A gay man was shot twice in the hip and upper leg on Saturday morning, Dec. 11, while standing in front of a store next to the Georgia Avenue-Petworth Metro station in a development that his boyfriend says makes him yet another victim of an alarming rise in gun violence in the nation’s capital.

A D.C. police incident report says Larry Darnell Henderson, 36, was “hit twice in the lower extremities” by shots fired by an unidentified male suspect who fired nine shots into a crowd where Henderson was standing on Georgia Avenue, N.W., just before 10 a.m. on Dec. 11.

“Suspect 1 fled the scene northbound on the 3700 block of Georgia Ave. N.W., then turning eastbound into the 6700 block of Quincy St., N.W. where he was last seen,” the police report says. 

Kevin McDonnell, who said he and Henderson are a couple, told the Blade that Henderson told him the male shooter initially pointed his gun at Henderson’s groin, prompting Henderson to turn his body around, which resulted in his being struck by bullets in the hip and leg.

According to McDonnell, Henderson told him the shooter did not say anything and did not attempt to rob him. But because the two men frequently patronize the stores and shops surrounding that Metro station and sometimes exhibit affection toward one another, McDonnell said he believes the shooter may have perceived Henderson to be a partner in a gay relationship and targeted him for a hate crime.

“It’s no accident that that guy pointed his gun at his genitalia,” McDonnell said. “And had LD not pivoted it would be a different story,” said McDonnell, who refers to Henderson by his nickname LD.

The police report specifically says the incident is not listed as a suspected hate crime. McDonnell disputes that designation.

When asked by the Blade if police investigators were looking for a possible video of the shooting incident from nearby surveillance cameras, a police spokesperson said if a photo of the suspect is obtained from a video camera and if police seek the public’s help in identifying and locating the suspect “we will release it.”

McDonnell said Henderson was taken by ambulance to MedStar Washington Hospital Center, where he underwent surgery. He remained at the hospital under treatment as of late Tuesday.

LGBTQ activists, meanwhile, have said they are not aware of any information to indicate that LGBTQ people are being singled out for gun violence or other types of crime to a degree greater than the general public.

A D.C. police spokesperson and the supervisor of the department’s LGBT Liaison Unit, Sgt. Nicole Brown, didn’t immediately respond to a message from the Blade asking whether officers assigned to the LGBT Liaison Unit have noticed an increase in crimes against LGBTQ people in the District during the past two years compared to previous years.

A police source familiar with the LGBT Liaison Unit, who spoke on condition of not being identified because the source was not authorized to speak to the media, said there was no “clear indication that LGBT people are being targeted any more than anyone else.” 

D.C. police statistics for hate crimes posted on the police website show that for 2021, as of Sept. 30, there were a total of 29 reported hate crimes based on the victim’s sexual orientation and eight hate crimes reported based on the victim’s gender identity or expression.

Those figures compare to a total of 38 sexual orientation or anti-gay hate crimes reported in the full year of 2020 and 60 in 2019. The police data show that in 2020 there were 27 reported hate crimes based on the victim’s gender identity or status as a transgender person and the same number of 27 for that category reported in 2019.

Law enforcement observers have pointed out that the rise in violent crime in most of the nation’s large cities, including D.C., has occurred during the COVID pandemic and the COVID-related public health restrictions placed on many businesses and citizens across the country.

D.C. police data show that there was a 19 percent increase in homicides in the District in 2020 compared to 2019 – a jump from 166 to 198. As of Dec. 14, of this year, the D.C. police data show homicides rose so far in 2021 by 9 percent to a total of 212 cases as of Dec. 14.

This year’s homicide total of 212 as of Dec. 14 marked the first time the number of murders in the city has surpassed 200 since 2003, a development that has alarmed city officials and prompted D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser last week to announce the city will expand its violence prevention and mitigation programs. Earlier this year, the mayor declared gun violence in the city a “public health crisis.”

As of that same Dec. 14, 2021, date, the D.C. police data show the crime of assault with a dangerous weapon rose by 3 percent over 2020 – from 1,581 to 1,605, robberies rose by 1 percent – 1,913 to 1,930, and the combined number of “violent crime” rose by 2 percent over 2020 from 3,855 to 3,919.

The 2021 data show that the number of burglaries declined by 4 percent so far in 2021 compared to 2020 from 1,136 to 1,094. The number of motor vehicle thefts rose by 9 percent from 3,068 in 2020 to 3,348 as of Dec. 14, 2021. The crime of “theft from auto” rose by 5 percent so far this year, from 7,897 to 8,307.

And the crime listed by D.C. police as “Theft/Other,” which is the second highest category of crime in the city, remained statistically the same but rose slightly from 10,409 in 2020 to 10,430 in 2021. 

The police data show that the combined total of “property crime” in the city rose by 3 percent from 22,523 in 2020 to 23,182 as of Dec. 14, 2021.

The combined total of all instances of crime, the police data show, rose by 3 percent from 26,378 to 27,101 in 2021. 

Although D.C.’s overall crime rate has not increased as much as it has in other cities, several high-profile incidents in parts of the city not accustomed to the shootings that residents of other parts of the city say they are accustomed to have alarmed businesses and nearby residents.

In July, two men were shot and wounded outside the popular strip of restaurants on 14th Street, N.W., where offices for Whitman-Walker Health are located and close to the Washington Blade’s former office. A short time later, a shooting outside Washington Nationals Stadium prompted fans inside the stadium to duck for cover and prompted demands for police and the city to do more to address gun violence.

The two high-profile shootings also drew attention to disagreements between Bowser and several members of the D.C. Council over whether or how much the fiscal year 2022 budget for the police department should be increased. Bowser and many community activists, including those in Wards 7 and 8, where the murder rate is highest, expressed concern that the number of police officers in the city is currently the lowest it has been in nearly 20 years due to retirements and attrition.

The Council in August voted to raise the police budget by $5 million, a little less than half of the $11 million that Bowser requested. The mayor has said the additional funds were needed to hire more officers to address the gun violence “crisis.”

Representatives of many of the city’s nightlife businesses, including restaurants and bars, have also expressed concern that legislation approved by the D.C. Council in recent years to place restrictions on how police make arrests of juveniles and people suffering from mental health problems have resulted in small businesses receiving less police protection against crimes targeting their customers and employees.

One law that some have objected to is the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results Amendment, or NEAR Act, of 2016. The law, among other things, requires that D.C. police coordinate with the city’s Department of Behavioral Health and Department of Human Services to arrange for civilian mental health clinicians and outreach specialists to join police officers in responding to crimes or disturbances caused by individuals identified as having mental illness, being homeless, or having substance abuse issues.

Although those raising concerns over the NEAR Act say they fully support providing mental health services for people who need those services, they say police in some cases have declined to respond to calls for “less serious” crimes such as “snatch-and-grab” purse and cell phone snatchings from people seated in outdoor dining areas at restaurants.

Some of the businesses have said police have expressed reluctance to respond if the suspected perpetrator has a mental health problem during evening hours when the civilian mental health experts from the Department of Behavioral Health or other city agencies are not working evening hours.

“A sense of growing lawlessness, increasing crime, and random violence is a much-discussed concern among local small business restaurant, bar, and retail store operators and workers throughout the city,” said Mark Lee, coordinator of the D.C. Nightlife Council, a local trade association representing nightlife, hospitality, and entertainment businesses in D.C.

Lee said representatives of these businesses have met recently with D.C. Council members and D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee to inform them that safety concerns by employees have begun to harm businesses and negatively impact commercial sections of the city.

“MPD leadership and rank-and-file officers, I think it’s fair to say, are as frustrated as many city residents and local enterprises have become about a D.C. Council majority that pretends it is reassigning parts of public safety and law enforcement to other government entities that are understaffed, undertrained, and largely unavailable to respond to incidents and problems,” Lee said.

He noted that because the D.C. police force is the smallest it has been in 20 years, despite population increases, “officers are stretched thin working overtime shifts.”

D.C. Council member Robert White (D-At-Large), who is running for mayor in the 2022 Democratic primary, is among the Council members who have said addressing the underlying causes of crime in the city is the only way the city can succeed in ending gun violence and other serious crimes.

“The reality is unless we start to solve these underlying issues more, crime is going to go up,” White told the Blade at a holiday event sponsored by the LGBTQ group Capital Stonewall Democrats on Monday night. “But also, once people are incarcerated, if we rehabilitate them better, crime is going to go down,” White said.

“So, being a police officer is an incredibly difficult job,” he said. “And I guess they believe – some believe – that if we lock up more people for longer periods of time, that’s going to make us safe,” White said. “And I think that fundamentally isn’t true. There has to be consequences when people commit crimes. But we can do a better job rehabilitating people,” he said.

“We can do a better job of getting to the people before they get engaged in crime. And we can do a better job of restoring the relationship between communities and the police,” White said.

Bowser and city officials working in her administration have said both approaches are needed to address the gun violence problem, including at this time the hiring of more police officers. On Dec. 9, the mayor announced plans to significantly increase the city’s ongoing violence prevention and interruption programs. Among other things, Bowser said the city will award $1.1 million in grants to community-based organizations working on violence interruption programs, especially those targeting young people.

Del McFadden, director of the D.C.Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, which coordinates violence prevention efforts, said the number of “interrupters” will increase from 30 to 80. He said their work would expand to more neighborhoods, including Shaw in Ward 2, Congress Park in Ward 8, and Edgewood in Ward 5 for a total of 25 “priority” neighborhoods where gun violence has occurred.