Local
Roanoke auto shop fights anti-gay vandalism
‘Die fag’ scraped onto car owned by gay student
Jordan Addison, pictured with his parents Ronald and Rachel Fowler, found support from a Virginia auto body shop after his car was vandalized. (Photo courtesy of Addison)
Jordan Addison, 21, a second-year student at Virginia’s Radford University, said he became alarmed and discouraged when unidentified vandals defaced his car with an anti-gay slur, smashed the windshield, and slashed two tires in four separate incidents between March and May.
The first incident occurred late at night when his car was parked in front of his parents’ mountainside house in the rural town of Max Meadows, located about 60 miles southwest of Roanoke.
The other three incidents occurred while his car was in the parking lot outside his dorm on the Radford campus, which is located about 30 miles west of Roanoke.
“We have no idea who could have done it,” Addison told the Blade.
While the identity of the vandals remains a mystery, he said he’s certain he was targeted because he’s an out gay man.
Addison said he became even more discouraged when auto body shops near his parents’ home and near the college told him it would cost as much as $3,000 or more to remove the words “fag die” that one or more vandals scraped into the driver’s side door of his 1999 Volkswagen Passat.
“I actually called one place and I said I need to get my door repainted,” Addison told the Blade. “And he said, oh, that will be about $600. And then I showed up and his estimate went up to a little over $3,000.”
Addison said his parents, fellow students, and faculty members chipped in to help cover the costs of replacing the shattered front windshield and two slashed tires. But he said the high cost of having the “fag die” slur removed from the side of the car was more than he could afford. His insurance policy didn’t include a “comprehensive” provision needed to cover that type of damage.
“So I was in the middle of don’t go back to class and don’t drive your car or drive your car back,” with the slur visible for everyone to see, “and go to class and keep your grades up. And that’s what I chose.”
In a turn of events that Addison describes as astonishing and heartwarming, an auto body shop manager in Roanoke named Richard “J.R.” Henegar Jr., who learned about Addison’s plight from a friend who works at Radford University, took action on Addison’s behalf.
A Navy veteran who’s straight and married, Henegar summoned Addison to bring the car to Quality Auto Paint and Body Shop in Roanoke, which is owned by Henegar’s father. At his own expense, Henegar obtained a rental car for Addison’s use while he said he would arrange to remove the anti-gay slur from the side of the car.
“I saw his car and I said this is uncalled for and I’m going to take care of your car,” Henegar told the Blade.
Without telling Addison, Henegar contacted 10 other businesses, most auto body shops in the Roanoke area, and persuaded them to share the costs and provide parts needed to do a major overhaul of the car in addition to removing the slur etched into the paint.
Among other things, Henegar had the entire car repainted, installed new tires, tinted windows, a new security alarm system and a new stereo. He said the total cost came to more than $10,000 and involved at least 100 hours of labor, which he said he and the other businesses that helped him performed after regular business hours and on weekends.
When the work was finished Henegar arranged for a local vendor to screen print T-shirts with an anti-bullying message that he modeled after the logo of an anti-bullying organization he discovered online.
“I told him about the story and he didn’t charge me a dime,” Henegar said of the T-shirt vendor. “He had all the T-shirts printed. There was a big circle with a line through it that said bullies. On the back it said special thanks to all our vendors and it had a list of the vendors.”
Henegar then invited one of the local TV news stations to come to his shop to cover what he said would be Addison’s “homecoming”— his shop’s official presentation of the completed car to Addison, who knew nothing of what was about to happen.
“He just completely blew my mind,” said Addison in describing his emotions when he and his partner arrived at the shop and discovered the overhauled car.
“He breaks so many stereotypes because he’s a straight guy but he’s helping me out and I’m a gay male,” Addison said. “He has tattoos everywhere but he’s like a science nerd and he’s such a sweet person. It blows my mind that people like him live where I’m from.”
Addison added, “He’s just so kind and brave and put so much work into something for someone he’d never met.”
Henegar, who’s in line to take over the shop when his father retires, said his father and the shop’s 10 employees supported his efforts.
“We just wanted to bring some attention to bullying and make people aware that it’s uncalled for,” he said. “And we’re a small business in the South and we’re not going to stand for it.”
The Aug. 20 video coverage by WDBJ 7 TV News in Roanoke of Addison’s stunned expression when he saw his spruced up car at the Quality Auto Paint and Body shop quickly circulated nationally and internationally online.
Henegar said within days of news broadcast by the TV station, the video went viral, prompting hundreds of people to send emails and phone messages praising the shop for helping someone in need.
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.
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