
Cameroon
Gay Cameroonian immigrant will be freed from ICE detention — for now
Ludovic Mbock’s homeland criminalizes homosexuality
By ANTONIO PLANAS | An immigration judge on Friday issued a $4,000 bond for a Cameroonian immigrant and regional gaming champion held in federal immigration detention for the past three weeks.
The ruling will allow Ludovic Mbock, of Oxon Hill, to return to Maryland from a Georgia facility this weekend, his family and attorney said.
“Realistically, by tomorrow. Hopefully, by today,” said Mbock’s attorney, Edward Neufville. “We are one step closer to getting Ludovic justice.”
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
Bowser appoints first nonbinary person to Cabinet-level position
Peter Stephan named Office of Disability Rights interim director
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower has named longtime disability rights advocate Peter L. Stephan, who identifies as nonbinary, as interim director of the D.C. Office of Disability Rights.
The local transgender and nonbinary advocacy group Our Trans Capital and the LGBTQ group Capital Stonewall Democrats issued a joint statement calling Stephan’s appointment an historic development as the first-ever appointment of a nonbinary person to a Cabinet-level D.C. government position.
“This milestone appointment recognizes Stephan’s extensive expertise in disability rights advocacy and marks a historic advancement for transgender and nonbinary representation in District government leadership,” the statement says.
The statement notes that Stephan, an attorney, held the position of general counsel at the Office of Disability Rights immediately prior to the mayor’s decision to name him interim director.
The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade asking if Bowser plans to name Stephan as the permanent director of the Office of Disability Rights. John Fanning, a spokesperson for D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), said the office’s director position requires confirmation by the Council.
Stephan couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“At a time when trans and nonbinary people ae under attack across the country, D.C. continues to lead by example,” said Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats. “This appointment reflects what we have always believed that our community is always strongest when every voice is represented in government,” he said.
“This is a historic step forward,” said Vida Rengel, founder of Our Trans Capital. “Interim Director Stephan’s career and accomplishments are a shining example of the positive impact that trans and nonbinary public servants can have on our communities,” according to Rangel.
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
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