Local
Cobalt staffer suffers broken jaw in attack
Stolen phone used to leave insulting Facebook message
Gregory ‘Sean’ Morris, an employee of the gay bar Cobalt, suffered a broken jaw during a mugging last month. The attack is not being treated as a hate crime. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
One of two unidentified men who broke the jaw of an employee of the D.C. gay bar Cobalt during a mugging last month apparently left an insulting message on the victim’s Facebook page using his stolen cell phone.
Gregory “Sean” Morris, 32, said two men attacked and robbed him at 5 a.m. Sunday, July 25, at the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Lamont Street, N.W., as he was on his way home from work.
Morris said one of the attackers appeared to have accessed his Facebook page a few days after the mugging through the use of his cell phone, which was stolen during the attack. According to Morris, the person published a message written as if it came from Morris.
“I wanted to bust a nut but I can’t because my jaw hurts so bad,” he quoted the message as saying.
Police have listed the attack as robbery by force and violence. There was no immediate evidence of a hate crime, Morris said, because the attackers did not say anything to him as they robbed and assaulted him.
Morris noted that he was wearing a Cobalt shirt when he was attacked, but didn’t know if the attackers recognized the name as that of a gay bar.
The incident took place near where Morris exited a Metro bus and was walking to catch a second bus to take him closer to his home in Northwest D.C.
He said he recalls being knocked unconscious and waking up as one of the attackers dragged him from the sidewalk down a stairwell leading to the basement entrance of a house or building. He noted that one of the attackers punched him in the jaw as the other removed a backpack from his back.
“I realized immediately that they had broken it,” Morris said of his jaw. “They didn’t say a word to me.”
The only words spoken were when one assailant instructed the other to “hit me” when they realized he had regained consciousness, Morris told the Blade in a phone interview. He eventually managed to flag down a police car and was quickly taken to Howard University Hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery to repair his jaw, which is now wired shut and will remain that way for eight weeks.
Morris, who works at Cobalt as a light technician and an independent events promoter, does not have medical insurance. Cobalt employees and friends have contributed to a fund to help him pay his doctor and hospital bills. He has also applied for compensation from the city’s victim assistance program, which provides some financial aid to victims of crime.
After taking his backpack, wallet, watch, and a small amount of cash, the two men left him in the stairwell and began to walk away, Morris said. As he struggled out of the stairwell and reached for his phone to call for help, Morris noticed the two attackers were watching him.
“I reached to see if they had taken my phone out of my pocket and they hadn’t,” Morris said. “They realized they hadn’t and they turned around and they came back to rob me again. They took my phone out of my pocket.”
The man who assaulted him in the stairwell then “hit me again,” he said.
Morris is hoping police will be able to track the suspects through cell phone records and any use of his stolen credit cards.
Maryland
What Anne Arundel County school board candidates think about book bans
State lawmakers passed Freedom to Read Act in April
BY ROYALE BONDS | Parents’ efforts to restrict content available to students in school libraries has become a contentious issue in Maryland. Conservative parent groups, such as Moms for Liberty, have been working to get books they believe are inappropriate removed from libraries in Carroll and Howard counties, sparking protests, new policies, and even a state law.
The Freedom to Read Act, passed in April, sets standards that books cannot be removed from public and school libraries due to an author’s background. Library staff that uphold the standard are protected under this act. The law, however, does not prohibit removing books deemed “sexually explicit,” the stated reason local Moms for Liberty chapters challenged school library books.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner website.
District of Columbia
D.C. Council member proposes change for Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs
Parker also seeks increased funding for LGBTQ programs in FY 2025 budget
D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), the Council’s only LGBTQ member, has asked his fellow Council members to support a proposal to change the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs to become a “stand-alone entity outside the Executive Office of the Mayor to allow for greater transparency and accountability that reflects its evolution over the years.”
In an April 30 letter to each of his 12 fellow Council members, Parker said he plans to introduce an amendment to the city’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Support Act to make this change for the LGBTQ Affairs Office.
His letter also calls for adding to the city’s FY 2025 budget two specific funding proposals that local LGBTQ activists submitted to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser that the mayor did not include in her budget proposal submitted to the Council. One calls for $1.5 million to fund the completion of the build out and renovation for the D.C. Center for the LGBTQ Community’s new building in the city’s Shaw neighborhood and $300,000 in subsequent years to support the LGBTQ Center’s operations.
Parker’s second budget proposal calls for what he said was about $450,000 to fund 20 additional dedicated LGBTQ housing vouchers as part of the city’s existing program to provide emergency housing support for LGBTQ residents and other residents facing homelessness.
“The Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs currently manages about 90 vouchers across various programs and needs,” Parker said in his letter to fellow Council members. “Adding an additional 20 vouchers will cost roughly $450,000,” he wrote, adding that dedicated vouchers “play a crucial role in ensuring LGBTQ+ residents of the District can navigate the complex process of securing housing placements.”
In her proposed FY ’25 budget, Bowser calls for a 7.6 percent increase in funding for the Office of LGBTQ Affairs, which amounts to an increase of $132,000, bringing the office’s total funding to $1.7 million.
“To be clear, I support the strong work and current leadership of the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs,” Parker says in his letter to fellow Council members. “This push for change is in recognition of the office’s notable achievements and the significant demands being placed on it, which require a greater level of accountability.”
Parker told the Blade in an April 30 telephone interview that he believes Japer Bowles, the current director of the Office of L|GBTQ Affairs is doing an excellent job in operating the office, but he believes the office would be able to do more for the LGBTQ community under the change he is proposing.
“Making it a stand-alone office versus it being clustered within the Community Affairs division of the mayor’s office, it will get more attention,” Parker told the Blade. “The leadership will have greater flexibility to advocate for the interest of LGBTQ residents, And we will be able to conduct greater oversight of the office,” he said, referring to the Council’s oversight process.
Parker noted that other community constituent offices in the mayor’s office, including the Office of Latino Affairs and the Office of Veterans Affairs are stand-alone offices that he hopes to bring about for the LGBTQ Affairs Office. He said Council member Brianne Nadeau, who chairs the Council committee that has oversight for the LGBTQ Affairs Office, has expressed support for his proposal.
Also expressing support for Parker’s proposal to make the LGBTQ Affairs Office a stand-alone office is the D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commission Rainbow Caucus. Vincent Slatt, the caucus’s chairperson, submitted testimony last week before the D.C. Council Committee on Public Works and Operations, which is chaired by Nadeau, calling for making the LGBTQ Affairs Office a stand-alone office outside the Executive Office of the Mayor.
Slatt also stated in his testimony that the office has a “chronic staffing shortage” and recommended that at least three additional staff members be assigned to the office.
Daniel Gleick, the mayor’s press secretary, told the Blade the mayor’s office is reviewing Parker’s budget proposals, including the proposed change for the Office of LGBTQ Affairs.
But in testimony at a May 1, D.C. Council budget hearing before the Council’s Committee on Executive Administration and Labor, Lindsey Parker, Mayor Bowser’s Chief of Staff, appeared to express skepticism over making the LGBTQ Affairs office a stand-alone office. Parker expressed her thoughts on the proposed change when asked about it by Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), who chairs the committee that held the hearing.
“I would proffer that it doesn’t matter whether the agency is within the EOM [Executive Office of the Mayor] or not,” Parker told Bonds. “They will still be reporting up into one would argue the most important agency in the D.C. government, which is the one that supports the mayor,” Parker said. “So, it’s the closest to the mayor that you can get,” she said “So, you could pull it out and have a different budget chapter. I actually think that’s confusing and convoluted.”
Parker added, “The Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, with their six FTEs right now, if they were a stand-alone function they wouldn’t have all the non-personnel services in order to operate. They need to be under sort of the shop of the EOM in order to get those resources.”
By FETs Parker was referring to the term Full Time Equivalent employees.
Rehoboth Beach
Former CAMP Rehoboth official sentenced to nine months in prison
Salvator Seeley pleaded guilty to felony theft charge for embezzlement
Salvator “Sal” Seeley, who served as an official with the Rehoboth Beach, Del., CAMP Rehoboth LGBTQ community center for 20 years, was sentenced on April 5 by a Sussex County Superior Court judge to nine months in prison and to pay $176,000 in restitution to the organization.
The sentencing took place about five weeks after Seeley pleaded guilty to a charge of Theft in Excess of $50,000 for allegedly embezzling funds from CAMP Rehoboth, a spokesperson for the Delaware Department of Justice told the Washington Blade.
Seeley’s guilty plea came shortly after a grand jury, at the request of prosecutors, indicted him on the felony theft charge following an investigation that found he had embezzled at least $176,000 from the nonprofit LGBTQ organization.
“Salvatore C. Seeley, between the 27th day of February 2019 and the 7th day of September 2021, in the County of Sussex, State of Delaware, did take property belonging to CAMP Rehoboth, Inc., consisting of United States currency and other miscellaneous property valued at more than $50,000, intending to appropriate the same,” the indictment states.
“The State recommended a sentence of two years of incarceration based on the large-scale theft and the impact to the non-profit organization,” Delaware Department of Justice spokesperson Caroline Harrison told the Blade in a statement.
“The defense cited Seeley’s lack of a record and gambling addiction in arguing for a probationary sentence,” the statement says. “Seeley was sentenced in Superior Court to a nine-month prison term and to pay a total of $176,000 in restitution for the stolen funds,” Harrison says in the statement.
Neither Seeley nor his attorney could immediately be reached for comment.
At the time of Seeley’s indictment in February, CAMP Rehoboth released a statement saying it first discovered “financial irregularities” within the organization on Sept. 7, 2021, “and took immediate action and notified state authorities.” The statement says this resulted in the investigation of Seeley by the state Department of Justice as well as an internal investigation by CAMP Rehoboth to review its “financial control policies” that led to an updating of those policies.
“As we have communicated from day one, CAMP Rehoboth has fully cooperated with law enforcement,” the statement continues. “At its request, we did not speak publicly about the investigation while it was ongoing for fear it would jeopardize its integrity,” according to the statement. “This was extremely difficult given our commitment to transparency with the community about day-to-day operations during the recent leadership transition.”
The statement was referring to Kim Leisey, who began her job as CAMP Rehoboth’s new executive director in July of 2023, while the Seeley investigation had yet to be completed, following the organization’s process of searching for a new director. It says Seeley left his job as Health and Wellness Director of CAMP Rehoboth in September of 2021 after working for the organization for more than 20 years.
“Mr. Seeley’s actions are a deep betrayal to not only CAMP Rehoboth but also the entire community we serve,” the statement says.
Brittney Griner considered suicide in Russian prison
Senegalese NGO claims new president discussed LGBTQ rights with top EU official
What Anne Arundel County school board candidates think about book bans
It’s game, set, and mismatch in unfulfilling ‘Challengers’
D.C. Council member proposes change for Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs
HHS reverses Trump-era anti-LGBTQ rule
4th Circuit rules gender identity is a protected characteristic
PHOTOS: Capital Pride Pageant
New World Bank US executive director: LGBTQ rights are human rights
