Local
Gay man recounts ‘vicious’ hate crime
‘I was on the ground bleeding’
A 29-year-old gay man said he was knocked to the ground and beaten by two male attackers who called him anti-gay names while punching and kicking him as he was walking home this month from a Georgia Avenue bus stop.
Francisco Martin, a makeup artist who describes himself as openly gay, said one of the two attackers struck him in the face and head July 6 with a nine-inch wide sheet of plywood while the other knocked him to the ground and kicked him in the head and body.
D.C. police have listed the incident as a bias-related crime and are seeking the public’s assistance in identifying suspects. The department’s Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit is assisting in the investigation. Police said the attack took place along the 600 block of Emerson St., N.W.
“I just tried to cover my face; I just started yelling, ‘stop, stop,’ and they just wouldn’t stop,” Martin told the Blade in a phone interview. “They just [kept] beating me until they ripped my shirt off. I was on the ground bleeding.”
Martin said he managed to walk about three blocks to his home after the attackers stopped beating him and left the scene.
He said he called 911 and police and paramedics arrived at his home within minutes. According to Martin, he declined an offer by the paramedics to take him to a hospital after the paramedics examined him and determined his injuries were not life threatening.
Martin said the attackers made no attempt to rob him, a development that leads him to believe they singled him out because they believed him to be gay.
“They were saying like ‘faggot’ or all these derogatory things,” said Martin, who is Latino.
Capt. Edward Delgado, commander of the police’s Special Liaison Unit that includes the GLLU, said Latinos have been targeted in a rash of street robberies in recent weeks in Petworth, the neighborhood where Martin was attacked.
Delgado released information about the incident involving Martin in an e-mail to community activists, calling it a “vicious” attack that appears to be the first LGBT-related hate crime in the Petworth area in recent years. He did not disclose Martin’s name.
Martin later contacted the Blade about the attack, saying he wanted to speak out about the “terrible problem of hate crimes” in D.C.
Gays & Lesbians Opposing Violence has pointed to statistics showing D.C. having the nation’s highest rate of reported hate crimes against LGBT people in a major metropolitan area.
Martin said he is cooperating with police and is hopeful that the investigation will result in the arrest of the two men who attacked him.
He said the incident began around 8:30 p.m. when he noticed a group of young men staring at him and laughing as he was walking along Emerson Street from the Georgia Avenue bus stop.
He said he began running after he noticed two men were following him. The two chased after him and caught up to him on the 600 block of Emerson Street where they started beating him, he recalled.
Martin described the man who struck him with the plywood board as black with a dark complexion, and appearing in his mid to late 20s, about 5 feet, 7 inches, weighing about 150 pounds, having an athletic build, a light mustache and goatee with short hair, and wearing a yellow Polo shirt and jeans.
Martin said the second attacker was black with a dark complexion and appeared to be in his mid 30s. He described him as being about 5 feet, 11 inches, weighing about 180 pounds, having an athletic build, a short haircut and no facial hair, and wearing a white tank top with large blue shorts.
Anyone with information about the incident should call the Fourth District police detective’s office at 202-715-7506 or the police department’s hotline at 1-800-673-2777.
Virginia
McPike wins special election for Va. House of Delegates
Gay Alexandria City Council member becomes 8th LGBTQ member of legislature
Gay Alexandria City Council member Kirk McPike emerged as the decisive winner in a Feb. 10 special election for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria.
McPike, a Democrat, received 81.5 percent of the vote in his race against Republican Mason Butler, according to the local publication ALX Now.
He first won election to the Alexandria Council in 2021. He will be filling the House of Delegates seat being vacated by Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (D-Alexandria), who won in another Feb. 10 special election for the Virginia State Senate seat being vacated by gay Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria).
Ebbin is resigning from his Senate next week to take a position with Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s administration.
Upon taking his 5th District seat in the House of Delegate, McPike will become the eighth out LGBTQ member of the Virginia General Assembly. Among those he will be joining is Sen. Danica Roem (D-Manassas), who became the Virginia Legislature’s first transgender member when she won election to the House of Delegates in 2017 before being elected to the Senate in 2023.
“I look forward to continuing to work to address our housing crisis, the challenge of climate change, and the damaging impacts of the Trump administration on the immigrant families, LGBTQ+ Virginians, and federal employees who call Alexandria home,” McPike said in a statement after winning the Democratic nomination for the seat in a special primary held on Jan. 20.
McPike, a longtime LGBTQ rights advocate, has served for the past 13 years as chief of staff for gay U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and has remained in that position during his tenure on the Alexandria Council. He said he will resign from that position before taking office in the House of Delegates.
Local
Local LGBTQ groups, activists to commemorate Black History Month
Rayceen Pendarvis to moderate Dupont Underground panel on Sunday
LGBTQ groups in D.C. and elsewhere plan to use Black History Month as an opportunity to commemorate and celebrate Black lives and experiences.
Team Rayceen Productions has no specific events planned, but co-founder Rayceen Pendarvis will attend many functions around D.C. this month.
Pendarvis, a longtime voice in the LGBTQ community in D.C. moderated a panel at Dupont Underground on Feb. 8. The event, “Every (Body) Wants to Be a Showgirl,” will feature art from Black burlesque artists from around the country. Pendarvis on Feb. 23 will attend the showing of multimedia play at the Lincoln Theatre that commemorates the life of James Baldwin.
Equality Virginia plans to prioritize Black voices through a weekly online series, and community-based story telling. The online digital series will center Black LGBTQ voices, specifically trailblazers and activists, and contemporary Black queer and transgender people.
Narissa Rahaman, Equality Virginia’s executive director, stressed the importance of the Black queer community to the overall Pride movement, and said “Equality Virginia is proud to center those voices in our work this month and beyond.”
The Capital Pride Alliance, which hosts Pride events in D.C., has an alliance with the Center for Black Equity, which brings Black Pride to D.C. over Memorial Day weekend. The National LGBTQ Task Force has no specific Black History Month events planned, but plans to participate in online collaborations.
Cathy Renna, the Task Force’s director of communications, told the Washington Blade the organization remains committed to uplifting Black voices. “Our priority is keeping this at the forefront everyday,” she said.
The D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center is also hosting a series of Black History Month events.
The D.C. Public Library earlier this year launched “Freedom and Resistance,” an exhibition that celebrates Black History Month and Martin Luther King Jr. It will remain on display until the middle of March at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library at 901 G St., N.W.
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.
Unconventional love: Or, fuck it, let’s choose each other again
Pride flag raised at Stonewall after National Park Service took it down
Trans students not included in new India University Grants Commission equity rules
Calendar: February 13-19
FOIA lawsuit filed against State Department for PEPFAR records
I keep getting rejected on the apps
Pride flag removed from Stonewall Monument as Trump targets LGBTQ landmarks
Olympics Pride House ‘really important for the community’
Gay man details secret struggle with bulimia
