The Washington Commanders football team this week fired one of its executives, who made remarks that were recorded without his knowledge by an undercover news reporter claiming the team’s Black players were “homophobic” and that some National Football League players were “dumb as hell.”

Multiple news media outlets, including the Washington Post and the LGBTQ sports publication Out Sports, identified the executive as Rael Enteen, who held the title of Vice President of Content for the Commanders organization.

The publication The Athletic reports that Enteen was secretly recorded with a hidden video camera by a female reporter for the O’Keefe Media Group during two dates in which the reporter did not disclose she was with the media.

Among his recorded comments, The Athletic and other media outlets have reported, is he told the reporter  that some National Football League players, including Black players, were dumb and homophobic.

“A big chunk [of the Commanders roster] is very low-income African American that comes from a community that is inherently very homophobic,” the Daily Mail reports Enteen as saying in the recording. “I love hip-hop, hip-hop is very homophobic,” he reportedly stated in the video. “It’s a cultural thing that I hope gets better.”

Enteen also called NFL fans “high school-educated alcoholics” and “mouth breathers,” the Associated Press reports.

The AP also reports that Enteen states in the video recording that Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys football team, “hates gay people and Black people.” The AP says the Cowboys team did not respond to a request for comment.

According to the AP, a Washington Commanders spokesperson said in response to being asked about the decision to fire Enteen, “The language used in the video runs counter to our values at the Commanders organization.”

D.C. Capital Pride Alliance board member Anthony Musa and transgender D.C. government official Vida Rangel have withdrawn as candidates in the city’s Nov. 5 election for Advisory Neighborhood Commission seats after separate challenges were filed questioning the validity of the signatures on their required nominating petitions.

Musa was one of at least four LGBTQ candidates running unopposed for seats on ANC 2B, which represents the Dupont Circle neighborhood.

Rangel, who described herself as the first Latina trans person of color to run for public office in D.C., was running for the ANC single member district seat 1A10 in the city’s Columbia Heights neighborhood. She was running against incumbent Billy Easley, who identifies as a gay man. Rangel currently serves as director of operations for the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments.

Under D.C. election rules, ANC candidates must obtain the signatures of at least 25 registered voters who live in their ANC single member district to gain access to the election ballot. Under the D.C. government, ANCs are unpaid, voluntary elected positions given the role of advising city government officials on neighborhood issues, with city officials required to give “great weight” to the ANCs’ recommendations.

Musa told the Washington Blade on Sept. 3 that he withdrew his candidacy after realizing he only obtained about 26 or 27 signatures, with a few of them appearing to be from people who did not live in his ANC single member district 2B01. He said the person challenging his petition, whom he called a neighborhood rival, would likely have succeeded in the challenge and invalidated his candidacy.

“With the signatures, I just didn’t meet the level,” he said. “There were several people that I thought lived in my district, but they didn’t. So, if I ever do this again, I’ll make sure I get like triple the amount that I need.”

Rangel told the Blade on Sept. 4 that after receiving the challenge to her petition she too realized she fell short on the number of needed petition signatures. “After reviewing that challenge and checking records of what I could correct, I would have ended up coming just four signatures short,” she said. “So, in the end I decided to withdraw. It’s very disappointing.”

She said she also decided not to run for the ANC seat as a write-in candidate. “I think as a write-in I wouldn’t be anywhere as viable with my opponent Billy Easley running for re-election and with the name recognition he has,” Rangel said. “So, I think it’s best for me to step back and let him continue his service.”

Gay D.C. political activist Joe Bishop-Henchman filed the challenge against Rangel and seven other ANC candidates.

Bishop-Henchman disputed claims by some neighborhood activists who said he and others who challenged the signature petitions of ANC candidates were targeting those candidates because they disagreed with the candidates’ positions on issues impacting their respective neighborhoods. He insisted he only files challenges against “the candidate that says they have the 25 valid signatures but doesn’t.”

Vincent Slatt, who serves as chair of the ANC Rainbow Caucus, which includes LGBTQ ANC members from across the city, said he recognized the names of about three or four other LGBTQ ANC candidates whose petitions were also being challenged.

Slatt said he believes most of the challenges were “petty” and motivated by neighborhood political rivalries. He and Musa pointed out that the person who challenged Musa’s petition, Martha ‘Marcy’ Logan, serves on the board of directors of the Dupont Circle Citizens Association. Some Dupont Circle neighborhood activists, including LGBTQ activists, consider the organization, referred to as the DCCA, to be biased against nightlife businesses, including some of the gay bars in the Dupont Circle area.

Musa said he believes Logan targeted him for a petition challenge because she believes he sides with the nightlife businesses. He describes himself as a “pro-growth” advocate from a neighborhood business perspective as opposed to the DCCA, which Musa considers “anti-growth” regarding community businesses that he feels are an asset to the neighborhood.

The DCCA didn’t immediately respond to a request from the Blade for comment and for contact information for Logan.

Musa said he too decided not to run for the ANC seat as a write-in candidate. With his withdrawal from the race, there will be no candidate on the November election ballot for the 2ANC 2B01 seat.

At the time she announced her candidacy in July, Rangel said among her priorities as an ANC commissioner would be improving language access for the large number of Spanish-speaking residents in the Columbia Heights neighborhood.

“We need a commissioner who is going to push for Spanish language resources so that our government officials can hear the voices of all Columbia Heights residents, not just the ones who speak English,” she told the Blade.

An unidentified male suspect on Aug. 4 threw a baseball-sized rock into a large glass window located next to the main entrance door of the Human Rights Campaign’s headquarters building at 1640 Rhode Island Ave., N.W., according to a D.C. police report.

The report, which lists the incident as a misdemeanor crime of Destruction of Property, provides a description of the suspect but does not say whether anyone witnessed him breaking the window. It says police received a call for the destruction of property at the eight-story tall HRC building at approximately 2:15 a.m.

“At 0212 hours [2:12 a.m.], Suspect 1 approached the outside perimeter of 1640 Rhode Island Avenue, NW at the Human Rights Campaign building and threw a baseball sized rock at a window next to the door to the building,” the police report says. “The window received significant damage causing multiple cracks from the base of the window to the top of the window,” it says.

“Suspect 1 then walked away from the location heading eastbound on Rhode Island Avenue NW wearing a white t-shirt, tan baseball cap, black pants, black and white shoes while carrying a dark colored bookbag,” the report concludes.

D.C. police reports for this type of crime almost always state whether one or more witnesses were present at the time the crime was committed. The fact that no witnesses are mentioned in the report while a detailed description of the suspect is given suggests that police had access to a video recording of the incident taken by a security camera on or near the HRC building.

The report also states that the incident has not been classified as a suspected hate crime.

In response to a Blade inquiry, D.C. police spokesperson Paris Lewbel said he was reaching out to police officials who know something about the incident, but he did not provide additional information as of Wednesday morning, Sept. 4.

In response to a request by the Blade for comment from HRC, including whether HRC provided police with video footage of the incident, HRC spokesperson Jarred Keller said he was reaching out to HRC officials for information about the incident. But he also did not provide a response as of Wednesday morning.

The Blade learned about the HRC window-breaking incident a little over a week ago, more than two weeks after it happened on Aug. 4, through a tip from an HRC volunteer.

On its website HRC says its headquarters building, which first opened in 2003, “provides ample workspace for HRC’s staff of more than 150,” also houses HRC’s Equality Center, a meeting and event space available for rent, as well as the HRC Media Center, a multimedia production facility.

“This building is an important symbol for all who visit the nation’s capital – a constant reminder to our LGBTQ+ community, as well as anti-LGBTQ+ activists, that HRC will not stop until the LGBTQ+ community is ensured equality,” a statement on the website says.