District of Columbia
U.S. Attorney’s Office declines to prosecute anti-gay assault case
D.C. police report says man beaten by neighbors in Northeast
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has declined to prosecute two women and a man who, according to a D.C. police report, assaulted a gay man after one of the women called him a “Jewish faggot” during an Oct. 13 incident on the grounds of a Northeast Washington apartment building where the victim and the two women live.
The victim, Antonio Zephir, 51, said one of the women, her daughter, and a man he believes to be the daughter’s father repeatedly punched him in the face after he shouted back at the mother in response to the anti-gay and anti-Jewish slur he says she hurled at him.
The incident took place outside the Northwood Gardens Apartments at 4870 Fort Totten Dr., N.E. at about 12:40 p.m. the police report says.
Zephir told the Blade this week that an official with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which prosecutes crimes committed by adults in D.C., informed him in a phone call that the office decided not to prosecute the case after police and prosecutors viewed a surveillance camera video that reportedly captured the entire incident.
He said the official, Crystal Flournoy, Deputy Chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Early Case Assessment Section, told him the video showed that he was the “aggressor” in the incident.
Zephir says he strongly disputes that characterization and believes the camera angle from the video may not have captured the full altercation in which he was assaulted first before attempting to defend himself.
A D.C. police spokesperson said police opened an investigation into the incident after Zephir called police immediately after the altercation. A police report lists the incident as a suspected anti-gay hate crime and lists the offense as a misdemeanor simple assault.
Zephir, who was treated and released from the Washington Hospital Center the day after the incident, suffered a fractured nose, a fractured bone surrounding one of his eyes, and other facial injuries, according to a hospital report he provided to the Blade. He said his doctor told him he may need facial surgery to treat ongoing effects from the injuries.
In a Dec. 7 email, a copy of which Zephir sent to the Blade, D.C. Police Lt. Scott Dowling informed Zephir that the U.S Attorney’s Office declined to process an affidavit submitted by police requesting the case be prosecuted.
“[T]he affidavit submitted to the United States Attorney’s Office was declined, meaning that their office is not willing to move forward with criminal charges,” Dowling told Zephir in his email message. “As a result, there will be no arrests relating to the offense you reported,” Dowling said. “As the Affidavit was declined, our investigation is closed,” Dowling wrote in the message.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute this matter after reviewing the evidence,” William Miller, a spokesperson for the office, told the Blade in a statement on Wednesday. “Beyond that, we typically do not comment on charging decisions and have no further comment,” Miller said.
Zephir said he doesn’t think the video, which he hasn’t seen, shows that one of the two women involved in the altercation was the first to assault him. He identified her in court papers he filed seeking a stay away protection order as Aurlora Ellis.
Court records show that a D.C. Superior Court judge on Nov. 30 issued a “Consent Stay Away Order” requiring Ellis and her daughter, identified as Latera Cox, and a woman who Zephir says lives at Ellis’s apartment, to “stay at least 100 feet away from Plaintiffs Zephir or Johnson.”
Steve Johnson, who is cited in the stay away order, is Zephir’s roommate who the police report says attempted to stop the Oct. 13 altercation in which Zephir says he was assaulted.
The court order further states that the three women “shall not contact Plaintiffs Zephir or Johnson in any manner, including but not limited to by telephone, in writing, and in any manner directly or indirectly through another person, including social media,” and that the order will remain in effect for one year.
“Ms. Ellis was the person who made those threats and slurs against me,” Zephir said. “I responded with not-so-kind words. She ran towards me and assaulted me with hard punches toward my face,” Zephir recounted. “I punched back in an attempt to defend myself,” he said.
According to Zephir, during the altercation Ellis told him, “Call the police, you bitch faggot. They’re not going to do anything. This isn’t over yet.” He said he continues to worry that Ellis’s comment that the matter “isn’t over yet” was a threat and that she may try to harm him again.
Ellis couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Zephir said the October altercation wasn’t the first time Ellis has acted in a hostile way toward him.
“For several months, every time Ms. Ellis sees me, she shouts homophobic slurs and I continued to ignore her,” he told the Blade in October after contacting the Blade about the incident.
On Tuesday, Zephir told the Blade that Ellis later apologized for the altercation and asked him to drop the charges he filed against her with D.C. police. He said he declined her request, but said he’s now dismayed that the U.S. Attorney’s Office has refused to prosecute what he calls a “serious hate crime” against him.
District of Columbia
Hands Off the Arts to form ‘human chain’ around Kennedy Center
Drag performer Tara Hoot among event organizers
An organization called Hands Off the Arts has announced it is holding a protest on Friday, Sept. 18, in which between 400 and 800 participants are expected to create a “human chain” around the Kennedy Center to voice their strong objection to President Donald Trump’s call for possibly demolishing the Kennedy Center.
“Hands Off the Arts is organizing a rally Sept. 18 against the president’s defacing of JFK’s memorial, his removal and censorship of art, and the threat to demolish the center if he can’t remake the site in his image,” a statement released by the group says.
The statement says the event will start with a rally at 6:30 p.m. on the Kennedy Center steps and culminate with a “human chain” around the building. “There will be musical performances, testimonials from current and former employees, along with other special guest speakers,” it says
A separate announcement by the group says longtime D.C. drag performer Tara Hoot, who has performed at the Kennedy Center in past years, was among the organizers of the Sept. 18 protest.
The planned protest follows Trump’s decision last year to use his authority to replace the existing members of the Kennedy Center’s board of directors with new members loyal to him. Over the objection of longtime Kennedy Center supporters, the Trump-appointed board changed the name of the center, at Trump’s request, from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
But following the threat of legal action by opponents who pointed out that the name change could not be legally made unless approved by Congress, the name change was cancelled, with Trump saying he would take steps to restore it later.
The Washington Post, meanwhile, reports in a Sept. 13 news story that because of negative publicity related to Trump’s actions, the Kennedy Center was facing “fiscal collapse” and possible bankruptcy and could be forced to shut down as early as this week.
According to the Post report, a 57-page document presented to the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees says the center was facing a financial and structural building crisis, with the recent collapse of part of the building’s inside ceiling, indicating the building was unsafe for employees and the public. Among other things, the document says the Kennedy Center may not be able to make payroll or pay for routine maintenance “within a matter of weeks,” the Post reports.
Some LGBTQ advocates were among those who joined others in boycotting the Kennedy Center to express their objections to Trump’s actions, including a statement by Trump that he objected to the Kennedy Center’s practice of hosting drag performances.
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington has been among the LGBTQ performing arts groups and artists that have performed at the Kennedy Center.
“With the future still very much uncertain, now more than ever, the Center needs you to stand up for freedom of expression and against authoritarian overreach into arts and culture institutions,” the Hands Off the Arts group says in its announcement of the Hands Around the Kennedy Center protest.
“You have the opportunity to make a difference — show up with Hands Off the Arts and show your power as part of Hands Around the Kennedy Center,” it says.
A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
District of Columbia
Blade welcomes fall intern
Alexis McLean is student at University of North Florida
The Washington Blade this week welcomed Alexis McLean as its fall intern.
Alexis is studying political science at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Fla. She is interning with the Blade as part of a continued partnership with the Washington Center.
“I am looking forward to spending my time in the fall with the Washington Blade, as this is a new experience for me,” said Alexis. “I have not experienced any journalist jobs in the past so this would be my first time, and I am excited to better my writing and communications skills with this internship.”
Alexis’s internship with the Blade ends in early December.
District of Columbia
‘People don’t see me. They see a trend’
New popularity of all things Asian warps view of multiple cultures
As I was growing up, my parents often shared stories about how they were bullied when they were my age, just for being Asian. My mom is Cambodian and my dad is “Wasian,” Chinese and white. Students teased them for their looks, their homemade lunches, and treated their traditional holidays as jokes.
I once asked my mom when I was little if she could pack me dumpling leftovers for lunch. “Yes,” she said with a surprised look, adding, “I would have never wanted to bring dumplings to school when I was your age because I would always get bullied for them. I’m glad times have changed.”
At the time, I was confused. Whenever I brought a homemade Asian dish to school for lunch, I was happy to hear intriguing and curious questions from the other kids. It felt good to have my meal be popular and different from the Lunchables everyone else had.
Though times have changed, racism still continues. It just has a new face. Today, social media pretends to flatter our cultures in an insincere way trying to gain popularity just for clicks. Think anything from K-pop to Japan’s surge in international tourism. Even Starbucks has added drinks with the flavor of ube yam, native to the Philippines, onto its menu.
I feel that now when people see me, they don’t see me, they see a trend.
For years, Asian people have been portrayed as foreign or exotic. The new embrace of foods and fashion at first felt good. Asians have never been represented as much as they’ve deserved.
But this new popularity warps what non-Asians see. Instead of the blunt and direct racism my parents faced, everything now is a gray area, more discreetly hidden behind some TikTok video. It actually normalizes racism and stereotypes.
Whitewashing my culture
As a 15-year-old Asian American who lives in D.C., I’ve always been one of the few Asian kids in school; my high school today counts less than 2 percent of students as being of Asian descent. I remember always being called “that one Asian girl” or some slur a kid learned from their parents. Every time I search for something related to Asian culture, such as a recipe or maybe a holiday, it’s always the same thing: some white person whitewashing my culture.
Social media is the main culprit, of course. I realized this when I entered high school and got a phone and was introduced to the internet. That is when I realized how messed up the new stereotypes around Asians are.
One pattern I started to notice was people wanting to be Asian just because it was popular. It was hurtful, patronizing, and annoying. They made assumptions about our race and then only found us “cool” because we were trending. How can people go from hating us or finding us weird, to then only liking us because we’re popular?
There was a trend going around on TikTok called “race change to another” or RCTA. It is this trend of people manifesting certain physical traits to change their appearance in order to change races. According to journalist Emi Tran, writing then as an intern for NBC Digital, the trend started when a white woman wanted to be Japanese. The woman began posting TikTok videos of herself wishing for different features such as monolids. Tran wrote in that 2023 article that “the overwhelming majority of the RCTA community wants to be East Asian.”
People also look up to K-pop culture, idolizing the pop groups pulled together by big entertainment companies. Most people expect all Koreans to be K-pop fans. Korean friends are asked about K-pop all the time even though they are not into the South Korean music genre.
Although I am not South Korean — I am half Cambodian and Chinese — I still get asked, almost like I’m expected, “You’re really into this group, right?” or “Can you tell me how to pronounce this member’s name?”
I was asked even worse questions during COVID-19. Suddenly, discrimination and violence were increasing specifically toward Asians everywhere. Suddenly, almost everyone was blaming Chinese people for spreading and causing COVID-19.
I remember going to school for one of the last times before quarantine had started and hearing kids whisper, “Oh, she’s going to give us the Coronavirus.” President Donald Trump had publicly posted his opinions about the situation on social media, blaming China for the pandemic, even calling it the “Chinese Virus” or the “Wuhan Virus.” According to NPR, anti-Asian hate crimes in U.S. cities surged 149 percent that year.
The topic of Asians in the media has always been complicated. One moment people can hate us for being weird and different and the next we’re suddenly popular and cool for the same reasons.
I feel conflicted on whether I should feel happy that we’re being represented or angry that it’s all for the wrong reason and has the wrong effects.
Lily Brugman is a sophomore at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, one of Youthcast Media Group’s journalism class partners. She worked with YMG volunteer and Professor Emerita in journalism at American University Amy Eisman on this piece.
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