He faced charges for tearing down their Pride flag. The couple forgave him.
All they knew was that the facilitators of the restorative justice program said the man charged with repeatedly tearing down the Pride flag outside their home was “ready.” A meeting was set. Now the couple were walking into a community center to talk to him.
Michelle Logan and Jenna Burnett said they sat in chairs set up in a circle inside the Arlington Mill Community Center in late September and began explaining to Matthew Henshaw how hurtful it was for them to see their Pride flag forcibly removed after they finally came out and moved in together. They said they told him that his actions made them feel unsafe in their own home - and that they wanted him to understand why.
The conversation was part of the Heart of Safety Restorative Justice Conferencing Program, which includes a meeting between the people charged in criminal cases and the victims of the alleged crimes, in hopes of providing a pathway for young adults to be held accountable outside of traditional legal proceedings.
Logan and Burnett said they could not detail everything that occurred, but Logan said “we felt he was sincerely remorseful and that we were being heard.” Later, the couple assigned Henshaw to do “certain things that we thought would be helpful for his learning and for being a better ally,” Logan said, and he did them.
As a result, Arlington, Virginia, prosecutors on Monday dismissed all charges against Henshaw, who was arrested this year and charged with three counts of bias-motivated unlawful entry and three counts of petit larceny.
“He’s just a young man who went through this unfortunate incident, and he’s grown from it,” said his attorney, Damon D. Colbert, who declined to make his client available for an interview. “He did everything that was asked of him, and he’s moved on.”
Henshaw is among the 13 people who have successfully completed the Heart of Safety Restorative Justice Conferencing Program since it launched in 2023, Arlington Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti said.
This case seemed like a good fit for the program, Dehghani-Tafti said, because Henshaw was 20 at the time of his arrest - placing him among the program’s target age group - and he was facing allegations of causing serious harm to Logan and Burnett. The couple were also willing to give it a try.
The purpose of the program, Dehghani-Tafti said, is to create a safer community with an alternative to incarceration that both reduces recidivism and is healing for victims.
“This whole process is about radical truth-telling, and it’s about taking accountability. But it’s also about transformation,” Dehghani-Tafti said. “And transformation really requires the hard work of figuring out: ‘Why did I do this, and what does it take for me not to do it again?’”
When Logan and Burnett first hung up their Pride flag, in June 2023, it was a way to celebrate moving in together. The two had met on a blind date in February 2021 at Red Bear Brewing Co. in Northeast Washington after Logan said she told a friend: “I think I want to try to date women.”
And as soon as Burnett walked in, Logan said she thought: “I am down bad for this girl.”
They said they both had struggled with coming out, but by the time they were unpacking their bags in their new Arlington home, they were comfortable being themselves. And they were so happy to be taking this next step together in their relationship.
Then, at 2:35 a.m. on Sept. 16, 2023, their Ring camera caught someone tearing down their Pride flag. They put a new one up, but it kept happening - five times in all from that September through January, Logan said.
“We felt pretty violated at first and also just really, like, not safe in our own home,” Logan said. “It was just a huge blow to both of our psyches.”
Eventually, police arrested Henshaw, who at the time was an active-duty soldier assigned to Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall and a member of the 3rd Infantry Regiment. Maj. John Strickland, a spokesman for the Army, said Friday that Henshaw was involuntarily separated from service in October.
Once Logan and Burnett learned about the restorative justice program, they thought that it sounded like a way to have a more meaningful impact than putting someone behind bars.
“When you’re 20, your brain is still developing,” Burnett said. “There’s a lot to learn.”
Logan added: “We’re not just a house with a Pride flag; we’re two people who are here and living a life and trying to be good people, just like everyone else. And so both of us were sort of like, it would just be a great way to sort of try to create change in the community, rather than just having an hour or so court session.”
Henshaw was referred to the program in March, and he completed it in November, Dehghani-Tafti said. Although each case is different in terms of needed hours, sessions and tasks, Henshaw completed 23 hours and signed a contract with the victims outlining next steps for him to take to continue learning from this experience.
“Saying sorry is one thing, but doing sorry is entirely another,” Dehghani-Tafti said.
While Logan and Burnett said most of what was discussed in the three-hour meeting was confidential, they shared that they covered topics including their past and growing up, what they felt defined them as people, their values, and the harm done through his actions.
“Throughout the process, we sort of saw like a shift in him,” Logan said. “It started off as, I think, nerves, and then it was just, [it] felt like a lot of shame. I think when someone sees someone face to face, they really get a grasp of who they are and what they actually did in terms of how it affected us.”
By the end of the meeting, Logan and Burnett were mentally tired and needed to decompress over a couple of days. Eventually, the couple would forgive him.
Logan said Henshaw wrote them a letter after that meeting that left them feeling as if he truly listened to what they said - and was learning from it.
Finally, she said, they felt relieved.
Related Content
Ethiopian family seeks medal’s return 87 years after grandfather’s execution
