District of Columbia
D.C. debates how to cope with crime as reform bill heads to Senate
House Democrats join GOP in voting to overturn measure
Just over three weeks after the D.C. Council overturned Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto of a controversial criminal code reform bill that the Council had passed unanimously last November, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 9 voted 250 to 173 to overturn the D.C. bill.
In a development that surprised some D.C. political observers, including LGBTQ activists, 31 House Democrats were among those joining Republicans in voting to overturn the sweeping 450-page Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022.
On the same day that it voted to overturn the crime bill, the House voted 260 to 162, with 42 House Democrats voting yes, to pass a second disapproval resolution calling for overturning a bill approved by the D.C. Council to allow non-citizens to vote in local D.C. elections.
Both bills must now go to the U.S. Senate, where Democrats have a slim majority and where just a few Democratic senators voting to overturn either of the two bills, including the crime bill, could result in passage of the disapproval measure. It would then go to President Joe Biden, who would be faced with the choice of vetoing the measures or allowing one or both of the two D.C. bills to be overturned.
The president has said he opposes both of the two disapproval resolutions in the House, but he has not said whether he would veto the disapproval measures.
Most of those who have expressed concern over the criminal code reform bill, including Bowser, D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee, and the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., have said they support 95 percent of the bill’s provisions.
Supporters, including D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large), point out that the voluminous bill was methodically developed over the past 16 years by the nonpartisan D.C. Criminal Code Reform Commission to modernize the city’s criminal code that has not been significantly changed since 1901.
Mendelson and D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who headed the Council committee that drafted the legislation, strongly dispute claims that the bill would result in increased crime in the city or that it would hamper efforts by police to curtail crime.
The mayor has said her opposition centers around several of the bill’s provisions that, among other things, would eliminate most mandatory minimum prison sentences, reduce maximum sentences for crimes such as burglaries, carjackings, and robberies, and allow jury trials for all misdemeanor cases in which a prison sentence is possible.
Critics say allowing a jury trial for most misdemeanor cases would overwhelm the D.C. Superior Court that they say already has too few judges to handle its criminal case load. Under the city’s 1971 Home Rule Act approved by Congress, the U.S. president appoints all D.C. court judges, and the U.S. Senate must confirm the appointments.
Supporters of the criminal code reform measure point out that it is currently drafted so it does not take effect until 2025, which they say will give the court system time to adapt to the new criminal code. But opponents, including the mayor, say that would not prevent the problems that they say the bill as currently written will bring about when it takes effect.
“This bill does not make us safer,” said Bowser in announcing her decision to veto the bill.
“While no one believes that penalties alone will solve crime and violence right now, we must be very intentional about messages that we are sending to our community, including prosecutors and judges,” the mayor said in a statement. “People, we know, are tired of violence and right now our focus must be on victims and preventing more people from becoming victims,” she said.
Bowser added that the bill would weaken what she said was an already lenient sentence for illegal gun possession by reducing the maximum sentence for carrying a pistol without a license and being a convicted felon in possession of a gun.
She has expressed strong opposition to Congress stepping in to overturn the bill, saying that it should be left up to the city to make any changes needed to improve the bill. Bowser last week submitted to the Council legislation calling for changes in the bill, including removing provisions in the current bill that would lower maximum penalties and allow jury trials for most misdemeanor cases.
Among the most outspoken critics of the criminal code revision bill has been the D.C. Police Union, whose chairperson, Gregg Pemberton, said the legislation would result in “violent crime rates exploding more than they already have.”
Most local LGBTQ organizations have not taken an official position on the bill. Capital Stonewall Democrats, the city’s largest local LGBTQ political group, has yet to take a position on the bill itself and most likely will not do so at this time, according to Monika Nemeth, the group’s recently elected president.
Nemeth said threats by Congress to overturn this and other D.C. bills are of great concern to the organization, and it reconfirms Capital Stonewall Democrats’ strong support for D.C. statehood.
Adam Savit, president of Log Cabin Republicans of D.C., the local chapter of the national LGBTQ Republican organization Log Cabin Republicans, said the local chapter also has not taken an official position on the D.C. criminal code bill. But he said in an email to the Blade that “we generally sympathize with the sentiments of the D.C. GOP,” which has come out against the legislation on grounds that it will result in a higher rate of crime in the city.
“Decreased penalties mean a decreased deterrent, and it will absolutely lead to increased criminality and further undermine the ability of the police to keep order,” Savit said in expressing his own opinion. “The way to protect LGBTQ citizens is to set credible penalties for violent crime and enforce the law,” he said.
The DC Center for the LGBT Community, which oversees its longstanding LGBTQ Anti-Violence Project, did not respond to a request by the Blade for comment on the crime bill.
The D.C. Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, however, has taken a position in strong support of the measure.
“We applaud the D.C. Council for enacting the Revised Criminal Code Act, an important modernization of our criminal laws that is the product of over 15 years of careful deliberation,” said GLAA President Tyrone Hanley in a statement to the Blade. Hanley said the statement was approved by the GLAA board.
“We have long known that mandatory minimums do not make communities safer, but exacerbate mass incarceration,” the GLAA statement says. “The larger symbolic reductions in maximum sentences for certain crimes bring them in-line with actual practice [by judges], plus research demonstrates that the length of sentence is not an effective deterrent to most crime,” the GLAA statement continues.
“We should not give in to right-wing narratives that some wish to use to exert power over D.C. and return to ineffective and harmful approaches,” the statement concludes.
Longtime D.C. gay activist and former GLAA President Rick Rosendall has taken a similar position, saying in an email to the Blade that opposition to the bill is based on “alarmist talking points.” Rosendall pointed to the assertion by D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie (I-At-Large) that some provisions in the bill actually raise penalties and create new categories of crimes that make it easier for prosecutors to prove.
Another longtime LGBTQ rights advocate and Democratic Party activist Peter Rosenstein has taken a differing view. He says he fully agrees with Bowser’s decision to veto the crime bill and said the Council should not have passed the separate bill to allow non-U.S. citizen D.C. residents the right to vote in local D.C. elections.
“Lowering the maximum possible penalties for burglaries, carjackings (now at their highest) and robberies, while residents are seeing a crime wave, is irresponsible and won’t make the city safer,” Rosenstein said in a Washington Blade commentary. “If Congress takes action on these bills, the Council must accept the full blame,” he said. “While Congress shouldn’t interfere with the D.C. government (I have long advocated for budget and legislative autonomy for the District) we don’t have it yet.”
D.C. Congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) has strongly criticized the House for passing the disapproval resolutions calling for overturning the crime bill and the noncitizen voting rights bill. She said she is alarmed that Republican members of the House and Senate are once again attempting to intervene and usurp the will of the democratically elected D.C. local government.
Norton noted that since Congress passed the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1971, creating the city’s elected mayor and Council – with Congress retaining the ability to make the final decision on all laws passed by the D.C. government – Congress has only used its power to overturn a D.C. law on three occasions over the past 40 years.
One of the three laws overturned by Congress was the Sexual Assault Reform Act of 1981, which called for repealing the city’s antiquated sodomy law that made it a crime for consenting same-sex adults and consenting heterosexual adult to engage in oral or anal sodomy. It took another 12 years for the Council to pass legislation repealing the D.C. sodomy law in 1993. At that time gay then-U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) played a lead role in persuading Congress not to overturn the sodomy repeal law once again.
But with states throughout the country now passing or considering anti-LGBTQ bills, including bills targeting transgender people and drag performances, the emboldened action by the U.S. House on Feb. 7 to overturn two bills passed by the D.C. Council raises the possibility that GOP lawmakers in Congress might attempt to impose anti-LGBTQ policies on the District.
Norton has pointed out that although Congress has so far overturned only three D.C. laws, it has also imposed restrictions on the city through its power to control the city’s budget and spending. Without needing approval by the Senate, the GOP-controlled House has in the past — and can at this time — add hostile provisions to the city’s annual budget bill.
In recent years, the House has used the budget process to ban D.C. funding for abortions for women in financial need and to block the city from allowing the sale of marijuana as part of D.C.’s legislation – which Congress allowed the city to pass – decriminalizing the possession of marijuana.
Most LGBTQ activists contacted by the Blade said they haven’t had a chance to read the entire 450-page Revised Criminal Code Act, but from what they have learned about the bill from media reports leads them to believe it most likely would not impact LGBTQ people any more or less than the overall D.C. population.
Some activists, however, point out that transgender women of color have been targeted for crimes in the D.C. area, including murder, in greater numbers than others in the community. And the release by D.C. police in January of the city’s data on reported hate crimes in 2022 show that similar to the past 10 years or more, LGBTQ people were targeted for hate crimes in greater numbers than other categories of victims of hate crimes such as race, ethnicity, or religion.
“I’m not certain what contributes to the uptick in some types of calls that we’ve seen or some of the crimes that we’ve seen,” said D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee in response to a question from the Blade about what, if anything, police can do to address hate crimes targeting LGBTQ people.
“But our commitment is to investigate those cases thoroughly and hold people accountable when we identify people who are responsible for those types of crimes,” Contee said. “Our LGBT community is something special, not just to Washington, D.C. but to the Metropolitan Police Department,” he said. “They have a strong relationship with our Special Liaison Branch,” he noted, which oversees the department’s LGBT Liaison Unit.
“So, we’re going to continue to do the things we need to do to make sure that those calls are coming in and people are trusting us to report these crimes to us,” Contee told the Blade. “And again, we do everything we can to investigate those crimes.”
District of Columbia
‘Queer Love’ campaign launched to address domestic violence
D.C. event set for LGBTQ+ Domestic Violence Awareness Day on May 28
The D.C.-based Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing and support services for homeless LGBTQ youth, announced earlier this month that it has joined partner organizations to launch a Queer Love Shouldn’t Hurt campaign aimed at addressing domestic violence within the LGBTQ community.
In a May 18 statement, the Alston Foundation said the campaign involves a public awareness initiative leading up to LGBTQ+ Domestic Violence Awareness Day scheduled for May 28.
“Domestic and family violence in LGBTQ+ communities is real and too often invisible,” Cesar Toledo, the Alston Foundation’s executive director, said in the statement. “As a community, we do not talk about it enough, and that silence can leave survivors feeling isolated and alone,” he said. “We must break that silence.”
He added that culturally competent care for those impacted by domestic violence is available through a newly launched website, queerlove.org, “where people can safely access vital resources, educational toolkits, and support networks they need on their healing journey.”
The website announces one of the project’s first events, a Queer Love Community Social, was scheduled for Thursday, May 28, from 6-8 p.m. at the D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center at 1827 Wiltberger St., N.W.
“Join us this LGBT+ Domestic Violence Awareness Day for a community social dedicated to visibility and survivor resilience,” the website statement says. “Let’s gather to strengthen our bonds, honor the path to healing, and share free resources,” it says of the May 28 event.
The website also announces a June 1 workshop called Empowering Survivors of LGBTQ+ Intimate Partner Violence, which it says will be presented by Jesse Wedell, an official with the D.C. LGBT+ Counseling Collaborative. The website provides an online form to register for the workshop upon which its location would be disclosed.
It identifies the partner organizations working with the Alston Foundation on the Queer Love Public Awareness Campaign as the LGBT+ Counseling Collaborative, Whitman-Walker Health, the D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center, and Equality Chamber.
The resources and information provided by the project can be accessed at www.queerlove.org.
District of Columbia
Man accused of threatening to shoot D.C. bar employee after making anti-gay slurs
May 24 incident took place near Black Pride events on U Street
D.C. police on Sunday, May 24, at around 4:20 p.m. arrested a Maryland man for allegedly threatening to shoot an employee while using anti-gay slurs at Ben’s Next Door restaurant and bar at 1211 U St., N.W.
According to a statement released by police and a police incident report, the arrested man, identified as Delonte Fraley, 32, of Accokeek, Md., made the threats after the employee told a bartender not to serve the man alcohol.
“The suspect overheard the employee and threatened to shoot the employee and used homophobic slurs against the employee,” the police statement says. “When the employee left the restaurant for the day, the suspect was standing near the employee’s vehicle,” it says.
“The employee returned to the restaurant and called the police,” the statement continues. “The suspect was apprehended by responding officers,” it says.
The police statement says the arresting officers charged Fraley with Felony Threats (Hate/Bias).
D.C. Superior Court records show prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes D.C. criminal cases, escalated the charge to Threatening to Injure or Kidnap a Person (Bias-Related Hate Crime).
The incident occurred during Memorial Day weekend when thousands of visitors and D.C. area LGBTQ advocates and supporters were attending D.C. Black Pride events held in locations across the city, including Black Pride parties hosted by LGBTQ bars in the U Street entertainment area near Ben’s Next Door.
Among the nearby LGBTQ bars hosting D.C. Black Pride events were Nellie’s Sports Bar and Thurst Lounge. Ben’s Next Door is located next to the popular longtime U Street eatery Ben’s Chili Bowl.
Court records show that Judge Robert R. Rigsby at a May 25 presentment hearing released Fraley on personal recognizance with a stay-away order — the details of which were not publicly disclosed pending a June 4 preliminary hearing.
A more detailed arrest affidavit filed in court by D.C. police says Fraley allegedly confronted the employee at Ben’s Next Door with anti-gay slurs on the day prior to his arrest.
“The complainant told the defendant that because he used homophobic slurs towards himself previously on May 23, 2026, and his hostess, as well as making threats to the complainant and calling him a faggot, he was unable to stay in the establishment,” the affidavit states.
It adds, “The defendant became irate stating, ‘I know where your Tesla is at. See me outside faggot, I will slap your ass’ and ‘I will shoot your ass.’” The affidavit says the complainant confirmed to police the Tesla referred to by Fraley was his vehicle. It says as the victim walked toward his car after getting off work, he saw Fraley standing directly in front of the car.
“The complainant stated he felt unsafe while the defendant was standing in front of his vehicle because he felt the defendant was capable of carrying out those threats,” says the affidavit. It says the victim then decided to return to the restaurant and call police without the defendant having seen him.
“The defendant was placed under arrest for Felony Threats Hate/Bias and was transported to the Third District Station for processing,” the affidavit concludes.
It couldn’t immediately be determined whether the victim identifies as LGBTQ or whether any of the Ben’s Next Door patrons had been involved with D.C. Black Pride.
“Established in 2008, Ben’s Next Door is a family-owned and operated restaurant and bar on U Street, Northwest in Washington, D.C.,” a statement on its website says. “As a Black-owned establishment, it’s our goal to deliver a warm, welcoming, familiar, and communal vibe to all guests,” the statement says.
District of Columbia
Doc on Blade reporter Chibbaro scores Emmy nomination
‘Lou’s Legacy’ chronicles 50-year career
“Lou’s Legacy: A Reporter’s Life at the Washington Blade” has been nominated for a Capital Emmy in the “Documentary – Historical” category by the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
“Our members include all of the video content producers who serve our local audiences in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia—from the Atlantic to the Appalachians, from Bristol to Baltimore,” said Capitol Emmys President Adam Longo in a press release.
Broadcast last June by WETA PBS in Washington, D.C. and MPT in Maryland, the documentary was directed and produced by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Patrick Sammon in association with the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. Additional nominees who worked on the film include producer Julianne Donofrio and editor Amir Jaffer.
“Lou’s Legacy” tells the story of two D.C. icons — legendary Washington Blade reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. and beloved drag performer Donnell Robinson, known to generations of Washington audiences as “Ella Fitzgerald.” Through Chibbaro’s nearly five-decade career at the Blade and Ella’s return to the stage after a three-year hiatus following COVID, the 29-minute documentary explores the history of Washington’s LGBTQ community and today’s rising backlash against LGBTQ rights, including laws targeting drag performers.
“We’re honored that Lou’s Legacy has been recognized alongside such an impressive group of historical documentaries,” said Sammon. “This nomination is especially meaningful because the film preserves and celebrates the stories of people who helped shape queer history in Washington, DC — often without recognition from mainstream institutions. We’re deeply grateful to the Mattachine Society, Lou Chibbaro Jr., Donnell Robinson, WETA PBS, and everyone who helped bring this project to life.”
“Lou’s Legacy” premiered on WETA PBS in June 2025 during Pride month. The documentary also broadcast on Maryland Public Television and is streaming nationally on PBS.org. WETA will rebroadcast “Lou’s Legacy” several times during Pride month, including June 15 th at 9 p.m. Winners of the Capital Emmy Awards will be announced at the Capital Emmy Gala on June 20 at the Bethesda Marriott Hotel.
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