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Crime concerns outside DC gay club after alleged sexual assault

Police are still looking for the sexual assault suspect. No one responded to our requests about the manager's claims.

WASHINGTON -- The general manager at D.C.’s largest gay bar said the sexual assault of a man leaving their club by a man posing to be an Uber or Lyft driver could have been avoided.

Ryan Oberlin spotted someone vandalizing a car near DC Eagle on Saturday night, but he said D.C. police did not take a report because he was not the owner of the car.

So he asked police for extra patrols that night to make “sure people are safe and their vehicles are safe." Police said he had to file paperwork requesting increased patrols.

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Hours later, at 3 a.m. a man leaving the club got into what he believed was an Uber or Lyft on Minnesota Avenue, NE. He reported to police the driver then sexually assaulted him in an alley in the 1300 block of H Street NE.

“I feel if there was more (police) presence in the area that person would not have targeted,” said Oberlin who added that neighbors have complained to police about the problem before. “There were fake cabs or fake uber or lyft driver loitering at safeway that as brought up at a PSA (Police Service Area) meeting last year and here we are this past Sunday and it happens to one of our own.”

The club is off a small Benning Road access road and surrounded by a fenced in lot, leaving one way in and one way out.

Oberlin said the area leading to their club looks abandoned and has only one street light, but he said repeated complaints to the city have fallen on deaf ears.

Police are still looking for the sexual assault suspect. No one responded to our requests about the manager’s claims.

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