District of Columbia
DC man charged with killing partner in gay domestic violence case
Charging document says victim, 58, stabbed to death
D.C. police announced they have arrested 54-year-old Ted Anthony Brown on a charge of second-degree murder while armed for allegedly fatally stabbing his domestic partner, Tommy Hudson, 58, inside Brown’s apartment at 517 Harvard St., N.W., on May 26.
A four-page arrest affidavit filed by police and prosecutors in D.C. Superior Court says police arrested Brown two days later on May 28 after an investigation by Metropolitan Police Department homicide detectives identified Brown as a suspect in the case through information provided by witnesses.
The affidavit says Brown, following his arrest, waved his Miranda rights to remain silent and confessed to having stabbed Hudson after the two got into an argument and after Brown claimed his partner punched him in the face.
“Brown reported that he and the decedent have been involved in a romantic relationship for a significant period and that he was very jealous of the decedent’s possible infidelities,” the affidavit states. “Suspect 1 [Brown] reported to detectives that he believed the decedent punching him to the face did not justify Suspect 1 stabbing the decedent, which ultimately killed him,” the affidavit continues.
“Suspect 1 reported that he had stabbed the decedent in the past and threatened to kill him if he learned of subsequent cheating within their relationship,” the affidavit says. “Suspect 1 reported that he was the aggressive and argumentative party in their relationship and that the decedent would never like to argue,” it says.
Court records show that a D.C. Superior Court Judge Renee Raymond ordered Brown held without bond pending a detention hearing scheduled for June 17.
A D.C. police statement says that at about 8:57 a.m. on May 26, police responded to a call for a stabbing on the 500 block of Harvard Street, N.W. The arrest affidavit says that upon their arrival, officers found a man later identified as Hudson unconscious while sitting on the steps leading up to the front door of one of two apartments located in a two-story attached row house at 517 Harvard St., N.W.
The affidavit says an autopsy conducted by a physician with the Office of the D.C. Chief Medical Examiner determined the cause of death was a stab wound to the right shoulder that severed an artery. The manner of death was ruled a homicide.
It says a crime scene investigation found a trail of blood leading from the apartment where defendant Brown had been living to the outside steps where Hudson was found and subsequently taken to Washington Hospital Center, where he was pronounced deceased.
The affidavit states that two witnesses told detectives that they knew Brown as a resident of the neighborhood and encountered Brown on the day of the murder. Both witnesses told detectives that Brown told them he stabbed Hudson during an argument.
“Witness 1 reported that IT asked Ted what had transpired inside his residence on Sunday, May 26, 2024, and Ted stated words to the effect of, ‘My boyfriend assaulted me, look at my head, and I stabbed him in the heart!’” the affidavit states.
The affidavit also states that Brown has a history of prior domestic violence complaints lodged against him and that he had been arrested at least once for a prior domestic violence incident targeting Hudson.
Neither the arrest affidavit nor the D.C. police report states whether Hudson had been living in Brown’s apartment. But the D.C. police report lists Hudson’s address as 1355 New York Ave., N.E. An online search by the Washington Blade of that address shows it is listed as a men’s shelter operated by Catholic Charities.
Todd S. Baldwin, Brown’s court appointed attorney, when contacted by the Blade, said, “Mr. Brown is pursuing all legal options and defenses, and he’s presumed innocent. And I would ask that the public and all news media allow the justice system to work its way to justice.”
Asked if his client might pursue an argument of self-defense after telling police he stabbed his partner Hudson after Hudson allegedly punched him in the face, Baldwin replied, “I think that’s certainly a possibility. But we’re waiting for a full investigation to take place.”
Local LGBTQ rights advocate Vincent Slatt, who serves as chair of the D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissions’ Rainbow Caucus, which monitors crime targeting the LGBTQ community, said the murder of Tommy Hudson was yet another example of how intimate partner violence is an “alarming problem” in D.C.
“The vast preponderance of it is straight men beating and killing women,” Slatt told the Blade. “But this case demonstrates, yet again, that LGBTQ people also use violence against their partners, too,” he said. “More information on this case will come forward in the days and weeks ahead, but one thing is already clear from the charging documents,” Slatt said.
“This death was not the first domestic violence incident for this couple,” he noted. “It was the escalation of a pattern that went back several years. Obviously, they did not receive the intervention they needed to end the cycle of violence.”
Slatt also noted that the Hudson murder underscores the need for more social services to address the issue of domestic violence. He said D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs includes a Violence Prevention and Response Team that provides services for LGBTQ people who experience domestic violence, but he said that program is underfunded. Slatt called on the mayor’s office and the D.C. Council to add additional funds for that program and other domestic violence response programs in the city’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget.
District of Columbia
D.C. journalist, video producer Sean Bartel dies at 37
Beloved member of Gay Flag Football League found deceased on hiking trail in Argentina
Sean Christopher Bartel, 37, who began his career as a television news reporter and news anchor at stations in Louisville, Ky., and Evansville, Ind., before serving as Senior Video Producer for the D.C.-based International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union from 2013 to 2024, was found deceased on a hiking trail near a glacier in Argentina on or around March 15, according to a report by an Argentine newspaper.
The newspaper Clarín reports no foul play was suspected regarding his death, and other local media reports indicate authorities believe he suffered some sort of accident while on the hiking trail.
The Clarín report says Bartel arrived in Argentina on March 3 and visited Buenos Aires and the city of El Chaltén, which is near Argentina’s Los Glaciares National Park and a glacial lagoon popular with hikers. It says his body was found on the trail leading to the glacier.
“The D.C. Gay Flag Football League is heartbroken to learn of the passing of Sean Bartel, one of the most devoted members this league has ever known,” the organization said in a statement. “The story of DCGFFL could not be told without Sean.”
“He was not only a dedicated teammate and a model league member – he was our storyteller and our champion, honoring the competitive greatness, the radiant humor, and the beautiful bonds that make our community so special,” the statement says.
It adds that for years, Bartel served as “our man behind the camera, he drew our community tighter by portraying us with the skill of a professional and the care of a family member.”
Bartel’s LinkedIn page shows he most recently worked for 12 years as Senior Video Producer for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which is described as North America’s largest labor union.
Matt Spense, a spokesperson for the union, told the Washington Blade that Bartel resigned from his job there in 2024 to pursue other career endeavors, but he didn’t know what he did career wise after that time.
Bartel’s LinkedIn page shows he served as a video producer and account supervisor at the Edelman global communications firm based in D.C. from 2010-2013. Prior to that, he worked as a reporter for Sirius XM Radio, Inc. from 2007 to 2012. It shows that from a little over a year — from 2009 to 2010 — he worked as video producer and account executive for the firm North Ridge Communications, but it doesn’t give the company’s location.
He began his career in journalism, his LinkedIn page shows, as a reporter and news and sports anchor at the WHAS TV station in Louisville, Ky., from January 2005 through January 2008.
It says he received a bachelor’s degree in Sports Marketeing and Management in 1999 from Indiana University in Bloomington and a master’s degree from the School of Media and Public Affairs from D.C.’s George Washington University in 2010.
The Blade couldn’t immediately obtain information about surviving family members or funeral arrangements.
District of Columbia
Bowser appoints first nonbinary person to Cabinet-level position
Peter Stephan named Office of Disability Rights interim director
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower has named longtime disability rights advocate Peter L. Stephan, who identifies as nonbinary, as interim director of the D.C. Office of Disability Rights.
The local transgender and nonbinary advocacy group Our Trans Capital and the LGBTQ group Capital Stonewall Democrats issued a joint statement calling Stephan’s appointment an historic development as the first-ever appointment of a nonbinary person to a Cabinet-level D.C. government position.
“This milestone appointment recognizes Stephan’s extensive expertise in disability rights advocacy and marks a historic advancement for transgender and nonbinary representation in District government leadership,” the statement says.
The statement notes that Stephan, an attorney, held the position of general counsel at the Office of Disability Rights immediately prior to the mayor’s decision to name him interim director.
The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade asking if Bowser plans to name Stephan as the permanent director of the Office of Disability Rights. John Fanning, a spokesperson for D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), said the office’s director position requires confirmation by the Council.
Stephan couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“At a time when trans and nonbinary people ae under attack across the country, D.C. continues to lead by example,” said Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats. “This appointment reflects what we have always believed that our community is always strongest when every voice is represented in government,” he said.
“This is a historic step forward,” said Vida Rengel, founder of Our Trans Capital. “Interim Director Stephan’s career and accomplishments are a shining example of the positive impact that trans and nonbinary public servants can have on our communities,” according to Rangel.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.
A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8th St., N.W. in D.C.
“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.
Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.
He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.
Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.
Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.
“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”
The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.
Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.
Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th
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