District of Columbia
Apparent overdose deaths of two beloved D.C. gay men trigger ‘powerful response’
LGBTQ bars to offer training, distribution of Narcan, fentanyl testing kits
Sources familiar with D.C.’s LGBTQ nightlife scene say widespread reports on social media of the sudden and unexpected deaths of two widely known and beloved gay men from an apparent accidental drug overdose on Dec. 27 at one of the men’s homes has triggered an outcry for the city and the community to become more aggressive in addressing the opioid overdose problem and how it is impacting the LGBTQ community.
D.C. police and Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department reports show that prominent D.C. attorney and LGBTQ rights supporter Brandon Roman, 38, and historic preservation expert and home renovation business owner Robert ‘Robbie’ Barletta, 28, were found unconscious when police and emergency medical personnel arrived at Barletta’s house on the afternoon of Dec. 27.
The reports show that Roman was declared deceased at the scene shortly after D.C. police and an ambulance arrived at the house in response to a 911 call. According to one of the reports, Barletta was taken to Washington Hospital Center where he died on Dec. 29.
Both men were regular patrons at popular D.C. gay bars, including the gay nightclub and dance bar Bunker and the recently opened gay bar and lounge Shakers.
“Come to Honor their Lives in Your Best Sparkles and Shimmers – Saturday, February 3rd 5-8pm at Shakers,” according to an announcement by Shakers posted on Instagram of a celebration of life for Roman and Barletta.
Johnny Bailey, community outreach coordinator for the LGBTQ supportive community services organization HIPS, said the widespread news of Roman and Barletta’s passing has prompted more interest and support for the overdose training sessions that HIPS and other groups have been organizing at D.C. nightlife venues, including bars and nightclubs.
Bailey noted that one of the training sessions is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 27 at the D.C. gay bar Trade. He said the next one was scheduled for Monday, Jan. 29 at the Adams Morgan gay bar Pitchers. Among other things, facilitators at the trainings will be distributing the life-saving overdose antidote Narcan and testing kits for fentanyl, which experts say is the leading cause of drug overdose deaths when it appears in other drugs such as cocaine without the knowledge of users of those other drugs.
According to Bailey, the gay bar JR.’s on 17th Street near Dupont Circle has hosted a table set up by HIPS to distribute Narcan, fentanyl test strips, and condoms on nights when the bar holds its popular drag shows.
Bailey said he did not know Roman and Barletta personally but people he works with at HIPS knew them and, according to his sources in the community, people who knew the two men believe their apparent overdose was caused by taking some other drug contaminated with fentanyl.
“It’s horrible when it takes a tragedy for things to come together,” Bailey told the Washington Blade. “But this tragedy has truly triggered a powerful response. It was a real wakeup call to a lot of people,” he said. “So, this happening to them really triggered something.”
Among other things, Bailey said, it has heightened interest in the training sessions at bars and other nightlife venues and prompted HIPS and other organizations to increase the number of the trainings.
David Perruzza, owner of Pitchers, said he was happy to host the training session at his bar on Jan. 29. He said he was among the business owners and community members to urge D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs to become involved in boosting overdose prevention efforts “because I was sick of people dying.”
Bailey and Jennifer Loken, interim director of Therapy and Substance Use Treatment at D.C.’s Whitman-Walker Health, each said it was difficult to determine exactly how many LGBTQ people in the city have survived or died from a drug overdose because the city doesn’t specifically count or keep track of overdose cases based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
The D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which investigates and gathers data on D.C. drug overdose cases, breaks down its demographic data by race-ethnicity, gender, age, and jurisdiction of residence by city ward. In its most recent report, the medical examiner’s office says it has investigated 2,134 deaths due to the use of opioids from Jan. 1, 2017, through Feb. 28, 2023. In those years, the number of overdose deaths increased each year except for 2018, when there was a small decrease, followed by an increase in 2019 with a sharp increase in 2022 and 2023.
In 2022, the most recent year in which the full year data was tabulated, the report says there were 458 overdose deaths, with an average of 38 deaths per month.
“Overall, 1,807 or 84 percent of all deaths due to opioid use were among Blacks” from January 2017 through May 2023, the report says. “Approximately 72 percent of all fatal opioid overdoses occur among adults between the ages of 40-69 years old,” with 30 percent of those deaths due to opioid use among people ages 50 to 59, the report states. And the report shows that fatal opioid overdoses are far more common among males than females. In 2023, 76 percent of the overdose deaths were among men and 24 percent among women, the report shows.
Asked if Whitman-Walker has a sense or estimate of whether LGBTQ overdose cases are increasing like they are in the overall D.C. population, Loken said, “I would say yes from what I hear anecdotally. Any overdose death is a significant loss.” She added, “So, I think in general, yes, the risk is increasing. Exactly to what degree I don’t know.”
Rodney Adams, general counsel and spokesperson for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, said it would be difficult for the office to attempt to keep track of overdose deaths based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity for transgender people. Among other things, the sexual orientation or gender identity of a deceased person taken to the medical examiner’s facility for an autopsy and toxicology tests to determine the cause and manner of death would be difficult to determine, Adams said.
“I don’t think we can go out and question the next of kin of what they think their loved one identified as,” Adams told the Blade. “We have a difficult enough conversation with families when we tell them that their loved one is deceased.”
Loken of Whitman-Walker said Whitman-Walker has several programs and services for those who use drugs, including providing medication to help people who may want to stop using an opioid drug as well as harm reduction programs to help someone who wishes to continue using a drug to do so in the safest possible way.
“Sometimes there’s a lot of stigma around substance use in general,” Loken said. “And we definitely don’t want anyone to feel shameful or that they can’t ask for what they need.” All of Whitman-Walker’s substance use treatment or support programs are nonjudgmental toward those who are substance users, Loken told the Blade.
Bailey said one potential problem HIPS has encountered in organizing overdose training sessions at bars and other nightlife businesses is some of the businesses declined to host a training session because they were concerned the city’s Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration (ABCA), which regulates the sale of alcoholic beverages in the city, might penalize them for appearing to encourage drug use. Bailey said owners at some bars said they were afraid ABCA might take steps to revoke their liquor license if they hosted an overdose training session in which Narcan and drug testing kits were distributed
Jarred Powell, ABCA’s chief of staff, in response to an inquiry from the Blade, said ABCA would not penalize businesses for hosting such a training.
“ABCA is strongly supportive of alcohol licensed businesses encouraging their staff to become trained in opioid overdose prevention and naloxone administration and for businesses to have naloxone on hand to administer if any opioid overdose occurs,” Powell said in a statement to the Blade. Naloxone is the generic name for the overdose treatment medication Narcan.
“Additionally, ABCA supports businesses posting and distributing overdose prevention and treatment resources such as posters and brochures,” Powell said. “All are critically important components to D.C.’s harm reduction approach to substance abuse.”
Powell said ABCA is also collaborating with the D.C. Department of Behavioral Health, which oversees the city’s overdose prevention programs, and the Mayor’s Office of Nightlife and Culture and Office of LGBTQ Affairs to increase the city’s overdose prevention initiatives and to co-host Narcan administration trainings.
Japer Bowles, director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, issued an announcement on Dec. 31 praising HIPS, the city’s Department of Behavioral Health, and the LGBTQ supportive Capital Ballroom Council for making sure “every LGBTQIA nightlife establishment in D.C.” had Narcan in time for their New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Bailey, meanwhile, said he and other HIPS staff members will continue the work they started in the recent past to organize overdose prevention trainings.
“We go anywhere in the community,” he said. “I’ve done libraries, bars. I did a church one day and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence the next day,” he said, referring to the group that performs in drag dressed as nuns. “Any and all sorts of places we do these Narcan trainings.”
District of Columbia
D.C. police investigating threat of shooting at WorldPride festival
Police chief says weekend was ‘success without incident’
D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith said at a June 9 press conference that police investigators are looking for a man who reportedly threatened to “shoot up” the WordPride festival on Sunday, June 8, inside the fence-enclosed festival grounds.
Smith, who joined D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser at the press conference to discuss public safety issues, said aside from the shooting threat, WorldPride events took place “without an incident’ and called WorldPride 2025 D.C. a success.
“I think last evening at the festival footprint there was an individual inside the festival who said there was an individual who was there and that they were going to shoot up the place in some terminology they used,” Smith told news media reporters.
“As you know, the event went off without incident,” she said. “We did have appropriate resources down there to address it. We did put out a photo of the individual – white male. That’s all we have right now. But our team is working very diligently to find out who that individual is.”
Smith added that D.C. police made 15 arrests during the WorldPride weekend with at least 23 violent crimes that occurred across the city but which she said were not related to WorldPride.
“There was a lot going on,” she said. “But I’m so grateful we were able to have a WorldPride 2025 in this city that was very successful.”
In response to reporters’ questions, Bowser said she regretted that an incident of violence took place in Dupont Circle Park shortly after she persuaded the U.S. Park Service to reverse its earlier decision to close Dupont Circle Park during WorldPride weekend.
The mayor was referring to an incident early Saturday evening, June 7, in which two juveniles were stabbed inside the park following a fight, according to D.C. police. Police said the injuries were nonfatal.
Bowser noted that she agreed with community activists and nearby residents that Dupont Circle Park, which has been associated with LGBTQ events for many years, should not be closed during WorldPride.
Park Service officials have said their reason for closing the park was that acts of vandalism and violence had occurred there during past LGBTQ Pride weekends, even though LGBTQ Pride organizers have said the vandalism and violent acts were not associated with Pride events.
“I think if I were standing here this morning and we hadn’t opened up the park you would be asking me were there any requests for not pushing hard to have a D.C. park opened that’s important to the LGBT community during Pride,” Bowser told reporters.
“So, any time that there is harm to someone, and our responsibility, we regard it as our number one responsibility to keep the city safe and keep from harm’s way, certainly I have some regrets,” she said. “But I know I was working very hard to balance what our community was calling for with our preparations. And that was the decision I made,” she said, referring to her call to reopen Dupont Circle Park.
Bowser also noted that the National Park Service would not likely have agreed to reverse its decision to reopen Dupont Circle Park if an event had not been planned to take place there over the WorldPride weekend.
She was referring to a Saturday, June 7, D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation “DISCO” party in Dupont Circle Park, which took place after the decision to reopen the park.
“Step Outside, Feel The Beat, And Shine With Pride,” a flyer announcing the event states.
District of Columbia
WorldPride wraps up after epic weekend of events
Historic LGBTQ celebration brings color, music, activism to nation’s capital
After more than two years of preparation, thousands of volunteers, countless LGBTQ community members and allies, queer celebrities, and hundreds of events across the District, WorldPride in Washington has come to a close.
“It has been an extremely powerful three weeks,” Ryan Bos, executive director of the Capital Pride Alliance, told the Blade on Sunday at the International March on Washington for Freedom. “This weekend has been well above expectations in relation to the energy and the crowds.”
WorldPride celebrations were set to kick off on May 31 with Shakira’s “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour,” but following reports of stage issues, the Colombian superstar canceled her D.C. show — and her Boston stop the day prior.
The festivities got into full swing on June 4 with the 2025 Human Rights Conference. Held at the J.W. Marriott, the three-day gathering brought together more than 800 attendees, including Jessica Stern, Spanish Sen. Carla Antonelli, Peruvian Congresswoman Susel Paredes, and Mariann Edgar Budde of the Washington National Cathedral.
Following the conference, Capital Pride hosted the annual Capital Pride Honors and Gala, recognizing outstanding figures in LGBTQ advocacy. Honorees included Cathy Renna, Jerry St. Louis, Ernest Hopkins, Lamar Braithwaite, Rev. Dr. Donna Claycomb Sokol, Kriston Pumphrey, Gia Martinez, Kraig Williams, and SMYAL.
As the week went on, the tone shifted from formal to festive. Venues across the city filled with partygoers draped in glitter and rainbows, dancing and celebrating love in all forms. From the 17th Street Block Party and Full Bloom celebration to Kinetic’s dance events and the Pride on the Pier boat parade and fireworks (presented by the Washington Blade), nearly every corner of D.C. turned into a dancefloor. The Wharf was transformed into a Pride dance party on both Friday and Saturday nights for the Blade’s annual Pride on the Pier and culminated in the city’s only Pride fireworks display.
The annual Pride Parade was a standout. The nearly six-hour-long march drew hundreds of thousands to 14th Street, stretching toward the Capitol. A 1,000-foot rainbow flag led the way as parade grand marshals Renée Rapp and Laverne Cox waved to cheering crowds. Confetti, beads, condoms, and joy poured from elaborate floats.
The parade fed into the WorldPride Street Festival and Concert, which for the first time spanned two days. The festival featured hundreds of booths — from queer merch and leather vendors to nonprofit fundraisers — and drew thousands of LGBTQ attendees under sunny skies.
Evenings wrapped with free concerts headlined by LGBTQ talent and allies, including Cynthia Erivo and Doechii. Other crowd favorites included Khalid , David Archuleta, and Kristine W.
At the RFK Stadium grounds, the WorldPride Music Festival drew thousands for powerhouse performances by Troye Sivan, RuPaul, Kim Petras, and Renée Rapp. Under glowing rainbow lights, fans danced and sang through the night.
Despite security concerns, no major issues were reported, though a few minor incidents occurred.
One of the biggest pre-event concerns was safety for LGBTQ attendees amid rising anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and anti-trans policies from the Trump administration. Multiple countries issued travel warnings for trans and gender-nonconforming individuals visiting the U.S., but turnout — including trans folks and their allies — remained strong and visible throughout.
Another flashpoint was the temporary closure of Dupont Circle, a cornerstone of D.C.’s — and the nation’s — LGBTQ rights movement. The U.S. Park Service initially closed the park, citing the need to “secure the park, deter potential violence, reduce the risk of destructive acts and decrease the need for extensive law enforcement presence” — despite the MPD chief’s request to keep it open. Strong public backlash led to a reversal, and soon the park was full of rainbow-clad LGBTQ people celebrating freely.
On Saturday night following the parade, two juveniles were stabbed in Dupont Circle. However, MPD later confirmed the incident was unrelated to WorldPride celebrations.
The weekend ended with the International Rally and March on Washington for Freedom. Hundreds of LGBTQ people and allies gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to hear prominent activists speak on why Pride is still essential in 2025. Speakers called out rising hate and violence — and named Trump directly. As rain began to fall, the crowd only grew, marching from the Memorial to the Capitol, signs raised high, ending WorldPride as the first Pride began — as a protest.
District of Columbia
Two juveniles stabbed in Dupont Circle Park hours after U.S. Park Service reopens it
Early police reports don’t indicate connection to nearby WorldPride events
D.C. police are investigating a stabbing incident inside Dupont Circle Park early Saturday evening, June 7, in which two juvenile males were injured about 12 hours after U.S. Park Service workers removed a fence they installed closing the park.
Park Service officials said they initially decided to close Dupont Circle Park during the concluding weekend of WorldPride 2025 D.C. out of concern over possible destruction of property and violence. They cited incidents of vandalism and violent acts that occurred in the park during previous Capital Pride weekends over the past several years.
Capital Pride Alliance officials have said the destruction of property and reported acts of violence were not associated with any Pride events.
Capital Pride Alliance organizes most of D.C.’s annual LGBTQ Pride events and is the lead organizer of WorldPride 2025.
Around 5 a.m. on Saturday, June 7, Park Service workers began removing the fencing they had put up one day earlier to close Dupont Circle Park and reopened the park.
A short time later on Saturday the National Park Service and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser released a joint statement saying it was decided that the park should be reopened and the fence taken down following strong objections to the closing by nearby community leaders, including at least two gay Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners.
“We are pleased that the mayor’s office and the National Park Service could work together overnight on a solution that protects the historic features of this park while also ensuring the safety of all who enjoy it,” the statement says. “We want this weekend to be a safe and fun celebration in our nation’s capital – and one that includes one of the best parks and community spaces in our city, Dupont Circle,” it says.
In response to a request from the Washington Blade for information about the stabbing incident, a D.C. police spokesperson said a more detailed incident report had not yet been completed but released this statement:
“At 7:02 p.m. a stabbing occurred in Dupont Circle Park during a fight between groups of juveniles. Two juvenile males were transported to area hospitals conscious and breathing.”
The spokesperson, Public Affairs Specialist Freddie Talbert, included in his statement information about an unrelated shooting that occurred a short time later just outside Dupont Circle Park.
“At 7:52 p.m., after MPD officers cleared Dupont Circle Park, a shooting occurred in the 1300 block of 19th Street, N.W. immediately south of the circle. One adult male was transported conscious and breathing with a gunshot wound to the foot.”
No further information was provided, and Talbert didn’t immediately respond to a follow-up question from the Blade asking if police investigators knew whether the victims and perpetrators in the two incidents were in any way involved with WorldPride events.
At the time of the stabbing and shooting the WorldPride parade was nearing its end, with the last parade contingents traveling several blocks away from Dupont Circle on 14th Street from T Street to Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. The first day of the two-day WorldPride Festival was also still taking place on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. from 9th Street to 3rd Street, N.W.
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