District of Columbia
New D.C. police chief pledges ‘fair and equal treatment’ for LGBTQ community
Says role as ordained minister won’t impact efforts to provide services for everyone
Acting D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith, whose nomination to become permanent chief is pending before the D.C. Council, said she is committed to providing “fair and equal treatment” for all the city’s diverse communities, including the LGBTQ community, in her role as the city’s chief law enforcement officer.
In an Aug. 9 interview with the Washington Blade, Smith responded to questions raised by some in the LGBTQ community about whether due to her background as an ordained minister she may have biased views toward LGBTQ people based on her religious beliefs.
“Thank you for that question, and I certainly welcome any questions that members of any community may have with respect to my faith,” Smith told the Blade. “What I will tell you is I’ve been in law enforcement for 25 years. And I’ve always and will continue to provide fair and equal treatment to anyone who is subjected to any kind of threat or crime,” Smith said.
“And since we’re specifically speaking about the LGBTQ community, that translates to the LGBTQ community as well,” she said. “And my faith has nothing to do with me treating anyone differently,” she added.
“I served when I came into the Metropolitan Police Department as the Chief Equity Officer,” she said. “And my role was certainly about fair and equitable treatment for every employee of the Metropolitan Police Department,” said Smith. “And for me, that transfers to the members of our community – our businesses, our visitors, our tourists here in the District of Columbia.”
Asked whether that policy would apply to members of the LGBTQ community as well, Smith replied: “Absolutely. Listen, we have many members from the LGBTQ community here in MPD, including a transgender sworn member currently up to the rank of a lieutenant.”
Smith added, “We also have LGBTQ members in the reserve and volunteer corps supporting many functions in the department, including support of the LGBTQ Liaison Unit. We have a nationally recognized LGBTQ Liaison Unit.”
According to Smith, that unit, listed on the MPD website as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Liaison Unit (LGBTLU), provides services to crime victims, outreach to community meetings, and “training and support to the rest of the department as well as the community.”
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on July 17 nominated Smith to become the city’s next police chief. At the time her nomination was announced Smith was serving as an assistant chief. A short time later, the mayor named her acting chief while her nomination was pending before the D.C. Council, which is expected to approve the nomination when the Council returns from its summer recess.
If her nomination is approved by the Council, Smith would make history by becoming the first African-American woman to serve as the permanent D.C. police chief since the department was founded in 1861.
Smith joined the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department in May 2022 after having served as Chief of Police for the United States Park Police in the nation’s capital. Her more than 20 years of service with the Park Police included assignments at Park Police offices in New York, Atlanta, and San Francisco.
Among the topics the Blade raised with Smith during her interview was concern raised by some LGBTQ activists and other community activists that the shortfall of police officers that the department is currently facing has prevented the department from replacing members of the community liaison units, including the LGBT Liaison Unit, when members of those units retire or take other jobs.
Smith said she is committed to retaining the liaison units and doing all she can to keep them fully staffed.
“While we have no officers who have been reassigned away from those units, we do realize that attrition takes a toll on any area of the organization,” she told the Blade. “And what I want you to know is the Special Liaison Branch, which includes the teams servicing the LGBTQ plus community as well as our immigrant, our interfaith, deaf and hard of hearing communities – they play an important role in servicing and connecting with our diverse community,” Smith said.
“And this is especially true now as D.C. prepares to host World Pride in 2025,” she said, referring to D.C. having been selected to host the 2025 international LGBTQ Pride event, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors from throughout the world.
“And so, what I have done as an initial step within the last couple of weeks is that I’ve approved four vacancies to be filled in the Special Liaison Branch,” Smith said. “And two of those vacancies will be for our LGBTQ unit.”
The Blade also asked Smith how she plans to address the issue of hate crimes at a time when D.C. police crime statistics show that over the past 10 years, the largest number of reported hate crimes in the city are those that have targeted LGBTQ people as victims.
“What I can say is in the department, we certainly have strong policies and training to make sure members can recognize hate crimes,” Smith said. “And officers have to report whether there are any indicators of a possible hate crime whenever they’re investigating or engaged in a case,” she added. “We have a multidisciplinary team that works together on reported hate crimes.”
The Blade asked Smith for her thoughts on calls by some community activists, including LGBTQ activists, for the decriminalization of prostitution involving consenting adults and for the police to de-prioritize making prostitution-related arrests for consenting adults.
“Well, I think our position today and our position has always been that we continue to enforce the laws of the District of Columbia,” she said, adding that in the past several years D.C. police have focused more on targeting sex worker customers or “Johns” in making prostitution-related arrests.
Smith said she was not familiar with the specifics of the D.C. police investigation into the unexplained death of D.C. gay resident Ernest Terrell Newkirk, 55, whose body was found May 28 on a Southeast D.C. street several hours after he attended an LGBTQ Black Pride dance party at a Capitol Hill gay bar. His partner of 21 years, Roger Turpin, said Newkirk’s wallet, phone, jewelry, and car were all missing at the time he was found.
Turpin has expressed concern that the detective initially assigned to the case declined to look for fingerprints on Newkirk’s car that was found two days later and was not interested in tracking down calls made by someone on Newkirk’s phone shortly after his body was found.
D.C. Police have said they have ruled out a homicide in the case because there were no signs of injuries on Newkirk’s body, but the cause of death has yet to be determined due to delays in chemical toxicology tests by the Office of the D.C. Chief Medical Examiner. A police spokesperson said the case remains under investigation.
Turpin said a new detective was assigned to the case and he is hopeful that police would aggressively investigate the case.
“What I can do is see if I can obtain some additional information from our investigators on this side,” Smith told the Blade. She said she knows from personal observation that MPD detectives “work very aggressively” on the cases to which they are assigned.
Asked if she has any message for the LGBTQ community in her role as Acting Chief of Police and in anticipation of her confirmation as permanent chief, Smith had this to say:
“Well, I can say personally the LGBTQ plus community will see me. They will see me out and about,” she added. “They will probably see me in spaces and places that they’re probably not familiar with seeing me in,” she said.
“And I plan to be very supportive. And if there’s anything that I can do to be of support to the LGBTQ community just as I would any other community, I would add, don’t hesitate to reach out,” she said. “If there’s anything I can learn new about various communities or different communities I’m open to that as well.”
A transcript of the full interview follows:
Acting D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith
Interview with Lou Chibbaro Jr.
August 9, 2023
Washington Blade: People in the LGBTQ community who are familiar with your record with the D.C. police and the U.S. Park Service have had good things to say about you. But some in the LGBTQ community may be interested in knowing whether your role as an ordained minister might have some impact on how you address LGBTQ-related issues. Historically, some clergy have not been supportive of LGBTQ people and even have opposed legislation to protect the rights of LGBTQ people. Might you have a message for those who may be curious about your role as a police chief and a clergy person?
Pamela Smith: So, what I can say, and thank you for the question. And I certainly welcome any questions that members of any community may have with respect to my faith. What I will tell you is I’ve been in law enforcement for 25 years. And I’ve always and will continue to provide fair and equal treatment to anyone who is subjected to any kind of threat or crime.
And I will always ensure that I provide fair and equal treatment to the members of the Metropolitan Police Department and the residents and the citizens that are visiting the District of Columbia. And my faith has nothing to do with me treating anyone differently. I served when I came into the Metropolitan Police Department as the Chief Equity Officer. And my role was certainly about fair and equitable treatment for every employee of the Metropolitan Police Department.
And for me that transfers to the members of our community – our businesses, our visitors, our tourists here in the District of Columbia.
Blade: Can we assume that would apply to members of the LGBTQ community as well?
Smith: Absolutely. Listen, we have many members from the LGBTQ community here in MPD, including a transgender sworn member currently up to the rank of a lieutenant. We also have LGBTQ members in the reserve and volunteer corps supporting many functions in the department, including support of the LGBTQ Liaison Unit. We have a nationally recognized LGBTQ Liaison Unit. They serve our community. They provide services to victims, regular outreach to meetings. And they provide training and support to the rest of the department as well as the community.
So, I state that I support and will always provide fair and equal treatment to all people. And since we’re specifically speaking about the LGBTQ community, that translates to the LGBTQ community as well.
Blade: Regarding your mention of the LGBTQ Liaison Unit, we have heard that due to the shortage of police officers on the force, the number of officers assigned to the liaison units, including the LGBTQ Liaison Unit, have declined, in some cases due to attrition. Can you comment on whether there is a problem in keeping the liaison units sufficiently staffed?
Smith: I don’t think there is a problem in keeping up the liaison units. I think we have to be honest and talk about the fact that we have low staffing numbers across the department. Certainly, we have many challenges as we make decisions on how we reposition some of our employees. And we will continue to do that throughout the years.
While we have no officers who have been reassigned away from those units, we do realize that attrition takes a toll on any area of the organization. And what I want you to know is the Special Liaison Branch, which includes the team servicing the LGBTQ+ community as well as our immigrant, our interfaith, deaf and hard of hearing communities – they play an important role in servicing and connecting with our diverse community.
And this is especially true now as D.C. prepares to host World Pride in 2025. And so, what I have done as an initial step within the last couple of weeks is that I’ve approved four vacancies to be filled in the Special Liaison Branch. And two of those vacancies will be for our LGBTQ unit.
Blade: The last we had heard was there were just three officers assigned to the LGBT Liaison Unit as of earlier this year.
Smith: Well, it’s important to me. I think I said to you as I think about enhancing numbers in some of our positions as we gain new employees across the police department, I recognize the importance of our Special Liaison Branch and the members of the team that provide a service to our community. It’s certainly important to me that we not only fill vacancies in other areas across the workforce, but I am also committed to doing the same thing with our Special Liaison Branch to include our LGBT community liaison unit.
Blade: Concerning the issue of hate crimes, the MPD data over the past 10 years shows that the largest number of reported hate crimes in D.C. are those that target members of the LGBTQ community. Is there anything you can say about the department’s efforts to address hate crimes?
Smith: What I can say is in the department, we certainly have strong policies and training to make sure members can recognize potential hate crimes, for all crimes. And officers have to report whether there are any indicators of a possible hate crime whenever they’re investigating or engaged in a case. We have a multidisciplinary team that works together on reported hate crimes.
And that also includes the Special Liaison Branch, which shares information from the community with the team and information on investigations within the community. As appropriate, we have a Criminal Investigation Division, which investigates all hate crimes. And then we have intelligence. And what we do with intelligence is that we share information that the department becomes aware of with the other two branches, such as our Criminal Investigation Division and our Special Liaison Branch.
We also coordinate with our federal partners, including the prosecutors, the FBI, the U.S. Park Police, as well as other law enforcement agencies across the District of Columbia. We also have great relationships with our colleges and universities – our college campuses, rather, to ensure that information is shared and any available resources that we might have, or they might have, that we can leverage those resources.
And I’m sure, as you know, it’s difficult sometimes for the police to address hate and bias in the community, which is why we partner with people and entities that can mean stronger messages such as with Rev. [Thomas] Bowen, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Religious Affairs, and other faith leaders. We focus on preventing crime generally by responding to investigate hate crimes that happen and working with the community.
So, similarly like domestic violence or sexual assaults, we are concerned and making sure we encourage reporting of these types of events to ensure that we can drive these numbers down.
Blade: We have observed that in a number of cases the U.S. Attorney’s office drops the designation of a hate crime that D.C. police have sent to them after an arrest is made. Officials with the U.S. Attorney’s office have said sometimes there is insufficient evidence for them to obtain a conviction by a jury on a hate crimes case. Is MPD doing all it can to make sure the evidence for hate crimes cases is sufficient?
Smith: Absolutely. And I think that goes to what I said earlier, just making sure we continue to train our employees, our officers, our members to recognize potential hate crimes and making sure we’re providing the U.S. Attorneyi’s office with the appropriate evidence and documentation that’s needed to prosecute these cases.
Blade: Some in the LGBTQ community have joined advocates for sex workers in asking whether D.C. police should be devoting their resources, at a time when violent crime is rising, to arresting sex workers, including transgender women who sometimes are forced to engage in survival sex work because they can’t find other employment. We hear that arrests of transgender sex workers have occurred in recent years in an area along Eastern Avenue near the Maryland line, but that MPD may be changing its policy this year by not making as many of those arrests when the parties involved are consenting adults. What can you say about that?
Smith: Well, I would definitely never say that we’re not focused on all aspects of crimes throughout the District of Columbia and that the officers are less concerned and there’s less of an interest in making sure we are addressing all crimes. In the department, we work very closely with many of our community partners such as HIPS to try and address community concerns. And to make sure that individuals engaged in survival sex work have other options.
At MPD we have made five arrests this year, all of which were of Johns, not sex workers. I think we conducted an operation within our Sixth District. And that includes one of the areas that you spoke about, Eastern Avenue… We’ve made like five arrests this year. And what I will say is between the years of 2018 and 2023, as late as August 6, which is a couple of days ago, we’ve arrested over 2,150 Johns related to prostitution.
Blade: Again, some in the LGBTQ community as well as in the community at large there has been talk of decriminalizing sex work only between consenting adults and deemphasizing arrests involving consenting adults. No one is condoning the sex trafficking of minors. Does that put MPD in a difficult position since you’ve said you must enforce the law?
Smith: Well, I think our position today and our position has always been that we continue to enforce the laws of the District of Columbia.
Blade: On another matter, the partner of a D.C. gay man whose body was found on a street in Southeast D.C. — on 46th Place, S.E. — the day after he attended an LGBTQ Black Pride event at a bar on Capitol Hill over Memorial Day weekend has raised concerns that police are not sufficiently investigating this case. The partner says the man’s wallet, phone, and car were all missing before the car was found a few days later in another location. He says the detective at the time was not interested in looking for fingerprints inside the car when it was found or in tracking down phone calls made on the partner’s phone in an incident, he thinks, was a carjacking. Paris Lewbel, the MPD spokesperson, has said the case is still under investigation. Is this something you are aware of and which you might comment on?
Smith: Well, I am not familiar with the particulars of this case or investigation. But, in spaces where I’m not familiar with it and also if it’s still under investigation based as Paris has shared with you, that would be my position as well. What I can do is see if I can obtain some additional information from our investigators on this side.
What I will say and will say this outwardly is that our detectives work very aggressively. I’ve seen them since I’ve been here – I’ve been with the Metropolitan Police Department now for almost 16 months. And I have seen them workday in and day out. As a matter of fact, I’m often concerned about their emotional well-being because they are always in the office, always working.
They take these cases very personally. And I know they would do their due diligence if there was any foul play or anything that may have been associated with this case or any particular case. I’ve seen them really work hard. And I don’t think in this particular case it would be any different.
Blade: The partner did tell us yesterday that another detective contacted him. He thinks it might have been after the Washington Blade story ran on this case. He said the detective told him they are continuing to work on the case.
Smith: Excellent – that’s good to hear.
Blade: Is there anything else you may wish to say that the LGBTQ community might want to know regarding your plans for the MPD?
Smith: Well, I can say personally the LGBTQ+ community will see me. They will see me out and about. They will probably see me in spaces and places that they’re probably not familiar with seeing me in. And I plan to be very supportive. And if there’s anything that I can do to be of support to the LGBTQ community just as I would with any other community, I would add don’t hesitate to reach out. If there’s anything I can learn new about various communities or different communities I’m open to that as well.
Blade: Thank you very much, chief, for this interview.
District of Columbia
D.C. Council member honored by LGBTQ homeless youth group
Doni Crawford receives inaugural Wanda Alston Legacy Award
About 100 people turned out Tuesday evening, April 7, for a presentation by D.C.’s Wanda Alston Foundation of its inaugural Wanda Alston Legacy Award to D.C. Council member Doni Crawford (I-At-Large) for her support for the foundation’s mission to support homeless LGBTQ youth.
Among those who attended the event was Japer Bowles, director of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, who delivered an official proclamation issued by Bowser declaring April 7, 2026 “A Day of Remembrance for Wanda Alston.”
Alston, a beloved women’s and LGBTQ rights activist, served as the city’s first director of the then newly created Office of LGBTQ Affairs under then-Mayor Anthony Williams from 2004 until her death by murder on March 16, 2005.
To the shock and dismay of fellow LGBTQ rights advocates, police and court records reported Alston, 45, was stabbed to death inside her Northeast D.C. house by a man high on crack cocaine who lived nearby and who stole her credit cards and car. The perpetrator, William Martin Parrott, 38, was arrested by D.C. police the next day and later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He was sentenced in July 2005 to 24 years in prison.
Crawford was among those attending the award event who reflected on Alston’s legacy and outspoken advocacy for LGBTQ and feminist causes.
“I am deeply humbled and honored to receive this inaugural award,” Crawford told the Washington Blade at the conclusion of the event. “I think the world of Wanda Alston. She has set such a great foundation for me and other Council members to build on,” she said.
“Her focus on inclusivity and intersectionality is really important as we approach this work,” Crawford added. “And it’s going to guide my work at the Council every day.”
Crawford was appointed to the D.C. Council in January of this year to replace then Council member Kenyan McDuffie (I-At-Large), who resigned to run for D.C. mayor as a Democrat. She is being challenged by four other independent candidates in a June 16 special election for the Council seat.
Under the city’s Home Rule Charter written and approved by Congress, the seat is one of two D.C. Council at-large seats that cannot be held by a “majority party” candidate, meaning a Democrat.
A statement released by the Alston Foundation last month announcing Crawford’s selection for the Wanda Alston Legacy Award praised Crawford’s record of support for its work on behalf of LGBTQ youth.
“From behind the scenes to now serving as an At-Large Council member, she has fought fearlessly for affordable housing, LGBTQ+ funding priorities, and racial justice,” the statement says. “Council member Crawford’s leadership reflects the same courage and conviction that defined Wanda’s legacy.”
Organizers of the event noted that it was held on what would have been Wanda Alston’s 67th birthday.
“Today’s legacy reception was a smashing success,” said Cesar Toledo, the Alston Foundation’s executive director. “Not only did we come together to celebrate Wanda Alston on her birthday, but we also were able to raise over $10,000 for our homeless LGBTQ youth here in D.C.,” Toledo told the Blade.
“In addition to that, we celebrated and we acknowledged a rising star in our community,” he said. “And that is At-Large Council member Doni Crawford, who we named the inaugural Wanda Alston Legacy Award recipient.”
At the request of D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large) the Council voted unanimously on Jan. 20, 2026, to appoint Crawford to the Council seat being vacated by McDuffie.
Council records show she joined McDuffie’s Council staff in 2022 as a policy adviser and later became his legislative director before McDuffie appointed her as staff director for the Council’s Committee on Business and Economic Development for which McDuffie served as chair.
District of Columbia
Police mental health struggles gain growing attention
‘My body begins to manifest physically, through depression, stress’
When Scott Silverii began his career as a police officer, he faced daily exposure to traumatic incidents with little guidance or support, particularly in distressed neighborhoods where officers were expected to respond decisively under pressure.
“When I started, the only thing they offered was to suck it up and get over it,” Silverii said. “Any indication that you were hurt meant that you were weak, and if you were weak, it meant you could not be trusted.”
Years later, when Silverii became a police chief, he chose a different approach. Rather than reinforcing silence around trauma, he made mental health support a visible part of his leadership.
“In every critical incident that we had, I would bring the critical incident stress debriefing team in — and I would participate in it,” Silverii said. “I wanted to promote it from the top. That’s what it’s going to continue to take to change the culture.”
Silverii’s experience reflects a broader reality in law enforcement. Across the country, police officers face ongoing mental health challenges linked to repeated exposure to violent crime scenes, fatal accidents, and human suffering — experiences that most civilians never encounter. Long shifts and the responsibility of protecting the public have long been documented to further intensify emotional strain, particularly when officers fear making mistakes with serious consequences.
Silverii, former Thibodaux, La., chief of police and current National Law Enforcement Initiative Manager at Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), said coping mechanisms in the past were often unhealthy.
“A lot of officers, they would drink — sometimes prescription drug use, just different ways,” of coping, he said. Today, he said, the trauma can linger long after an incident: “…you become affected by the trauma. It doesn’t have to happen to you. But when officers respond to a crash, you’re involved… You carry this trauma.”
In some cases, he says, the impact resurfaces every year. “My body begins to manifest physically, through depression, through stress… once I realize it’s the anniversary, I can start dealing with it,” he said.
For decades, police culture discouraged officers from seeking mental health support, often treating emotional distress as a weakness rather than an occupational hazard. In recent years, however, departments have begun expanding access to counseling, peer-support programs, and crisis-intervention training.
In Baltimore, a shift in police culture is tackling the long-standing “shrug it off” mentality toward officer mental health. The Baltimore Police Department’s Officer Safety and Wellness Section, started in 2018, changed how the agency handles trauma, depression, and substance abuse by treating these issues as medical needs rather than disciplinary failures.
A core component of the program is its confidential alcohol addiction treatment, which has seen more than 250 officers voluntarily sign themselves in without fear of termination. This proactive approach has led to a dramatic drop in internal interventions — falling from 250 in 2018 to 48 in 2024 — alongside a decrease in citizen complaints and use-of-force incidents.
The need for such programs is underscored by national data from the Police1 2024 State of the Industry report, which found that 76% of officers cite a lack of time due to heavy workloads as the primary barrier to maintaining their health. More than 50% of respondents report that a significant stigma still surrounds seeking mental health services. Perhaps most telling — 12% of officers nationwide report having no access to mental health resources at all, and 33% have considered calling themselves out of service due to emotional distress or exhaustion.
Chris Asplen, executive director of the National Criminal Justice Association, is a former Washington prosecutor who handled child abuse and other high-stakes cases. He said the emotional weight of the work eventually led him to step away after becoming a parent.
“It became too mentally and emotionally difficult after I had my own child,” Asplen said.
Asplen said his understanding of trauma was also shaped in part by his upbringing. Raised by a parent who struggled with mental illness, he described growing up feeling overlooked. “My father’s mental health issues made me essentially invisible to him,” he said — an experience that later informed how he approached victims in the justice system.
Asplen also pointed to disparities in how mental health crises are handled. His family’s middle-class background, he said, afforded protections and support not available to many others. “Mental health issues for people who are not white and middle class are often treated as criminal matters,” he said.
Experts warn that when mental health challenges go unaddressed, they can affect officers’ judgment, job performance, and interactions with the public. In response, lawmakers and communities have begun exploring preventive approaches. In 2023, Congress passed the De-escalation Act, providing funding for training focused on crisis response, de-escalation, and officer wellness.
In addition to legislative efforts, some communities are turning to violence intervention programs aimed at reducing harm before police are required to respond. One such organization, Roca, was founded in Massachusetts in 1988 and has operated in Baltimore since 2018. According to the organization’s impact data, 87% of its participants have had no new incarcerations after entering the program for at least 24 months.
Police officers in Baltimore and several other cities have been trained by Roca’s nonprofit coaching arm, the Roca Impact Institute, to use cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to regulate their emotions and understand the impact of trauma on officers and community members. The training reduced stress, loss of temper and use of force incidents, according to the institute.
A 2024 report by the D.C. Office of the Attorney General showed the city’s violence intervention program’s efforts contributed to an 18% decrease in shootings and a 26% decrease in gun homicides across its target neighborhoods in 2023. Based on the national Cure Violence Global model, the programs treat violence as a public health epidemic through the use of what it calls “credible messengers” to de-escalate conflicts.
But a Washington Post investigation published Feb. 3 found excessive spending that City Administrator Kevin Donahue called a “completely inappropriate use of public money.” A week later, the publication reported that two DC violence interrupters were charged with murder in the death of a Baltimore man in a DC nightclub in 2023.
When done correctly, these programs can offer a secondary benefit by reducing the volume of high-stress calls handled by law enforcement. Advocates say such approaches can lessen the emotional toll on officers by preventing traumatic encounters altogether.
“If we can reduce the amount of trauma that occurs at the scene,” Asplen said, “then we’re a lot further along.”
(Carl Barbett is a senior at Bard High School Early College DC, one of Youthcast Media Group’s journalism class partners. This story was produced under the mentorship of Edith Mwangi, a Kenyan multimedia journalist based in D.C. with a background in international reporting and politics.)
District of Columbia
Key lifestyle changes can help patients cope with diabetes
Small daily choices make a big difference in one’s health
One Tuesday evening after my family finished dinner, I noticed my grandmother sitting on the couch, sweating more than usual. The family room wasn’t hot, and she hadn’t eaten a lot of salty food that day, so seeing her like that made me worry.
My grandmother, Shirley Mitchell, is a 72-year-old who lives with Type 2 diabetes, and moments like this, when her blood sugar gets dangerously low, can happen without warning. Watching her reach for her glucose tablets reminded me how serious her condition is.
Each day, millions of people living with diabetes face a choice that can either play a role in protecting their health or putting it at risk– namely, what they eat. Nationally, 12 percent of the population lives with diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In D.C., nine percent of residents are known to have diabetes, with likely many more undiagnosed, said Dr. Marcy Oppenheimer, a family medicine doctor who practices in Northeast D.C.
“It’s super common, especially as you get older,” she said, estimating that 15 to 20 percent of her patients have diabetes, and another 20 percent have pre-diabetes, where blood sugar is higher than normal but not yet at the level to trigger a diabetes diagnosis.
What is diabetes?
Diabetes is a long-term condition that affects how the body controls blood sugar. When blood sugar levels are not managed properly, they can rise too high and cause serious damage to the body. This happens when the body does not make enough insulin or cannot use insulin correctly, which means sugar stays in the blood instead of being moved into the body’s cells where it’s needed for energy.
Having high levels of sugar in the blood over long periods of time causes damage to just about every body system, said Oppenheimer. “It can pretty much cause any part of your body to start failing over the long term, if you have high sugar for a long time.”
While food isn’t the only factor that affects diabetes — genetics play an even bigger role — certain foods can worsen diabetes by spiking the amount of sugar in the blood.
What foods should you eat if you have diabetes?
Healthy food choices play a major role in helping people with diabetes manage their condition. Foods such as vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins like fish and chicken, beans, nuts, and healthy fats digest slowly and provide steady energy. These foods help prevent sudden spikes in blood sugar, which are dangerous for people with diabetes.
Many people with diabetes learn that planning meals, watching portion sizes, and choosing healthier options can make a big difference in how they feel each day.
“I had to slow down and pay attention to what I ate because everything affected my sugar levels,” says Mitchell.
Even small choices, like drinking a lot of soda or eating too much white bread, can cause blood sugar levels to rise quickly, said Oppenheimer.
Which foods can increase the risk or harm of diabetes?
Unhealthy food choices like these can seriously harm those with diabetes. Sugary foods such as candies, cake, cookies, and sweetened drinks cause blood sugar to spike quickly. Processed foods, white bread, and fast food are also harmful because they can be high in unhealthy saturated fats and refined carbohydrates.
When these foods are eaten often, they can lead to weight gain and they make diabetes harder to control and increase the risk of long-term health problems, said Oppenheimer.
Over time, poor eating habits that lead to prolonged high blood sugar can lead to heart disease, nerve damage, kidney problems, and even vision loss.
“Basically, diabetes is an all-body condition or disease, and it just varies from person to person in how it affects you,” said Oppenheimer. “If you have uncontrolled diabetes, it definitely has a negative impact on both your daily life and your long-term health.”
Anyone with diabetes can develop serious complications like blindness — or diabetic retinopathy — and the risk factors are higher for Black, Latino and American Indian or Alaska Native groups, according to the CDC.
What you or a loved one can do to manage diabetes
Mitchell warns others not to ignore the impact of food on their health. “Don’t ignore your health,” she says. “Fix your problems early before they get worse.”
Making lifestyle changes is key because, after all, diabetes changes your entire lifestyle, says Mitchell. “Walking throughout the day has helped me feel better.”
Daniel Dow, a middle school coach at Friendship Blow Pierce Elementary & Middle School in Northeast D.C. who also has diabetes agreed with Mitchell.
“Don’t wait to change your habits, start right away,” he says. “I learned that what I eat before practice affects my sugar for the whole day.”
Mitchell’s and Dow’s experiences show that small daily choices can make a big difference in one’s health. By paying attention to what you eat and how your body responds, you can prevent problems before they get worse. Starting healthy habits early can help you stay strong, focused, and in control of your well-being.
(This article was written by a student in the journalism program at Bard High School Early College DC. This work is part of a partnership between the Washington Blade Foundation and Youthcast Media Group, funded through the FY26 Community Development Grant from the Office of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.)
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Log Cabin Republicans to honor Scott Presler
Cuba bajo presión y sin respuestas
Tenn. lawmakers pass transgender “watch list” bill
