Washington, D.C

Washington D.C. Sports Teams Unite for Community Safety on 2024 Wear Orange Weekend – Monumental Sports

Published

2 years ago

June 7, 2024

Washington, D.C. (June 7, 2024) – Local professional sports teams the Washington Capitals, Commanders, Nationals, Mystics, Spirit, Wizards, DC Shadow, D.C. United and Capital City Go-Go today announced their renewed commitment to community safety as they prepare to wear orange on Gun Violence Awareness Weekend. This marks the third consecutive year that D.C. sports teams have come together to combat violence in the area, while encouraging fans to do the same.

“Our teams are honored to call D.C. home, and we are proud to come together to make our community a better, safer place for us all,” the teams said in a joint statement. “This weekend, we ask our fans to stand with us as we say ENOUGH, and work to end gun violence.”

On Wear Orange Weekend from Friday, June 7, through Sunday, June 9, local teams playing at home will show their support in a variety of ways, outlined below. Efforts will kick off Friday with the Mystics in-game activations as they host the Indiana Fever at Capital One Arena. The Spirit will highlight the initiative during their home game on Saturday, June 8, as will the Nationals on Sunday, June 9.

Through the campaign’s first two years, D.C. team’s combined efforts have raised more than $200,000 for community-based violence intervention programs through donations from the teams and D.C. area sports fans.

Additional information on how individual teams are supporting gun violence awareness on Wear Orange Weekend, and how fans can get involved, can be found below.

Washington Nationals

The Washington Nationals will raise funds and awareness at the ballpark on June 9 for the Everytown Community Safety Fund, a program of Everytown For Gun Safety Support Fund.
- All proceeds from the 5050 Raffle at the game will benefit the Everytown Community Safety Fund, a program of Everytown For Gun Safety Support Fund. Proceeds will benefit local DMV organizations implementing community-based violence interruption programs as a core component of a comprehensive approach to reducing gun violence.
  - Fans can purchase 5050 raffle tickets in person or at org/5050
- Game day staff will don orange ribbons for the cause.
To bring awareness to Wear Orange Weekend to fans, the Nationals will host representatives from other D.C. sports teams on the field on Sunday, June 9.
- Representatives from participating D.C. sports teams will join together on the field for pre-game ceremonies.
- Washington Commanders rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels will throw out the game’s ceremonial first pitch on behalf of the Commanders rookie class, which is making a special group trip to Nationals Park on Sunday.
- The Commanders rookie class will also attend the game on behalf of the organization.
Nationals Philanthropies continues its support of and collaboration with Peace for DC, which hosts Peace Academy trainings at the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy’s Ward 7 facility.

Washington Mystics, Wizards, Capitals and Capital City Go-Go

The Mystics will host their “Wear Orange” game for the sixth year in a row on June 7. To highlight Wear Orange Weekend, the team will:
- Host a pre-game panel discussion about gun violence prevention in the DMV at District E Powered by Ticketmaster
- Commemorate National Wear Orange Weekend with a full orange LED takeover at Capital One Arena
- Give away Wear Orange towels for every fan in attendance
- Highlight gun violence prevention facts and calls to action from Everytown For Gun Safety during timeouts.
- Present a halftime performance by Bootsy Collins, a grammy-award winning Artist for Action and advocate for gun violence prevention
- Display the I Wear Orange photobooth mural on the concourse
- Showcase concourse activations by Artist for Action featuring a Knotted Gun Display and Sandy Hook Promise TablinG
- Donate $25K to the TraRon Center, a DC based non-profit organization committed to helping those affected by gun violence heal through the arts, in a half court check presentation featuring MSE owners Ted Leonsis and Sheila Johnson
- Donate all proceeds from the MSE Foundation’s 50/50 Raffle at the game to the Everytown Community Safety Fund, a program of Everytown For Gun Safety Support Fund. Proceeds will benefit local DMV organizations implementing community-based violence interruption programs as a core component of a comprehensive approach to reducing gun violence

The Washington Wizards have partnered with the Alliance of Concerned Men to support their work to the eradicate violence for all communities, focusing on reduction, mitigation, and prevention. During the 2023-24 NBA season, the partners hosted a Youth Basketball Clinic at Kimball Elementary School for Jr. NBA Week.

MSE teams have collectively made calls to action for fans to donate to national gun violence prevention groups in support of Wear Orange efforts, broadcasted statistics and data on the affect gun violence has in the DC community and supported dedicated initiatives annually.

Washington Commanders

The Washington Commanders, in collaboration with a coalition of D.C. sports teams, are contributing funds toward Everytown Community Safety Fund, a program of Everytown For Gun Safety Support Fund.
The team will leverage its social platforms to share important stories from select team Legends impacted by gun violence in an effort to bring awareness to Wear Orange Weekend.
The Commanders will have players and coaches in attendance for the Washington Nationals game on June 9 where the Nationals are supporting and recognizing National Gun Violence Awareness Month

D.C. United

Washington Spirit

The Washington Spirit will provide ongoing partnership and grant support for Peace for DC’s work, providing training and resources for educators and coaches working with youth in communities experiencing high crime and violence rates.
The Washington Spirit will continue to support Friends of Anacostia Park’s mission to provide healing spaces and respite programming in areas most affected by gun violence.
The Washington Spirit will show support on social media platforms.

DC Shadow

DC Shadow players and staff will wear an orange ribbon on the front during warmups for their away game in Atlanta on Saturday, June 8.
DC Shadow will recognize the work of Peace For DC and their community-based violence prevention partners through their social media platforms.
DC Shadow will solicit contributions to Peace For DC through its social media platforms during the days surrounding Wear Orange Weekend.

About Washington Nationals Philanthropies

Washington Nationals Philanthropies is the official charitable arm of the Washington Nationals. Its mission is to help children, families, and communities thrive through sports-based youth development and access to healthy food. The organization delivers on this commitment by spurring investment in community-based programs that address the disparity of opportunity for residents of the region. Since 2007, the foundation has issued over $6.8 million in grants to local organizations. Through its signature program, the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy, the organization operates year-round youth development and baseball instruction activities, as well as a holistic food access program – supporting the delivery of nearly 1 million meals into the Washington, DC region since 2018. Since 2013, the organization has invested $42 million for facility construction and annual programming through the Academy. For more information about Nationals Philanthropies, visit nats4good.org.

About Monumental Sports & Entertainment Foundation

MSE Foundation is committed to making the region a better place for all by supporting game-changing solutions for our community. We fundraise, provide grants to nonprofits and rally Monumental Sports & Entertainment’s teams and fans to support and amplify the impact of community change agents. Together, we’re raising the game in the DMV. Learn more at: www.monumentalfoundation.org.

About the D.C. United Foundation

The D.C. United Foundation harnesses the power of soccer to reach underserved communities in the D.C. area and give youth the tools necessary to soar on and off the pitch. The D.C. United Foundation is an extension of D.C. United, the Major League Soccer Club located in Washington, D.C., and we prioritize serving populations that lack equitable access to important resources, educating and empowering the next generation and using our platform to lift people up and support their visions. Our work is centered around programming and partners that encourage and provide opportunities for community members to thrive, unite and have essential support. For more information visit dcunited.com/foundation.

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Washington, D.C

Sherry Abedi has been appointed as General Manager at LINE DC

Published

10 hours ago

June 3, 2026

Press Room

The LINE DC is delighted to announce the appointment of Sherry Abedi as its new General Manager. In her new role she will oversee all aspects of the hotel, including operations, people and culture, sales and marketing, and guest experience strategy. Abedi will lead day-to-day hotel operations while driving programming, business development, and initiatives that strengthen the property’s connection to Washington D.C.’s cultural and creative communities.

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Washington, D.C

‘We did not have the votes:’ DC Council does not take up expanded summer curfew

Published

20 hours ago

June 2, 2026

Press Room

‘We did not have the votes:’ DC Council does not take up expanded summer curfew

WASHINGTON (7News) — Tuesday was the last day the D.C. Council could vote to enact an expanded curfew in time for summer.

7News learned it never even made it on the agenda for a discussion and went to council members to find out why.

For the next two months, it’ll be up to the mayor to declare a curfew until the permanent version kicks in. There is already a city curfew. The curfew that has been up for debate for more than a year is the expanded version of the curfew. The expanded version allows the Metropolitan Police Department to create zones where teens 17 and under cannot gather in groups of nine or more.

RELATED | DC curfews pushed large groups into local neighborhoods, some residents say

Mayor Muriel Bowser currently has her own curfew order in place, which ends Saturday. The mayor can continue issuing an order. Councilmembers against the expanded curfew said that’s why it doesn’t need to come from the council.

In a video posted two weeks ago, D.C Council public safety chair Brooke Pinto said she wanted her councilmembers to vote to fill the gap today. 7News asked her why she never presented it to the council.

“Unfortunately, in working with my colleagues over the last several weeks, we did not have the votes,” said Pinto. “We have to have enough votes to pass the law and make sure that we didn’t have a gap.”

Bowser, in a letter to council Tuesday, said councilmembers Trayon White, Robert White, Zachary Parker, Brianne Nadeau and Janese Lewis-George are “blocking the will of the public and majority of council.”

7News spoke to three of the members she called out about the mayor’s pushback.

“I reject the rhetoric and the political games that are being played, and I’m wanting for us to get to the bottom of how do we stop the teen takeovers and the delinquent behavior we’ve been seeing,” Parker said.

“I stand by my belief that a curfew policy is a failed policy, kind of smoke and mirrors, and what we really needed is investments in our young people, so I’m pretty firm on that,” Nadeau said.

“We have to choose our tools and the time we use those tools. I’ve supported the curfew in the past, but I think with the current surge of more federal troops that have been impending, we’re putting our youth in even more danger by extending that work. I know the executive has put in an emergency executive order that will fill the gap. I hope that comes alongside extended hours, I’ve funded at DPR, extended weekends, and opening more safe spaces for youth here in the city. And that’s the solution that we do agree on,” Lewis-George said.

The mayor has not confirmed if she’ll issue another order, but it is on the table.

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Washington, D.C

Memorial to honor journalists like Don Bolles, killed in pursuit of truth

Published

1 day ago

June 2, 2026

Press Room

Memorial to honor journalists like Don Bolles, killed in pursuit of truth

A memorial honoring journalists who died in the line of duty will be built on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
The memorial was inspired by the 2018 Capital Gazette shooting and will honor journalists like The Arizona Republic’s Don Bolles, who was killed in 1976.
While the national memorial moves forward, a similar effort to create a memorial for Bolles at the Arizona Capitol has repeatedly stalled.

A memorial designed to pay tribute to journalists who have died in pursuit of a story — including Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles, who had a bomb explode under his car 50 years ago — will soon have a home on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

The Fallen Journalists Memorial, set to open in June 2028, won’t include individual names of journalists. A rule says that unless Congress makes an exception, a memorial wall can only include a group whose last member died more more than a quarter century prior.

And the number of journalists who die in pursuit of truth continues to grow every year.

The foundation creating the memorial has featured journalists on its website. Included in the first round of those showcased is Bolles.

Bolles was a reporter with The Arizona Republic who investigated the mafia, land fraud and political corruption. He was killed in June 1976 by a bomb planted under his Datsun at a midtown Phoenix hotel, an incident that shocked the nation and shook the journalism community.

Barbara Cochran, president of the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation, said the aim was to remind people of the work done by journalists like Bolles.

“They go as eyewitnesses. They document,” she said. “They dig deep and come up with information that people don’t have time to do on their own.”

Bolles’ legacy was not just forged by his death, Cochran said, but the work his death inspired.

Scores of reporters from around the country descended on Phoenix to continue investigating political corruption as Bolles had.

That collective action sent a message.

“Even if you kill the journalist, you won’t kill the story,” Cochran said. “Don Bolles was really the symbol of that.”

The memorial will honor journalists who, like Bolles, were targeted for their reporting, Cochran said. It would also honor those who died in pursuit of a story.

That’s the story of at least five more Arizona journalists.

In 1985, Republic reporter Charles Thornton was killed in Afghanistan, which at the time was invaded by the Soviet Union. Thornton was a health reporter and took the trip to cover a clinic set up by Americans looking to save the lives of people injured in the war by bombs and chemical weapons.

Thornton knew the risks of traveling to a war zone. But said he thought it was worth it to bring the story of the injuries suffered by the Afghan rebels to Republic readers.

In 2007, two news helicopters collided while covering a police chase in midtown Phoenix. The helicopters, one from Channel 3, KTVK-TV, and one from Channel 15, KNXV-TV, each carried a cameraman and a pilot. All four men died when the helicopters crashed onto Steele Indian School Park.

Bolles will be the only Arizona reporter among the first to be honored as part of the new National Mall memorial project.

The physical memorial in Washington will be made up of glass rectangles.

On one end of the plaza, they will be laid in an abstract design. The glass rectangles could serve as benches on the plaza.

As visitors walk to the other end, the glass rectangles begin stacking. Visitors will then enter a circle formed by more glass rectangles.

On the ground in the center of the circle will be the words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Reporter writes ‘the book I wanted to read’ on slain journalist Don Bolles

Axios reporter Jeremy Duda discusses “Murder in the Fourth State,” a book on the murder of The Arizona Republic’s Don Bolles, who died after a car bombing in 1976.

Arizona effort to create a Don Bolles memorial stalls at state Capitol

The DC memorial was introduced in Congress in 2019. It passed both the House and Senate unanimously in 2020 and was signed into law in December 2020 by President Donald Trump.

In contrast, a push to create a memorial for Bolles on the grounds of the state Capitol was proposed at the Arizona Legislature each of the past few years. But every attempt has stalled.

The bill passed the Arizona House unanimously this year. It was bottled up in the state Senate, as has happened since it was first introduced in 2023.

The Bolles memorial bill was assigned to the Senate Government Committee, chaired by state Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek. He did not give the bill a hearing, just as he had declined to do in the previous two sessions.

Hoffman, who has done contract work for the conservative groups Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action, has had an antagonistic relationship with the mainstream press and The Republic.

Rep. Selina Bliss, R-Prescott, the sponsor of the measure, said she is not sure exactly why Hoffman hasn’t given the bill a hearing. She expected it would easily pass if it made it to the state Senate floor.

“I can’t get into the minds of others,” she said, “why they choose to hear or don’t hear a bill.”

Bliss said she recognized the passion that Bolles had for journalism.

“It’s like a line of duty death, if you will,” she said. “People are killed in action doing what they do.”

Bliss said she was a teenager in Prescott at the time of the Bolles bombing. She remembers the experience as searing.

“It shook everyone so dramatically,” she said.

Bliss said she might expand the bill next session to include all fallen Arizona journalists, in hopes of getting it out of the logjam in the Senate.

Tim Eigo, president of the Arizona chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, has testified at the Arizona Legislature in support of the bill to allow a Bolles memorial.

Eigo said it was unfortunate that the bill was caught up in the swirl of current political feelings about journalism.

“I think people can get confused about whether dogged coverage is also advocacy. It’s not,” he said. “Some people get confused by that. So, they hesitate to honor a remarkable journalist like Don Bolles because there are other journalists they don’t like.”

Commemorating reporters who were targeted specifically because of their work like Bolles sends a signal, Eigo said.

“When we are honoring their accomplishments and commitment,” he said, “we are also defeating those who feel they can commit crimes against the press with impunity. … We are speaking truth to that cynical power.”

Shooting that killed journalists in Maryland inspired push for memorial

The idea for the DC memorial came after the June 2018 mass shooting at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland. Five people were killed in the incident, four of them journalists.

The convicted gunman had filed a defamation suit against the newspaper after it reported on his legal troubles. He reportedly sent letters threatening to attack the newspaper’s journalists before he stormed the newsroom with a shotgun.

Retired U.S. Congressman David Dreier sat on the board of Tribune Publishing, the corporate owner of the sister newspapers, The Capital and the Maryland Gazette. Dreier, a Republican from California, worried that by 2019 the memory of the shooting was already fading.

He wanted a public memorial on the National Mall. The idea gained urgency, Cochran said, when the Newseum announced in 2019 that it was closing. That museum had an exhibition honoring slain journalists. Its centerpiece was the blown-out car from the 1976 Bolles bombing.

“There is nothing in Washington that talks about the sacrifices of journalists or that talks about the First Amendment, which is such a unique contribution to freedom and free expression for people everywhere,” Cochran said.

The location cited for it is a triangular plot of land about three blocks from the U.S. Capitol. The site, about a quarter-acre, was formed by the intersection of Independence Avenue and Maryland Avenue, which runs on a diagonal to the U.S. Capitol.

“The site has a clear view of the Capitol Dome,” Cochran said. “It’s a connection to journalism and a symbol of democracy. It reinforces the idea that journalism is a pilar of democracy.”

The memorial will not carry the names of any of the fallen journalists.

Cochran said a federal regulation governing memorials on the National Mall has a rule about those being honored in a group needing to have been deceased for more than 25 years.

“This is a memorial for which there would never be an end time,” she said.

Threats to press freedom are on the rise across the globe

The anniversary of Bolles’ death and the memorial underway come as journalists around the world face increased threats.

Reporters Without Borders, a global nonprofit advocating for independent journalism, has tracked press freedom around the world since 2002. The organization scores countries based on how free journalists are to report, evaluating the legal, political, economic and cultural constraints. It also looks at journalists’ safety working in the countries.

The organization’s 2026 World Press Freedom Index returned the lowest average score among all countries in 25 years.

The United States ranked as the 64th freest country in the world, dropping seven places from its ranking in 2025. The organization cited Trump’s continued attacks on journalists who cover him, as well as his administration’s pressure on networks and news outlets as part of the ranking.

Trump has made attacking the press and sowing distrust in traditional news media a hallmark of his agenda since his first run for higher office in 2015. He has threatened to ease libel laws to make it easier to sue news outlets.

Trump himself sued the CBS and ABC networks based on their journalists’ work. The networks settled despite legal experts saying the cases were weak.

U.S. presidents have long had an antogonistic relationship with the press.

George Washington, the first president of the United States, referred to journalists as “infamous scribblers.” Vice President Spiro Agnew called the press “nattering naybobs of negativism.” President Barack Obama used the Espionage Act to plug what he perceived were leaks from his administration to the press, according to the Cato Institute.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit news advocacy group, has tracked more than 2,500 anti-press incidents in the United States since 2017, with nearly 1,400 assaults making up the majority. The tracker records non-physically violent threats, too, such as subpoenas and legal interventions, or chilling statements.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has recorded 17 journalists and reporters killed in the United States since 1992.

In Arizona, 28 anti-press incidents were recorded since 2017, including arresting reporters and denying them access to government events.

The Arizona incidents over the past decade include an interview subject who pushed and shoved an Arizona Republic reporter before stealing her cell phone during the interview, the detention by Phoenix police of a Wall Street Journal reporter who was talking to customers outside a bank, and the detention of an Arizona Republic photographer who was covering protests outside the state Capitol in 2024.

Taylor Seely is a First Amendment Reporting Fellow at The Arizona Republic / azcentral.com. Do you have a story about the government infringing on your First Amendment rights? Reach her at tseely@arizonarepublic.com or by phone at 480-476-6116.

Reach Richard Ruelas at richard.ruelas@arizonarepublic.com or at 602-444-8473.

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