Cities as far-flung from Washington as Fargo, North Dakota, and Missoula, Montana, now have gay liaison officers, but Parson says none matches his department's commitment, establishing a unit with a mission to investigate gay-related crimes and to do community outreach. Parson also teaches fellow officers in the rest of department about gay-lesbian issues, a course he calls Gay 101.

Created in 2000 in a city with one of the nation's highest concentrations of gays, the unit now has six full-time officers, plus a cadre of part-time officers and volunteers from the community. It moved two years ago into a spacious storefront office near trendy Dupont Circle; posters condemning hate crimes decorate its walls.

The unit was formed after Police Chief Charles Ramsey concluded that the low number of anti-gay hate crimes reported in Washington was not cause for celebration but rather a troubling sign that the city's gays deeply mistrusted the police. In one notorious case, a police lieutenant admitted in 1997 that he had run an extortion racket targeting patrons of gay night clubs.

In a recent sting operation, using an undercover officer, Parson's unit helped arrest a suspect who was arranging sexual trysts on a gay Internet dating site, then committing robbery on the assumption the other man wouldn't dare report the crime.

Most of the unit's tips and crime reports come from white gay men. Parson, who is white, has been working to develop better contacts with black gays -- Washington is 60 percent black -- and with the transgender community.

The unit has assisted in the department's campaign to move transgender prostitutes away from one of their favored "strolls" near the Washington Convention Center.

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