District of Columbia
Nearly 100 attend vigil for slain trans woman A’Nee Roberson
D.C. police release video, photos of ‘person of interest’ linked to murder
Close to 100 people turned out late Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 25, for a candlelight vigil on the 900 block of U Street, N.W. in honor of local transgender woman A’Nee Roberson, 30.
D.C. police said Roberson was fatally struck by a car on U Street in that location on Oct. 14 while fleeing from a yet unidentified man who assaulted her and who police say committed second-degree murder by causing her to be hit by a car.
The vigil was organized by Iya Dammons, executive director of the transgender and LGBTQ services organization DC Safe Haven, and Earline Budd, founder of the local group Empowering the Transgender Community (ETC), with support from many local activists, the two women said.
It took place on the sidewalk in front of Nellie’s Sports Bar at 900 U St., N.W., steps away from where police say witnesses saw Roberson being assaulted and chased into the street about 4:20 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 14, where she was hit by an oncoming car.
Police have not said whether they know why Roberson was at that location more than an hour after Nellie’s and other bars and nightclubs in that location had closed for the night. The driver of the car stopped at the scene and cooperated with police investigators, police have said.
More than 20 people spoke at the vigil, including Roberson’s father and brother, who were accompanied by other family members, all of whom said they loved A’Nee for who she was.
The vigil also took place one day after D.C. police released a video and photos taken from the video of a male “person of interest” who police are seeking help from the public in identifying. Police said the video was obtained from a nearby security camera.
Among those attending the vigil were members of the police LGBT Liaison Unit, who handed out flyers announcing police are offering a reward of up to $25,000 to anyone who provides information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Roberson’s murder.
“Today we stand in solidarity as one community,” Dammons told the gathering. She called on the crowd to yell out the name “A’Nee” loudly and repeatedly in honor of Roberson’s life and memory.
“In the face of adversity, we rise, we shine, conquer,” Dammons said. “We are Black, we are trans, we are queer. We are willing and we are more than what the world sees us, more than the world knows us.”
D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), the Council’s only gay member, told the crowd he and his fellow Council members express their love and support for Roberson’s family and many friends who are mourning her loss.
“Her death is not in vain,” Parker said. “We are going to keep her spirit alive and bring her murderer to justice,” said Parker, who also asked the crowd to yell out the name A’Nee several times.
Gay D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Vincent Slatt, who is a member of the ANC LGBTQ Rainbow Caucus, told the gathering the Rainbow Caucus was advocating for the city to address in a more aggressive way violence targeting the trans community and the LGBTQ community. Also expressing support at the vigil for improved efforts to address violence targeting the trans community was June Crenshaw, executive director of the Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing services for homeless LGBTQ youth.
Also speaking at the vigil were at least four former employees or clients of the now closed Casa Ruby DC LGBTQ community services center, who said A’Nee Roberson was affiliated with Casa Ruby and acted as a loving and supportive mentor to them.
Gary Roberson, A’Nee Roberson’s father, thanked participants for turning out at a vigil he said demonstrated the strong support and love his daughter had from the community.
“Me, as her dad, had no choice but to support her,” Gary Roberson said after telling how he, his wife, and other children embraced and supported A’Nee after she came out to them as trans at the age of 13.
“From this day forward, I am part of the LGBTQ community,” he said. “You have my support. Thank you so much for coming out today.”
Also speaking at the vigil was Japer Bowles, director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs.
“We are all sick and tired of coming to these things to see justice done,” he told the gathering. “We need to see justice done. We are doing what we can,” he said in referring to the city government’s efforts to end violence targeting the trans and LGBTQ community.
Nellie’s, which is an LGBTQ establishment, placed a large chalkboard sign on the sidewalk next to a table where the speakers at the vigil stood. A handwritten message on the chalkboard said, “The Hearts and Mind of The Nellie’s Family are with The Family of A’Nee Roberson.”
The police video and photos of the person of interest in the A’Nee murder is below:
District of Columbia
U.S. Attorney’s Office drops hate crime charge in anti-gay assault
Case remains under investigation and ‘further charges’ could come
D.C. police announced on Feb. 9 that they had arrested two days earlier on Feb. 7 a Germantown, Md., man on a charge of simple assault with a hate crime designation after the man allegedly assaulted a gay man at 14th and Q Streets, N.W., while using “homophobic slurs.”
But D.C. Superior Court records show that prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes D.C. violent crime cases, charged the arrested man only with simple assault without a hate crime designation.
In response to a request by the Washington Blade for the reason why the hate crime designation was dropped, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office provided this response: “We continue to investigate this matter and make no mistake: should the evidence call for further charges, we will not hesitate to charge them.”
In a statement announcing the arrest in this case, D.C. police stated, “On Saturday, February 7, 2026, at approximately 7:45 p.m. the victim and suspect were in the 1500 block of 14th Street, Northwest. The suspect requested a ‘high five’ from the victim. The victim declined and continued walking,” the statement says.
“The suspect assaulted the victim and used homophobic slurs,” the police statement continues. “The suspect was apprehended by responding officers.”
It adds that 26-year-old Dean Edmundson of Germantown, Md. “was arrested and charged with Simple Assault (Hate/Bias).” The statement also adds, “A designation as a hate crime by MPD does not mean that prosecutors will prosecute it as a hate crime.”
Under D.C.’s Bias Related Crime Act of 1989, penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice against individuals based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and homelessness can be enhanced by a court upon conviction by one and a half times greater than the penalty of the underlying crime.
Prosecutors in the past both in D.C. and other states have said they sometimes decide not to include a hate crime designation in assault cases if they don’t think the evidence is sufficient to obtain a conviction by a jury. In some instances, prosecutors have said they were concerned that a skeptical jury might decide to find a defendant not guilty of the underlying assault charge if they did not believe a motive of hate was involved.
A more detailed arrest affidavit filed by D.C. police in Superior Court appears to support the charge of a hate crime designation.
“The victim stated that they refused to High-Five Defendant Edmondson, which, upon that happening, Defendant Edmondson started walking behind both the victim and witness, calling the victim, “bald, ugly, and gay,” the arrest affidavit states.
“The victim stated that upon being called that, Defendant Edmundson pushed the victim with both hands, shoving them, causing the victim to feel the force of the push,” the affidavit continues. “The victim stated that they felt offended and that they were also gay,” it says.
District of Columbia
Capital Pride wins anti-stalking order against local activist
Darren Pasha claims action is linked to his criticism of Pride organizers
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Feb. 6 partially approved an anti-stalking order against a local LGBTQ activist requested last October by the Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based LGBTQ group that organizes the city’s annual Pride events.
The ruling by Judge Robert D. Okun requires Darren Pasha to stay at least 100 feet away from Capital Pride’s staff, board members, and volunteers until the time of a follow up court hearing he scheduled for April 17.
In his ruling at the Feb. 6 hearing, which was virtual rather than held in-person at the courthouse, Okun said he had changed the distance that Capital Pride had requested for the stay-away, anti-stalking order from 200 yards to 100 feet. The court records show that the judge also denied a motion filed earlier by Pasha, who did not attend the hearing, to “quash” the Capital Pride civil case against him.
Pasha told the Washington Blade he suffered an injury and damaged his mobile phone by falling off his scooter on the city’s snow-covered streets that prevented him from calling in to join the Feb. 6 court hearing.
In his own court filings without retaining an attorney, Pasha has strongly denied the stalking related allegations against him by Capital Pride, saying “no credible or admissible evidence has been provided” to show he engaged in any wrongdoing.
The Capital Pride complaint initially filed in court on Oct. 27, 2025, includes an 18-page legal brief outlining its allegations against Pasha and an additional 167-page addendum of “supporting exhibits” that includes multiple statements by witnesses whose names are blacked out.
“Over the past year, Defendant Darren Pasha (“DSP”) has engaged in a sustained, and escalating course of conduct directed at CPA, including repeated and unwanted contact, harassment, intimidation, threats, manipulation, and coercive behavior targeting CPA staff, board members, volunteers, and affiliates,” the Capital Pride complaint states.
In his initial 16-page response to the complaint, Pasha says the Capital Pride complaint appears to be a form of retaliation against him for a dispute he has had with the organization and its then president, Ashley Smith, last year.
“It is evident that the document is replete with false, misleading, and unsubstantiated assertions,” he said of the complaint.
Smith, who has since resigned from his role as board president, did not respond to a request by the Blade for comment at the time the Capital Pride court complaint was filed against Pasha.
Capital Pride Executive Director Ryan Bos and the attorney representing the group in its legal action against Pasha, Nick Harrison, did not immediately respond to a Blade request for comment on the judge’s Feb. 6 ruling.
District of Columbia
D.C. pays $500,000 to settle lawsuit brought by gay Corrections Dept. employee
Alleged years of verbal harassment, slurs, intimidation
The D.C. government on Feb. 5 agreed to pay $500,000 to a gay D.C. Department of Corrections officer as a settlement to a lawsuit the officer filed in 2021 alleging he was subjected to years of discrimination at his job because of his sexual orientation, according to a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C.
The statement says the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Sgt. Deon Jones by the ACLU of D.C. and the law firm WilmerHale, alleged that the Department of Corrections, including supervisors and co-workers, “subjected Sgt. Jones to discrimination, retaliation, and a hostile work environment because of his identity as a gay man, in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act.”
Daniel Gleick, a spokesperson for D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, said the mayor’s office would have no comment on the lawsuit settlement. A spokesperson for the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, which represents the city against lawsuits, said the office has a longstanding policy of not commenting on litigation like the Deon Jones lawsuit.
Bowser and her high-level D.C. government appointees, including Japer Bowles, director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, have spoken out against LGBTQ-related discrimination.
“Jones, now a 28-year veteran of the Department and nearing retirement, faced years of verbal abuse and harassment from coworkers and incarcerated people alike, including anti-gay slurs, threats, and degrading treatment,” the ACLU’s statement says.
“The prolonged mistreatment took a severe toll on Jones’s mental health, and he experienced depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and 15 anxiety attacks in 2021 alone,” it says.
“For years, I showed up to do my job with professionalism and pride, only to be targeted because of who I am,” Jones says in the ACLU statement. “This settlement affirms that my pain mattered – and that creating hostile workplaces has real consequences,” he said.
He added, “For anyone who is LGBTQ or living with a disability and facing workplace discrimination or retaliation, know this: you are not powerless. You have rights. And when you stand up, you can achieve justice.”
The settlement agreement, a link to which the ACLU provided in its statement announcing the settlement, states that plaintiff Jones agrees, among other things, that “neither the Parties’ agreement, nor the District’s offer to settle the case, shall in any way be construed as an admission by the District that it or any of its current or former employees, acted wrongfully with respect to Plaintiff or any other person, or that Plaintiff has any rights.”
Scott Michelman, the D.C. ACLU’s legal director said that type of disclaimer is typical for parties that agree to settle a lawsuit like this.
“But actions speak louder than words,” he told the Blade. “The fact that they are paying our client a half million dollars for the pervasive and really brutal harassment that he suffered on the basis of his identity for years is much more telling than their disclaimer itself,” he said.
The settlement agreement also says Jones would be required, as a condition for accepting the agreement, to resign permanently from his job at the Department of Corrections. ACLU spokesperson Andy Hoover said Jones has been on administrative leave since March 2022. Jones couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“This is really something that makes sense on both sides,” Michelman said of the resignation requirements. “The environment had become so toxic the way he had been treated on multiple levels made it difficult to see how he could return to work there.”
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