Local
Del. gay man who alleged police abuse found guilty
Anti-gay bias allegation not mentioned in trial
Robaire G. Lizama was found guilty of several misdemeanor charges.
(Photo courtesy Lizama)
GEORGETOWN, Del. — A 66-year-old gay man who filed a complaint against a police officer in Lewes, Del., for allegedly using excessive force to arrest him in January during an altercation at a hospital emergency room was found guilty by a Delaware judge on Tuesday on misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct, menacing, and resisting arrest.
Judge Rosemary Beauregard of the Sussex County Court of Common Pleas announced at the conclusion of a non-jury trial in Georgetown, Del., that a state prosecutor proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Robaire G. Lizama engaged in “hysterical and abusive” behavior at the hospital that justified his arrest and confirmed he committed the three offenses.
In a development that court observers said was routine for a misdemeanor case like this one, Beauregard handed down an immediate sentence for Lizama that included a 30-day suspended jail term, six months of court-monitored probation, and a $600 fine plus $57 in court reimbursement costs.
In another development likely to surprise LGBT activists familiar with the case, Lizama’s public defender attorney Heather Lingo made no mention during the trial of Lizama’s written complaint to the Lewes Police Department in February alleging that the arresting officer singled him out because he’s gay.
When approached by the Blade after the trial Lingo declined to comment, saying she would have nothing more to say about the case.
“I don’t think he would grab a straight man, bear hug him and then body slam him to the ground and try to tell him he’s being arrested,” Lizama told the Washington Blade at the time he filed his complaint with Lewes Police Chief Thomas Sell in February.
Lizama, a former D.C. resident who lives in Lewes, has accused Officer Tyrone Woodyard of fabricating the charges against him after throwing him to the floor, causing a head injury during a Jan. 25 incident at Beebe Healthcare, a hospital in Lewes.
The arrest report prepared by Woodyard says Lizama had been acting in a disorderly manner after he accompanied a female friend to the emergency room who had been experiencing chest pain. Lizama testified at the trial that he was concerned that nurses who admitted and began to treat his friend weren’t being compassionate in their handling of the situation.
He denied he acted in a threatening or menacing way or that he refused to leave the emergency room when asked to do so by one of the nurses.
Jaqueline Marshall, the emergency room nurse who participated in the treatment of Lizama’s friend, and hospital security officer Julian Peacock testified that Lizama – while understandably upset that his friend may have been suffering from a heart attack – behaved in such an aggressive and hysterical way that the nursing staff became alarmed and felt threatened.
Marshall, Peacock and Officer Woodyard each testified that Lizama “lunged” at Woodyard while Woodyard and Peacock were escorting Lizama out of the emergency room area to the hospital’s lobby, where they told him he would have to wait while his friend was treated.
Woodyard told the court he couldn’t immediately determine whether Lizama was armed when Lizama suddenly turned toward him in an aggressive way. He said he decided to “taken him down” on the floor out of concern that Lizama could have harmed the nurses and others walking through the emergency room area.
Woodyard and Peacock testified that when Woodyard tried to handcuff Lizama after telling him he was under arrest, Lizama resisted the officer’s attempts to place cuffs on one of his hands and struggled with the officer and Peacock on the floor. This prompted another nurse to enter the fray and assist in restraining Lizama, the two testified.
Lizama testified that he turned toward Woodyard because he was trying to find his way to the entrance to the hospital lobby and in no way was attempting to attack or harm Woodyard. He said he didn’t resist the officer’s attempt to handcuff him but was moving about because he was in pain and was trying to place his hand over his forehead above his eye, which was bleeding after his head struck the floor when Woodyard knocked him down.
In response to questioning by Lingo, Marshall and Peacock acknowledged that Lizama was admitted to the emergency department for treatment after his arrest. Lingo presented a photo of Lizama as evidence that showed a gash over his eye and pointed to Lizama’s testimony that the injury required a plastic bandage to stop the bleeding,
Assistant State Attorney General Paul Seward, the lead prosecutor in the case, presented as evidence a video recording taken from the hospital’s security cameras that shows Lizama and his friend enter the hospital’s emergency department. The video footage shows Lizama moving about and raising his arms in what appeared to be an agitated state as he talked to one of the nurses at the admissions desk.
Beauregard said she based her verdict on what she called “credible and consistent” testimony by Marshall, Peacock and Woodward. She said the three witnesses along with the video recording at the trial convinced her that Lizama’s behavior was, in fact, posing a potential danger to the hospital staff and other visitors and proved he committed the misdemeanor offenses of disorderly conduct, menacing and resisting arrest.
The judge called Lizama’s testimony at the trial “inconsistent” and “contradictory.”
“All three of those witnesses thought something bad was going to happen,” she said. “He put the public at risk and he put his friend at risk,” said Beauregard, saying the disturbance Lizama was creating could have interfered with the nurses’ and doctors’ effort to diagnose and treat the friend.
It was later determined that the friend did not have a heart attack.
Lizama told the Blade after the trial that he had told Lingo, his attorney, about his belief that Officer Woodyard targeted him because he’s gay. He said he doesn’t know why Lingo didn’t raise that concern during the trial.
He has acknowledged that he doesn’t recall Woodyard making anti-gay remarks or making a reference to his sexual orientation at the time of the arrest but said he nevertheless got the impression that the officer assumed he’s gay.
When approached after the trial and asked by the Blade about Lizama’s allegation of anti-gay bias, Officer Woodyard refused to comment, saying he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.
“I’m totally shocked,” Lizama said of the judge’s guilty verdict in an interview after the trial.
He said Lingo suggested he accept a plea bargain offer that Seward made minutes before the start of the trial. Still reeling over the verdict, Lizama said he didn’t remember what the terms of the plea offer consisted of.
“I told my attorney if I don’t think I’m guilty why would I plead guilty?” said Lizama. “I wholeheartedly didn’t think I was guilty so I said no. I wanted to go with the trial.”
Virginia
DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room
Three male high school students suspended after complaining about classmate
The Justice Department has asked to join a federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools over the way it handled the case of three male high school students who complained about a transgender student in a boys’ locker room.
The Washington Blade earlier this year reported Loudoun County public schools suspended the three boys and launched a Title IX investigation into whether they sexually harassed the student after they said they felt uncomfortable with their classmate in the locker room at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.
The parents of two of the boys filed a lawsuit against Loudoun County public schools in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. The Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center and America First Legal, which White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller co-founded, represent them.
The Justice Department in a Dec. 8 press release announced that “it filed legal action against the Loudoun County (Va.) School Board (Loudoun County) for its denial of equal protection based on religion.”
“The suit alleges that Loudoun County applied Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender ideology, to two Christian, male students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” reads the press release.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release said “students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.”
“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” said Dhillon.
Outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in May announced an investigation into the case.
The Virginia Department of Education in 2023 announced the new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students for which Youngkin asked. Equality Virginia and other advocacy groups claim they, among other things, forcibly out trans and nonbinary students.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in February launched an investigation into whether Loudoun County and four other Northern Virginia school districts’ policies in support of trans and nonbinary students violate Title IX and President Donald Trump’s executive order that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from promoting “gender ideology.”
District of Columbia
Capital Pride announces change in date for 2026 D.C. Pride parade and festival
Events related to U.S. 250th anniversary and Trump birthday cited as reasons for change
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, has announced it is changing the dates for the 2026 Capital Pride Parade and Festival from the second weekend in June to the third weekend.
“For over a decade, Capital Pride has taken place during the second weekend in June, but in 2026, we are shifting our dates in response to the city’s capacity due to major events and preparations for the 250th anniversary of the United States,” according to a Dec. 9 statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.
The statement says the parade will take place on Saturday, June 20, 2026, with the festival and related concert taking place on June 21.
“This change ensures our community can gather safely and without unnecessary barriers,” the statement says. “By moving the celebration, we are protecting our space and preserving Pride as a powerful act of visibility, solidarity, and resistance,” it says.
Ryan Bos, the Capital Pride Alliance CEO and President, told the Washington Blade the change in dates came after the group conferred with D.C. government officials regarding plans for a number of events in the city on the second weekend in June. Among them, he noted, is a planned White House celebration of President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and other events related to the U.S. 250th anniversary, which are expected to take place from early June through Independence Day on July 4.
The White House has announced plans for a large June 14, 2026 celebration on the White House south lawn of Trump’s 80th birthday that will include a large-scale Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event involving boxing and wrestling competition.
Bos said the Capital Pride Parade will take place along the same route it has in the past number of years, starting at 14th and T Streets, N.W. and traveling along 14th Street to Pennsylvania Ave., where it will end. He said the festival set for the following day will also take place at its usual location on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between 2nd Street near the U.S. Capitol, to around 7th Street, N.W.
“Our Pride events thrive because of the passion and support of the community,” Capital Pride Board Chair Anna Jinkerson said in the statement. “In 2026, your involvement is more important than ever,” she said.
District of Columbia
Three women elected leaders of Capital Pride Alliance board
Restructured body includes chair rather than president as top leader
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, announced it has restructured its board of directors and elected for the first time three women to serve as leaders of the board’s Executive Committee.
“Congratulations to our newly elected Executive Officers, making history as Capital Pride Alliance’s first all-women Board leadership,” the group said in a statement.
“As we head into 2026 with a bold new leadership structure, we’re proud to welcome Anna Jinkerson as Board Chair, Kim Baker as Board Treasurer, and Taylor Lianne Chandler as Board Secretary,” the statement says.
In a separate statement released on Nov. 20, Capital Pride Alliance says the restructured Board now includes the top leadership posts of Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary, replacing the previous structure of President and Vice President as the top board leaders.
It says an additional update to the leadership structure includes a change in title for longtime Capital Pride official Ryan Bos from executive director to chief executive officer and president.
According to the statement, June Crenshaw, who served as acting deputy director during the time the group organized WorldPride 2025 in D.C., will now continue in that role as permanent deputy director.
The statement provides background information on the three newly elected women Board leaders.
• Anna Jinkerson (chair), who joined the Capital Pride Alliance board in 2022, previously served as the group’s vice president for operations and acting president. “A seasoned non-profit executive, she currently serves as Assistant to the President and CEO and Chief of Staff at Living Cities, a national member collaborative of leading philanthropic foundations and financial institutions committed to closing income and wealth gaps in the United States and building an economy that works for everyone.”
• Kim Baker (treasurer) is a “biracial Filipino American and queer leader,” a “retired, disabled U.S. Army veteran with more than 20 years of service and extensive experience in finance, security, and risk management.” She has served on the Capital Pride Board since 2018, “bringing a proven track record of steady, principled leadership and unwavering dedication to the LGBTQ+ community.”
• Taylor Lianne Chandler (Secretary) is a former sign language interpreter and crisis management consultant. She “takes office as the first intersex and trans-identifying member of the Executive Committee.” She joined the Capital Pride Board in 2019 and previously served as executive producer from 2016 to 2018.
Bos told the Washington Blade in a Dec. 2 interview that the Capital Pride board currently has 12 members, and is in the process of interviewing additional potential board members.
“In January we will be announcing in another likely press release the full board,” Bos said. “We are finishing the interview process of new board members this month,” he said. “And they will take office to join the board in January.”
Bos said the organization’s rules set a cap of 25 total board members, but the board, which elects its members, has not yet decided how many additional members it will select and a full 25-member board is not required.
The Nov. 20 Capital Pride statement says the new board executive members will succeed the organization’s previous leadership team, which included Ashley Smith, who served as president for eight years before he resigned earlier this year; Anthony Musa, who served for seven years as vice president of board engagement; Natalie Thompson, who served eight years on the executive committee; and Vince Micone, who served for eight years as vice president of operations.
“I am grateful for the leadership, dedication, and commitment shown by our former executive officers — Ashley, Natalie, Anthony, and Vince — who have been instrumental in CPA’s growth and the exceptional success of WorldPride 2025,” Bos said in the statement.
“I look forward to collaborating with Anna in her new role, as well as Kim and Taylor in theirs, as we take on the important work ahead, prepare for Capital Pride 2026, and expand our platform and voice through Pride365,” Bos said.
DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room
As house Democrats release Epstein photos, Garcia continues to demand DOJ transparency
Capital Pride announces change in date for 2026 D.C. Pride parade and festival
Reflecting on six years on the CAMP Rehoboth board
Mixtape Sapphics hosts holiday party on Dec. 13
EXCLUSIVE: George Santos speaks out on prison, Trump pardon, and more
Trump’s shocking East Wing amputation—and the painful fallout Americans won’t ignore
The harsh truth about HIV phobia in gay dating
Third LGBTQ candidate running for Ward 1 D.C. Council seat
Cynthia Erivo, Eva Victor, and ‘Blue Moon’ bring queer representation to Golden Globe film nominations
-
Congress23 hours agoEXCLUSIVE: George Santos speaks out on prison, Trump pardon, and more
-
The White House5 days agoTrump’s shocking East Wing amputation—and the painful fallout Americans won’t ignore
-
Health4 days ago
The harsh truth about HIV phobia in gay dating
-
District of Columbia5 days ago
Third LGBTQ candidate running for Ward 1 D.C. Council seat
