Sep 21, 2007  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

D.C. police have arrested three juvenile males and were looking for at least one more in connection with three separate incidents in which the youths allegedly assaulted a transgender woman and a gay man and smashed the car windows of another gay man.

All three incidents took place on separate nights in the Chinatown-Gallery Place area between Sept. 9 and Sept. 13, according to Lt. Alberto Jova, commander of the police Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit, which is investigating the crimes.

Commander Diane Grooms of the First Police District, whose officers made the arrests, said the juveniles appeared to belong to an informal group or gang that targeted gay people in the area of Chinatown or Gallery Place. She said the youths live in Southeast D.C.

“What we’re finding is we have a group of juveniles that either knows some people or they are targeting certain individuals due to their sexual orientation,” Grooms said.

She said police consider the incidents hate crimes but she could not determine whether the D.C. Attorney General’s Office, which prosecutes juvenile cases, formally charged the youths with a bias-related crime under the city’s criminal code.

One of the juveniles charged with assaulting the transgender woman in a Sept. 13 incident reportedly assaulted her after starting a fight, Grooms said. Grooms said that in the course of a struggle, both fell through a plate glass window of a store, causing injuries to the transgender woman that resulted in her being hospitalized, Grooms said.

The juvenile charged in this assault, 17, had been arrested for smashing the windows of a car belonging to an adult gay man on Sept. 11 in the second of the three Chinatown incidents, Grooms said. At the time of his arrest for the window-smashing incident, the juvenile was in possession of a stun gun, according to Grooms.

She said she was troubled that juvenile court authorities had released him and he quickly returned to the area to commit the assault against the transgender woman two days later.

Melissa Merz, a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s office, said the D.C. criminal code prohibits her office from disclosing any information about juvenile cases.

The code’s strict confidentiality clause prevents the release of information about whether or not a prosecution against a juvenile goes forward, whether a juvenile defendant is convicted and, if so, what if any sentence he or she receives from a juvenile court judge.

At their discretion, judges are given the option under the statute of allowing reporters to attend some juvenile court proceedings and report on the outcome. Names of the juveniles must be withheld.

The Blade has submitted a request to the court to gain access to upcoming court hearings for the three juveniles in the anti-gay and transgender assaults.