Category Archives: Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit

Gray holds LGBT Youth Summit

Vince Gray, Washington D.C., Gay News, Washington Blade

D.C. Mayor Vince Gray. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

About 80 people turned out on Saturday, May 11, for D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray’s First Annual LGBT Youth Summit, which was held at the Eastern Market’s meeting hall on Capitol Hill.

Those attending the event appeared to be equally divided between high school age youth and adults, including city officials, teachers and school administrators.

Gray served as moderator of the event, presenting opening remarks outlining the city’s policies and laws that support LGBT equality and fielding questions from the youth.

“We had modest goals – that is to give the youth a chance to be able to express who they are and to talk about some of the challenges of what it means to be gay, bisexual, transgender, and lesbian in our city,” Gray told the Blade after the summit ended.

“And the second goal was to be able to communicate that the mayor’s office, the highest office in this government, is not going to tolerate any kind of discrimination and bias in the city,” he said.

Among the city officials that spoke at the event were Sterling Washington, director of the Mayor’s Office of GLBT Affairs; Elliot Imse, an official with the Office of Human Rights; and Sgt. Matthew Mahl, acting supervisor of the D.C. police Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit.

Imse said the Office of Human Rights has launched an anti-bullying program that allows youth, including students, to file complaints against people who bully them.

Also speaking at the event was Andrew Barnett, executive director of the D.C. LGBT youth advocacy and services group SMYAL.

DeQuan Barclift, a 10th grade student at Richard Wright Public Charter School for Journalism and Media Arts, said he experienced bullying beginning in the third grade.

“I’ve been called the famous ‘F’ word for faggot,” he said. “I’m used to the word. It doesn’t affect me.”

Barclift added, “If anyone here has been bullied my advice to you would be hold your head up.”

He said he’s had a more positive experience in high school, noting that he recently wrote a letter to his school newsletter telling about his coming out.

“I got more positive feedback than negative feedback,” he said.

Gay man says he was robbed by escort at D.C. hotel

Capital Hilton Hotel, gay news, Washington Blade

Capital Hilton Hotel (Photo by AgnosticPreachersKid via Wikimedia Commons)

A 69-year-old gay man said he was assaulted and robbed by someone claiming to be a male escort and three accomplices on May 28 in a room at the Capital Hilton Hotel rented by the alleged escort.

The man, who spoke only on condition that he not be identified, said he responded to an ad placed by the man claiming to be the escort on the site Rentboy.com. He said he called a phone number listed in the ad and the person answering the phone arranged for him to meet the escort at a room at the Capital Hilton.

When he arrived, the man said, the person who let him in the room was not the same person whose photograph appeared in the ad. He said he immediately told the person he wanted to cancel the arrangement.

“He told me I had to pay him,” the man said. When he refused to pay, three other men rushed out of the bathroom and began to assault him, the man said. Before allowing him to leave, the four perpetrators took $300 in cash from his wallet and one of his credit cards, he said.

He said he decided against reporting the incident to police because he’s mistrustful about the way police would handle the situation. He said he reported the incident to the hotel’s front desk staff.

Sgt. Matt Mahl, acting supervisor of the D.C. police Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit, said the GLLU would look into the matter but could not make an arrest unless a victim comes forward to press charges against the person or persons who assaulted and robbed the gay man. Mahl said others who may have been victimized in a similar situation should contact the GLLU at 202-727-5427.

Sean Van Sant, director of the New York City-based Rentboy.com, said he takes immediate steps to remove an ad for an escort when he receives reliable information that the escort has engaged in conduct similar to that described by the gay man in D.C. Van Sant said someone from D.C. called his office to report a similar type of complaint, but the gay man who spoke to the Blade about the Capital Hilton incident said he didn’t call Rentboy.com to report the incident.

“My guess is these people are doing this to others,” said the gay man. “This is clearly a scam.”

Greg Brown, the Capital Hilton’s general manager, said the hotel staff offered to call D.C. police when the gay man reported the incident to the front desk.

“He implored the staff not to call police and left,” Brown said.

GLLU supervisor stripped of police powers

Sgt. Matthew Mahl, who has been serving as acting supervisor of the D.C. police department’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit, has been stripped of his police powers, including his uniform, badge and gun, while being investigated for an undisclosed allegation, according to sources familiar with the situation.

“Sgt. Mahl is on non-contact status pending the outcome of an administrative matter,” said police spokesperson Gwendolyn Crump. “He is still at the GLLU.”

Crump told the Blade the GLLU is currently “under the management of Capt. Edward Delgado, the official in charge of the Special Liaison Division.”

She said police personnel rules prevent her from disclosing any additional details, including the reason the department suspended Mahl’s police powers.

Dale Sanders, a D.C. area attorney who, among other things, represents D.C. police officers on legal matters, said he has no knowledge of Mahl’s case. But he said the department suspends police powers from officers for many reasons, including complaints by citizens that an officer used excessive force in making an arrest.

“These types of complaints are very frequent,” he said, adding that in most cases, such complaints go to the city’s civilian complaint review board. “It is not permanent. It is subject to investigation.”

However, Sanders said it’s not routine for an officer to have his or her police powers suspended for most allegations made in citizen complaints.

Philip Eure, director of the civilian Office of Police Complaints, said he would take steps to process a required Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the Blade to determine whether his office is investigating a complaint lodged against Mahl. Complaints filed with the Office of Police Complaints are part of the public record, he said, but are not immediately released.

LGBT activists who know Mahl, including Hassan Naveed, co-chair of the local group Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV), have praised Mahl’s work at the GLLU, calling him a dedicated and hard-working officer who works well with the community.

Naveed, who meets regularly with GLLU members and other police officials, including Capt. Delgado, said no one at the GLLU or the department informed GLOV of Mahl’s changed status.

GLLU supervisor back to full duty status

Matthew Mahl, GLLU, Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit of the Metropolitan Police Department, Washington Blade, gay news

Sgt. Matthew Mahl (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Sgt. Matt Mahl, the acting supervisor of the D.C. police department’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit, resumed his full police duties in late March after the department suspended his police powers for undisclosed reasons sometime last year.

“I can only say he is back to full duty,” police spokesperson Gwendolyn Crump told the Blade on Monday. “We cannot comment further on a personnel matter.”

Mahl continued to work at the GLLU office in Dupont Circle during the suspension period but activists who know him noticed he was wearing civilian clothes and no longer had a gun and badge.

“Sgt. Mahl is on non-contact status pending the outcome of an administrative matter,” Crump told the Blade in March.

D.C. area attorney Dale Edwin Sanders, who sometimes represents District police officers on legal matters, said he knew nothing about Mahl’s situation. But he said the department suspends police powers for many reasons, including complaints by citizens that an officer used excessive force in making an arrest.

“These types of complaints are very frequent,” he said. “It is not permanent. It is subject to investigation.”

LGBT activists who know Mahl have praised his work at the GLLU, calling him a dedicated and hard-working officer who works well with the community.

Mahl was greeted by activists on Saturday, April 27, when he and other GLLU officers visited the LGBT Youth Pride festival in Dupont Circle.

D.C. murders down, anti-LGBT hate crimes up

Cathy Lanier, MPD, Metropolitan Police Department, gay news, Washington Blade

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and District Police Chief Cathy Lanier announced at a news conference on Thursday that the 88 homicides reported in the city in 2012 represent the lowest number of slayings within the city in 50 years.

Lanier noted that while robberies and sexual assaults increased in 2012, violent crimes made up just 19.6 percent of the total number of crimes, with “property crime” making up 84.4 percent of the total number of reported crimes in 2012.

Lanier didn’t include statistics on hate crimes in a crime data presentation she gave at the news conference. But preliminary data on hate crimes posted on the D.C. police website this week show hate crimes targeting victims based on their sexual orientation increased 19 percent, from 37 between January and November of 2011 to 44 between January and November of 2012.

The data show the number of hate crimes against transgender residents increased from 8 to 9 in the same 11-month period from 2011 to 2012, representing a 13 percent hike.

Police officials said hate crime data for December 2012 was being tabulated and would be released at a later date.

The total number of reported hate crimes in 2011 (from January through December) was 42 for the “sexual orientation” category and 11 for the category of “gender identity/expression,” according to the data shown on the police website.

The preliminary, 11-month figures for 2012 show that the city recorded a total of 78 hate crimes for each of the categories of victims – sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, ethnicity/national origin, race, religion, disability, political affiliation, and homelessness.

Of that total of 78, hate crimes targeting a victim because of his or her sexual orientation (44) comprised 56.4 percent of the total, the highest of all the categories. Race related hate crimes (12) came in second, at 15.3 percent, with gender identity and expression (9) coming in third, making up 11.6 percent of all reported hate crimes in D.C.

Hate crimes based on a victim’s religion (6) made up 7.7 percent of the 11-month total in 2012. Just one hate crime was reported so far in 2012 for each of the categories of disability and political affiliation. None was reported for the homelessness category in the 11-month period of 2012.

In his remarks at Thursday’s news conference, Gray said he was hopeful that his Project Empowerment program that provides job training for unemployed transgender people would lower the number of anti-trans hate crimes.

Transgender activists have said some of those participating in the job training program were forced to engage in street prostitution to survive prior to entering the program.

“If we can take some of the sense of need from people who feel like the only way they can survive is by engaging in street activity, the sale of sex, if you will – I think that’s going to reduce some of the hate crimes also because it’s not going to make people as vulnerable as they might have been,” Gray said.

“We’ve got a program started now…to try to improve the understanding of people who are transgender,” he said. “So I think in addition to working at it from a law enforcement perspective, we also need to work on it from the perspective of how we improve the conditions under which people who are transgender, for example, are living.”

Although the hate crime data for December 2012 have yet to be released, preliminary reports on the activities of the department’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit show at least three possible anti-LGBT hate crimes took place in December.

Officials with the local group Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV) have said they believe the actual number of anti-LGBT hate crimes is significantly greater than the number reported because some LGBT victims choose not to report hate crimes.

Activists say some hate crime victims report the crime as an assault without informing police they were targeted for their sexual orientation or gender identity. In other cases, according to GLOV, a police officer many not recognize an assault or other crime as a hate crime and doesn’t record it as such on a police report.

Just one LGBT related murder took place in 2012 — the February 2012 stabbing death of transgender woman Deoni Jones, 23, at a bus stop in Northeast D.C. Police arrested District resident Gary Niles Montgomery, 55, for the crime less than two weeks later. Montgomery has since been indicted on first-degree murder while armed and is being held in jail while he awaits trial.
Police have listed the motive of the slaying as robbery rather than a hate crime.

Transcript follows:

Blade: Chief, can you say a little about hate crimes and where they fit into the overall crime statistics you presented today? Are they going up or down?

Chief Lanier: I don’t have any hate crime statistics with me. I’ll get them for you. We were staying pretty much even across the board for hate crimes. We did have some increases in different categories. But I have to get back to you with the specific categories. I’ll get it for you.

Mayor Gray: I think, Lou, if I could add a facet to that. I think you know that we worked hard to try to create a greater acceptance of people who are transgender, who often times are the victims of hate crimes in the District of Columbia. And if we can take some of the sense of need from people who feel like the only way they can survive is by engaging in street activity, the sale of sex, if you will — I think that’s going to reduce some of the hate crimes also because it’s not going to make people as vulnerable as they might have been.

We had a very successful year with our transgender efforts in the last 12 to 15 months. We had three cohorts to go through the Department of Employment Service’s Project Empowerment. We were able to get people jobs. We got a campaign started now, as I think you know, to try to improve the understanding of people who are transgender. So I think in addition to working at it from a law enforcement perspective, we also need to work on it from the perspective of how we improve the conditions under which people who are transgender, for example, are living.

“While we congratulate MPD and the city of Washington in reaching the lowest level of overall homicides in 50 years, the anti-LGBT violence numbers are still going up at an alarming rate and need to be addressed,” said A.J. Singletary, chair of GLOV.

“Even though the low homicide rate was the big story of the day, Chief Lanier rightly included data on other categories of crime” in her presentation at the news conference, Singletary said. “Hate crimes should have been included for comparison purposes as well. While the LGBT community is acutely aware of the violence we face on a daily basis in Washington, other citizens of D.C. as well as the mainstream media often aren’t aware of this large and seemingly ever-growing problem,” he said.

Police mum about suspect in theft of Blades

Washington Blade, gay news, anti-gay, vandalism

(Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

D.C. police have so far declined to confirm whether they have tracked down the license plate number of a car driven by a suspect that multiple witnesses have said is systematically removing bundles of the Washington Blade and Metro Weekly magazine from distribution boxes throughout the city.

Blade publisher Lynne Brown said she and others have given the license plate number of a white Toyota Camry and a description of its middle age, white male driver to the police Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit. She has not heard back about whether police have traced the identity of the driver or owner of the car, Brown said.

Witnesses say the license plate on the car in question is a Maryland vanity plate with the letters “JS.”

“Theft of all bundles of Washington Blade newspapers from their street boxes around the city continues,” Brown told GLLU Officer Justin Markiewicz in a Jan. 10 email. “It happens weekly. It happens in different neighborhoods. It most often happens, by eyewitness accounts, early Friday mornings.”

D.C. police spokesperson Gwendolyn Crump said she would look into the matter this week but did not immediately respond on Wednesday.

Inquires about the status of a possible police investigation into the removal of large quantities of the two LGBT publications from their distribution boxes follows reports in September that Blade and Metro Weekly boxes also were being vandalized in the Dupont Circle, Logan Circle and 17th Street gay entertainment areas.

Brown said one or more suspects have been systematically breaking a clear plastic clip that holds a single issue of the Blade in the window of the distribution boxes, allowing readers to view the front page of the paper to find out when the new edition is delivered each Friday. She said the vandalism is continuing.

Metro Weekly co-publishers Sean Bugg and Randy Shulman didn’t reply to a Blade email seeking comment this week.

In a Metro Weekly story in September about the vandalism and thefts, Bugg said one or more vandals had deposited trash and human or animal feces in some of the LGBT publication’s boxes. The article, in which Bugg described the vandalism as an anti-LGBT hate crime, said Metro Weekly was expending large sums of money to clean and sterilize the distribution boxes, only to have the perpetrator or perpetrators vandalize the same boxes again.

Brown said GLLU members have told her informally that the removal of a free newspaper from a distribution box doesn’t appear to fall under the definition of a theft, even if large quantities of the paper are taken. Brown said she was told that the United States Attorney’s office was being consulted to advise police over whether a suspect could be arrested and prosecuted for removing a free publication from a distribution box.

“I would like the owner of the car identified and an arrest warrant sworn out,” she said.

William Miller, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office, said he would make inquiries about whether prosecutors in his office were looking into the matter.

Brian Moore, an aide to D.C. City Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large), said Mendelson would be open to studying whether the Council should consider legislation to make it illegal to remove large quantities of a free newspaper or other publications from distribution boxes.

The Metro Weekly article suggested that the motive behind the removal of large quantities of the magazine from its boxes appeared to be anti-LGBT animus in at least some of the cases because stacks of the magazines were found in city trash cans near the site of the boxes.

Brown said another possible motive could be the potential sale of bulk quantities of newspapers to recycling centers that pay for newspapers. An aide to D.C. Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), who monitors the city’s recycling programs for Cheh’s Council Committee on Transportation and the Environment, said most commercial recycling centers don’t pay for newspapers unless they are delivered in quantities of at least one or more tons, making it difficult for an individual to carry out such a task in a private car or even a small truck.

“The police have been polite and helpful,” Brown said. “However the message has been this is a low, low level of priority.”