Local
Judge finds probable cause in anti-gay stabbing outside D.C.’s Howard Theatre
Defendants reject plea bargain offer; two released while awaiting trial
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Monday ruled that probable cause exists that a woman and two men committed an anti-gay assault with a dangerous weapon in connection with a June 26 stabbing of a 16-year-old male in Northwest Washington.
Judge Frederick Sullivan issued his ruling following a two-and-a-half-hour preliminary hearing in which a D.C. police detective testified that an eye witness saw Ali Jackson, 19, stab the victim in the left bicep, lower back, and left leg after shouting anti-gay names at him outside the Howard Theatre at 6th and T streets, N.W.
Det. Kenneth Arrington told the court the stabbing occurred after Desmond Campbell, 33, grabbed the victim from behind and held him in a headlock and Alvonica Jackson, 25, assisted Campbell by preventing the victim from defending himself by holding his arms.
“I’m going to poke your faggy ass,” Arrington said the witness quoted Ali Jackson as saying while pointing a knife at the victim.
A probable cause finding means the case can proceed to trial.
Assistant United States Attorney Jin Park, the prosecutor in the case, told the court the three defendants rejected a plea bargain offer issued by the government.
Park said the offer issued to Alvonica Jackson and Desmond Campbell called for them to plead guilty to one count of assault with a dangerous weapon, the same charge filed against them by D.C. police at the time of their arrest. But Park said the plea offer would not be accompanied with a hate crime designation, which could lead to a stiffer sentence under the city’s hate crimes law.
D.C. police listed the charges against each of the defendants as hate crimes based on the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation.
In the government’s plea offer to Ali Jackson, Park said he would have to plead guilty to a single count of assault with a dangerous weapon, a knife, with the hate crime designation included with the charge.
Attorneys representing the three defendants told Sullivan their clients rejected the offer.
In arguments during the hearing, the attorneys said their clients acted in self-defense, noting that police charging documents and testimony by Det. Arrington stated that the stabbing took place after the victim sprayed each of the defendants with mace.
In responding to questions from the defense attorneys, Arrington said it was the victim who acted in self-defense by using the mace, or pepper spray, after Ali Jackson threatened him with the knife.
In response to requests by defense attorney Bernard Crane, who represents Campbell, and Mani Golzari, who represents Alvonica Jackson, Sullivan agreed to order the release of the two defendants while they await trial. All three defendants have been held in jail since their arrest.
Over strong objections from prosecutor Park, Sullivan agreed to release Alvonica Jackson on her own recognizance on condition that she stay away from the victim and from the area around the Howard Theatre. He set more stringent conditions on Campbell’s release, which include entering the court’s “high intensity supervision program” that includes wearing an electronic ankle bracelet.
The judge rejected defense attorney Camilla Hsu’s request that her client, Ali Jackson, be released while he awaits trial. Sullivan said he could find no conditions for releasing Ali Jackson that would ensure the safety of the community.
Park pointed out that Ali Jackson has a “lengthy” prior criminal record, including an arrest for assaulting a police officer and a recent conviction of simple assault.
Court records show that Jackson was arrested in a separate case in October 2011 on a charge of possession of a dangerous weapon after he allegedly threatened a group of transgender women in D.C. with a knife while riding a bicycle. Court records show a jury acquitted him on that charge.
Monday’s hearing came three days after the head of the local group Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV) sent Park a letter by email expressing concern over prosecutors’ plans to offer a plea bargain in the case.
“This is a clear case of anti-gay bias where the defendants could have killed a member of Washington’s LGBT community,” GLOV Chair Arthur “A.J.” Singletary wrote in the email. “Furthermore, the actual defendant who stabbed the victim showed previous bias against LGBT people (and was arrested) and another defendant was also arrested for assault,” he said.
“For defendants with previous records, offering a plea deal so quickly raises major concern with the handling of this case,” Singletary wrote.
Singletary also asked Park in his email to explain why the government charged the defendants with assault with a dangerous weapon rather than attempted murder.
But after Monday’s hearing, Singletary said GLOV was pleased that the U.S. Attorney’s office chose not to lower the charges further in its plea offer and that it called for retaining the hate-bias designation in its plea bargain offer for Ali Jackson.
Crane and Golzari argued during the hearing that police charging documents show that their clients, Alvonica Jackson and Desmond Campbell, were not present on the scene and did not become involved in what began as an altercation between Ali Jackson and the victim. The two attorneys said that when their clients arrived on the scene they saw the victim pointing a mace canister at Ali Jackson.
Crane said that Ali Jackson is the “little brother” of Campbell’s girlfriend and Campbell entered the altercation to defend his girlfriend’s brother.
Crane told the Blade after the hearing that the charging documents show that Campbell referred to the victim as a “faggy” when he was questioned by police after his arrest. He noted that Campbell did not use anti-gay language during the altercation with the victim.
“My client didn’t commit a hate crime,” he said.
Det. Arrington testified at the hearing that the victim reported being threatened by Ali Jackson several weeks before the Howard Theatre incident.
“He called him a fag at that time,” Arrington said of the prior incident.
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 this 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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