District of Columbia
Know your rights: ACLU shares protections as Trump controls D.C. police
MPD under federal control
Since Aug. 11, when President Donald Trump invoked Section 740 of the Home Rule Act, there has been an increased federal presence of all kinds in D.C. From FBI agents loitering outside well-known LGBTQ hotspots to National Guard members disseminated across the National Mall, law enforcement presence is at an all-time high in Washington.
This marks the first time Section 740 of the Home Rule Act has been used since Home Rule’s establishment in 1973, which granted D.C. the right to govern itself (following congressional approval.) This section outlines how the president can direct the mayor to provide Metropolitan Police Department forces for federal purposes under “special circumstances of an emergency nature.”
Trump has argued this takeover of Washington is justified in his executive order declaring a crime emergency in the District of Columbia, saying multiple times that crime in the capital has left “bloodthirsty criminals” on the streets. Trump went on in the order to make blanket statements about the murder rate in D.C. while citing outdated homicide rates from 2023.
According to the Trump administration, those 2023 numbers validate the federal government’s overreach into D.C. politics, despite Department of Justice statistics showing the nation’s capital is at a “violent crime thirty-year low,” and MPD data showing a 26 percent decrease in violent crime from last year.
Trump had, up until yesterday, used the Drug Enforcement Administration head as an “acting police chief” to get MPD to clear homeless encampments and create police checkpoints for drivers in D.C. After D.C. Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the administration for its attempt to circumvent the actual police chief, the Justice Department removed the DEA head as provisional leader of MPD and instead made them act as an intermediary between the administration and police.
Despite this forced change of reinstating Smith, Trump will continue to have control over MPD for 30 days after he enacted Section 740. This means law enforcement of all types will still carry out Trump’s commands, including ramping up deportations, arrests, and stops within the District.
The Washington Blade spoke with Monica Hopkins, the executive director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, to discuss how LGBTQ people — both documented and undocumented — can stay safe as the administration continues to control law enforcement.
“I think it’s really important to understand your basic rights,” Hopkins told the Blade on Friday. “No matter what your identity, you have certain rights.”
These rights, Hopkins explains, can protect you — but only if you know what they are and how to use them.
“You have the right to remain silent, but you must verbally invoke this right. So you have to say, ‘I’m invoking my right to be silent,’ or ‘I want to be silent.’
If stopped by police,” she says, “you should ask, ‘Am I free to leave?’ If the answer is yes, then you should walk away calmly. If the answer is no, ask, ‘Am I under arrest?’”
“You can refuse a search of yourself or your belongings,” the 17-year veteran of the ACLU explained. “You may be patted down for weapons, but beyond that, you can refuse a search of yourself or your belongings. This includes, if an officer says, ‘Will you empty your pockets?’ You can refuse.”
Even as MPD is effectively being directed by federal requests, Hopkins explained there is a difference in rights when it comes to legal consultation if stopped by police versus U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“If you are stopped by the D.C. police, you have the right to an attorney,” Hopkins said. “If you are stopped by ICE, you have the right to consult with an attorney, and you can also request a list of free and low-cost legal help.”
In addition to knowing the rights everyone has, understanding the correct way law enforcement can enter a premises is also crucial for ensuring safety in both residential and commercial spaces.
“Immigration officers must have permission from the owner or the manager to conduct a raid on a workplace. If officers come in, the business owner can say, ‘I don’t give you permission to be here. You need to leave. I’m asking you to leave the property. This is my business. Please leave.’ If the officers do not have permission from the owner or the manager, they must have a warrant that is signed by a federal judge or a magistrate [to enter].”
Just having a piece of paper that an officer claims is a warrant is not enough, Hopkins explained. Request the warrant and look over it to ensure it is (1) for the correct space and (2) signed by the right person.
“Look at those warrants very, very carefully and who has signed them,” she said. “It has to be a federal judge or a magistrate. It can’t be another ICE agent. It can’t be the Metropolitan Police Department. That warrant has to be signed by a federal judge or a magistrate.”
In addition to knowing rights in D.C., having a plan in case law enforcement does come is the next step to ensuring safety.
“I think in these times, currently having these conversations now and saying, ‘What if this happens? What is my plan?’ And planning it, not when you’re in a situation trying to come up with a plan, but before,” she said. “It gives you the space to say, ‘Okay, what are my rights?’”
Hopkins pointed out that there are abundant resources available on the ACLU-DC’s website that can help all kinds of people understand their rights and establish a plan. There are spotlight guides that outline what to do in specific situations, like “Preparing for ICE Raids,” “Legal Support and Resources on Arrest, Detention, and Deportation,” and even LGBTQ specific resources like “Your D.C. Protections from Harassment.” It’s all free and accessible on the ACLU-DC’s website.
When asked how D.C. residents can properly protest actions by ICE and other law enforcement, she offered some pointers.
“You are allowed to film the police from a safe distance. You are allowed to protest. You are allowed to go out in public. You are allowed to yell at the police — you are not allowed to attack the police. It is not your right to physically attack the police or throw things. That may cross the line, and there may be consequences — those aren’t your guaranteed rights under the Constitution [as part of the right] to exercise your First Amendment rights of protesting, demonstrating.”
Hopkins explained that in addition to educating people about their rights, the ACLU-DC is specifically going into the Capitol and talking with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to attempt to curtail any potential restriction of rights — especially as the Trump administration gears up to get Congress to allow continued control of District law enforcement.
“Our attention has been turned sort of on Congress. And we are having meetings with congressional staff explaining to them the intricacies of D.C. and D.C. home rule and why they should view this overreach and abuse of power by the president as just a trial balloon that you know this administration will undoubtedly try to enact across the country.”
As the interview drew to a close, Hopkins wanted to reemphasize that knowing your rights is at the crux of staying safe.
“I think that living in the District of Columbia right now, what I have heard from folks is that there’s a lot of fear and anxiety right now. But also that we live in this amazing, beautiful, joyous city. The best thing that we can do to keep ourselves safe, keep our neighbors safe, and keep our friends safe is to know your rights and stay connected to organizations that can provide services and help and you pass along information.”
Note: There are a multitude of resources on the ACLU-DC’s website. Information on LGBTQ rights, immigration rights, protesting rights, and abortion rights is available for free.
District of Columbia
Ruby Corado sentenced to 33 months in prison
Former Casa Ruby director pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2024
A federal judge on Jan. 13 sentenced Ruby Corado, the founder and former executive director of the now closed D.C. LGBTQ community services organization Casa Ruby, to 33 months of incarceration for a charge of wire fraud to which she pleaded guilty in July 2024.
U.S. District Court Judge Trevor M. McFadden handed down the sentence that had been requested by prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia after Corado’s sentencing had been postponed six times for various reasons.
The judge also sentenced her to 24 months of supervised release upon her completion of incarceration.
In addition to the sentence of incarceration, McFadden agreed to a request by prosecutors to hold Corado responsible for “restitution” and “forfeiture” in the amount of $956,215 that prosecutors have said she illegally misappropriated from federal loans obtained by Casa Ruby.
The charge to which she pleaded guilty is based on allegations that she diverted at least $180,000 “in taxpayer backed emergency COVID relief funds to private offshore bank accounts,” according to court documents.
Court records show FBI agents arrested Corado on March 5, 2024, at a hotel in Laurel, Md., shortly after she returned to the U.S. from El Salvador, where authorities say she moved in 2022. Prosecutors have said in charging documents that she allegedly fled to El Salvador, where she was born, after “financial irregularities at Casa Ruby became public,” and the LGBTQ organization ceased operating.
Shortly after her arrest, another judge agreed to release Corado into the custody of her niece in Rockville, Md., under a home detention order. But at an Oct. 14, 2025, court hearing at which the sentencing was postponed after Corado’s court appointed attorney withdrew from the case, McFadden ordered Corado to be held in jail until the time of her once again rescheduled sentencing.
Her attorney at the time, Elizabeth Mullin, stated in a court motion that her reason for withdrawing from the case was an “irreconcilable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship.”
Corado’s newly retained attorney, Pleasant Brodnax, filed a 25-page defense Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing on Jan. 6, calling for the judge to sentence Corado only to the time she had already served in detention since October.
Among other things, Brodnax’s defense memorandum disputes the claim by prosecutors that Corado improperly diverted as much as $956,215 from federally backed loans to Casa Ruby, saying the total amount Corado diverted was $200,000. Her memo also states that Corado diverted the funds to a bank account in El Salvador for the purpose of opening a Casa Ruby facility there, not to be used for her personally.
“Ms. Corado has accepted responsibility for transferring a portion of the loan disbursements into another account she operated and ultimately transferring a portion of the loan disbursements to an account in El Salvador,” the memo continues.
“Her purpose in transferring funds to El Salvador was to fund Casa Ruby programs in El Salvador,” it says, adding, “Of course, she acknowledges that the terms of the loan agreement did not permit her to transfer the funds to El Salvador for any purpose.”
In his own 16-page sentencing recommendation memo, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Borchert, the lead prosecutor in the case, said Corado’s action amounted at the least to fraud.
“The defendant and Casa Ruby received no less than $1.2 million in taxpayer backed funds during the COVID-19 global health crisis,” he memo states. “But rather than use those funds to support Casa Ruby’s mission as the defendant promised, the defendant further contributed to its demise by unlawfully transferring no less than $180,000 of these federal emergency relief funds into her own private offshore bank accounts,” it says.
“Then, when media reports suggested the defendant would be prosecuted for squandering Casa Ruby’s government funding, she sold her home and fled the country,” the memo states. “Meanwhile, the people who she had promised to pay with taxpayer-backed funds – her employees, landlord, and vendors – were left behind flat broke.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office and Corado’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request from the Washington Blade for comment on the judge’s sentence.
“Ms. Corado accepts full responsibility for her actions in this case,” defense attorney Brodnax says in her sentencing memo. “She acknowledges the false statements made in the loan applications and that she used some of the money outside the United States,” it says.
“However, the money was still utilized for the same purpose and intention as the funds used in the United States, to assist the LGBTQ community,” it states. “Ms. Corado did not use the money to buy lavish goods or fund a lavish lifestyle.”
Brodnax also states in her memo that as a transgender woman, Corado could face abuse and danger in a correctional facility where she may be sent if sentenced to incarceration.
“Ruby Corado committed a crime, she is now paying the price,” said D.C. LGBTQ rights advocate Peter Rosenstein. “While it is sad in many ways, we must remember she hurt the transgender community with what she did, and in many ways they all paid for her crime.”
District of Columbia
Kennedy Center renaming triggers backlash
Artists who cancel shows threatened; calls for funding boycott grow
Efforts to rename the Kennedy Center to add President Trump’s name to the D.C. arts institution continue to spark backlash.
A new petition from Qommittee , a national network of drag artists and allies led by survivors of hate crimes, calls on Kennedy Center donors to suspend funding to the center until “artistic independence is restored, and to redirect support to banned or censored artists.”
“While Trump won’t back down, the donors who contribute nearly $100 million annually to the Kennedy Center can afford to take a stand,” the petition reads. “Money talks. When donors fund censorship, they don’t just harm one institution – they tell marginalized communities their stories don’t deserve to be told.”
The petition can be found here.
Meanwhile, a decision by several prominent musicians and jazz performers to cancel their shows at the recently renamed Trump-Kennedy Center in D.C. planned for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve has drawn the ire of the Center’s president, Richard Grenell.
Grenell, a gay supporter of President Donald Trump who served as U.S. ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term as president, was named Kennedy Center president last year by its board of directors that had been appointed by Trump.
Last month the board voted to change the official name of the center from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump And The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts. The revised name has been installed on the outside wall of the center’s building but is not official because any name change would require congressional action.
According to a report by the New York Times, Grenell informed jazz musician Chuck Redd, who cancelled a 2025 Christmas Eve concert that he has hosted at the Kennedy Center for nearly 20 years in response to the name change, that Grenell planned to arrange for the center to file a lawsuit against him for the cancellation.
“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit arts institution,” the Times quoted Grenell as saying in a letter to Redd.
“This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” the Times quoted Grenell’s letter as saying.
A spokesperson for the Trump-Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Washington Blade asking if the center still planned to file that lawsuit and whether it planned to file suits against some of the other musicians who recently cancelled their performances following the name change.
In a follow-up story published on Dec. 29, the New York Times reported that a prominent jazz ensemble and a New York dance company had canceled performances scheduled to take place on New Year’s Eve at the Kennedy Center.
The Times reported the jazz ensemble called The Cookers did not give a reason for the cancellation in a statement it released, but its drummer, Billy Hart, told the Times the center’s name change “evidently” played a role in the decision to cancel the performance.
Grenell released a statement on Dec. 29 calling these and other performers who cancelled their shows “far left political activists” who he said had been booked by the Kennedy Center’s previous leadership.
“Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” the Times quoted him as saying in his statement.
District of Columbia
New interim D.C. police chief played lead role in security for WorldPride
Capital Pride says Jeffery Carroll had ‘good working relationship’ with organizers
Jeffery Carroll, who was named by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on Dec. 17 as the city’s Interim Chief of Police, played a lead role in working with local LGBTQ community leaders in addressing public safety issues related to WorldPride 2025, which took place in D.C. last May and June
“We had a good working relationship with him, and he did his job in relation to how best the events would go around safety and security,” said Ryan Bos, executive director of Capital Pride Alliance.
Bos said Carroll has met with Capital Pride officials in past years to address security issues related to the city’s annual Capital Pride parade and festival and has been supportive of those events.
At the time Bowser named him Interim Chief, Carroll had been serving since 2023 as Executive Assistant Chief of Specialized Operations, overseeing the day-to-day operation of four of the department’s bureaus. He first joined the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department in 2002 and advanced to multiple leadership positions across various divisions and bureaus, according to a statement released by the mayor’s office.
“I know Chief Carroll is the right person to build on the momentum of the past two years so that we can continue driving down crime across the city,” Bowser said in a statement released on the day she announced his appointment as Interim Chief.
“He has led through some of our city’s most significant public safety challenges of the past decade, he is familiar with D.C. residents and well respected and trusted by members of the Metropolitan Police Department as well as our federal and regional public safety partners,” Bowser said.
“We have the best police department in the nation, and I am confident that Chief Carroll will meet this moment for the department and the city,” Bowser added.
But Bowser has so far declined to say if she plans to nominate Carroll to become the permanent police chief, which requires the approval of the D.C. City Council. Bowser, who announced she is not running for re-election, will remain in office as mayor until January 2027.
Carroll is replacing outgoing Chief Pamela Smith, who announced she was resigning after two years of service as chief to spend more time with her family. She has been credited with overseeing the department at a time when violent crime and homicides declined to an eight-year low.
She has also expressed support for the LGBTQ community and joined LGBTQ officers in marching in the WorldPride parade last year.
But Smith has also come under criticism by members of Congress, who have accused the department of manipulating crime data allegedly showing lower reported crime numbers than actually occurred. The allegations came from the Republican-controlled U.S. House Oversight Committee and the U.S. Justice Department
Bowser has questioned the accuracy of the allegations and said she has asked the city’s Inspector General to look into the allegations.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the D.C. police Office of Public Affairs did not immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade about the status of the department’s LGBT Liaison Unit. Sources familiar with the department have said a decline in the number of officers currently working at the department, said to be at a 50-year low, has resulted in a decline in the number of officers assigned to all of the liaison units, including the LGBT unit.
Among other things, the LGBT Liaison Unit has played a role in helping to investigate hate crimes targeting the LGBTQ community. As of early Wednesday an MPD spokesperson did not respond to a question by the Blade asking how many officers are currently assigned to the LGBT Liaison Unit.
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