Ríhanna Kelver was smoking a cigarette before her late-night shift at the Crowbar when one man in a group of men across the street shouted at her.
Accounts vary as to what, exactly, he shouted, but it kicked off a rapidfire sequence of events that would injure Kelver’s spine, land her in jail for the next two nights, and net her a pair of felony charges she now plans to fight.
Kelver has been charged with aggravated assault and possession of a deadly weapon with unlawful intent. If convicted on both counts, Kelver could face up to 15 years in prison.
On Tuesday, Albany County Circuit Court Judge Robert Sanford ruled the felonies can be tried in district court. He rejected a request from the defendant’s lawyer to dismiss the charges outright.
Kelver told The Laramie Reporter she acted in self-defense, fearing in the moment that she could become the victim of a hate crime. As Kelver told police the night of the incident and told the Reporter during an interview before her preliminary hearing, the confrontation began when the man across the street allegedly shouted anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-transgender slurs. Kelver said he was shouting at both her and the Crowbar.
Kelver is a transgender woman. She has been a vocal advocate for trans rights as state legislators have passed laws limiting the healthcare, public access and privacy of the state’s transgender residents.
In July, Kelver protested Wyoming’s bathroom ban by using a women’s restroom in the State Capitol. She was neither charged nor sued for that direct action, despite a new law technically banning her from doing so.
Laramie has no gay bars, but some have a more inclusive reputation than others. The Crowbar & Grill, where Kelver worked and was about to clock in, has been targeted in the past for its open display of LGBTQ+ pride and Black Lives Matter flags.
After Tuesday’s preliminary hearing, Kelver’s charges will be bound over to district court, where she said she plans to fight the charges and clear her name.
Albany County Prosecutor Kurt Britzius will argue the state’s case, seeking Kelver’s felony conviction for her role in the events that transpired outside the Crow last fall.
September confrontation
Around 10 p.m. on the night of Saturday, September 13, a man identified in court documents as “S.D.” or “Durham,” and accompanied by at least two other men, shouted at Kelver from across Second Street, near the intersection with Ivinson Avenue.
There’s disagreement about what exactly he shouted.
“They had kind of looked over at us and yelled, ‘Fuck the Crowbar, that fag bar should close down,’” Kelver alleged during her interview with The Laramie Reporter.
The man’s own account of his outburst included no mention of slurs. The affidavit recounts what he allegedly told police:
“S.D. yelled ‘fuck the Crowbar’ because he likes the Buckhorn Bar better.”
Whatever the particulars, Kelver responded.
“I had stood up and just yelled, ‘Hey, what the fuck?’ And they had all turned their attention even more so towards me,” Kelver told the Reporter. “This was a while ago, so exactly what was yelled at me is kind of mixed up, but the first thing yelled, I remember specifically, was: ‘You heard me, you fucking faggot … And they continue yelling, you know: ‘What are you going to fucking do about it, faggot? Like, ‘I’ll fuck you up,’ and similar threats with … the slurs of ‘faggot’ and ‘tranny.’”
These alleged slurs are not included in the police report. In the affidavit, the man alleges he repeated only: “Fuck the Crowbar.”
Kelver approached the men, who also began crossing the street. Both parties met in the crosswalk.
The man identified as S.D. pushed Kelver to the ground, and Kelver responded by drawing a firearm from her satchel, a teal SCCY .380 subcompact pistol.
There was video footage of the altercation recorded by the ever-present Second and Ivinson downtown livestream, but it lacked audio. Laramie Police Officer Hunter Rope reviewed the footage, according to the affidavit, which recounts what the video showed:
At approximately [10:03 p.m.], Kelver appears to be in close proximity to S.D. with her hand on her right hip satchel, where the firearm was later located. [One second later], Kelver is pushed backwards by S.D. and takes a couple of steps back and falls to the ground, still with her hand to her right side … Kelver’s right hand removes what appears to be a firearm from the satchel on her right hip, grabs the firearm slide, and pulls it backwards, typically in a fashion to load a round into the chamber … Kelver, after pulling the firearm slide back, points the firearm to her left, where S.D. is present on camera, holding the firearm in her right hand.
Racking the gun put a live round in the chamber, but Kelver told the Reporter she had no intention of shooting.
“I’d hit the ground and I saw the three of them over me, and that is when I had reached into my side satchel,” she said. “The safety was on, and my finger was never on the trigger. I had simply wanted them to hear the chambering to get them away from me, and I had pointed the firearm in their direction — specifically at the individual who assaulted me.”
According to the affidavit and Kelver’s account, the men walked away after that. Kelver got off the ground, returned her gun to the satchel and went back to Crowbar’s side of the street.
Kelver said she had “landed very hard on my tailbone” when she was pushed. And in the hours that followed, as the adrenaline of the situation wore off, she said she found herself in severe pain.
Kelver was already living with degenerative disc disease and had one bulged disc near the tail of the spine that causes her “mild discomfort.”
Kelver said a medical evaluation conducted a few days after the incident on Second Street revealed two more freshly bulged discs. They have necessitated her occasional use of a cane in the months since.
According to later court testimony, the man who pushed Kelver to the ground — referred to by official sources as “S.D.” or “Durham” — was not charged. The Reporter could not confirm the man’s identity by press time.
Statements to the police and Kelver’s arrest
Within minutes of the altercation, police, including Officer Rope, responded to the scene and began interviewing the individuals involved in the confrontation as well as other witnesses.
In her first interview with Rope, Kelver claimed she had pulled a knife, not a gun, from her bag. She also told police that she had a gun in the glovebox of her car, which is noted in the affidavit.
“Kelver said she attempted to pull a knife from their pocket but dropped it when she hit the ground,” the affidavit alleges. “Kelver described the knife as black with a silver blade, purchased from Pole Mountain Pharmacy. Kelver stated the knife was a folding type with a spring hinge and that the blade never fully extended before it fell from their hand.”
Kelver told the Reporter she was confused when she initially told Officer Rope she had pulled a knife rather than a gun.
“At this time, I was very shaken, and I really could not think straight,” she said. “I, at that point, didn’t even really know what had happened, what was going on.”
Kelver said she has been around guns her whole life, having learned to shoot with her grandfather and having completed firearm and hunter safety courses as well as earning marksman and sharpshooter qualifications from the NRA.
Despite this familiarity with firearms, she said she didn’t regularly carry, especially not downtown and especially not to the bars. On most nights, she said, her satchel would have contained the knife she described to police, not the gun.
Kelver said she only had a gun on her person that night because of “a stalking situation” she had been dealing with, which had recently escalated to the point of a man being kicked out of the Crowbar. The restaurant’s owner confirmed this detail to the Reporter.
Kelver said her mental health conditions also likely played a part in her confusion. She said she is diagnosed with bipolar II disorder and ADHD, both of which can impact memory formation. She said she also manages complex PTSD, which can similarly influence memory.
“I dealt with some pretty severe childhood abuse and neglect, as well as a six-year long abusive relationship that contributed to that,” Kelver said. “So, I have a particular trauma response to violence.”
Kelver maintains that when she told the police she had pulled a knife, she earnestly believed she had done so, and that she corrected her statement upon double-checking her bag, seeing the pistol there, and realizing she had pulled her gun instead of her knife.
Kelver said she then put her arms in the air, alerted the officers to the gun in her bag, and allowed them to take it.
According to the affidavit, “While investigating, Kelver said the firearm she claimed to be in her car earlier was still in her side bag, a thick leather satchel.”
The police arrested Kelver that night, and she spent Saturday and Sunday night in the Albany County Detention Center before being bailed out on Monday.
Assault vs. self defense
Kelver’s court proceedings were pushed back repeatedly as investigators gathered a victim impact statement, as Kelver changed lawyers and as other medical or scheduling issues necessitated delays. For the last month and a half, with the charges still pending, Kelver underwent in-patient treatment for alcohol use disorder at Avenues Recovery Center in Fort Collins.
Kelver returned home last week, and her preliminary hearing was set for Tuesday in Albany County Circuit Court.
The purpose of the hearing was to decide whether Albany County Prosecuting Attorney Kurt Britzius could bring the felony charges against Kelver in district court, where major crimes are tried.
Britzius had to demonstrate before Judge Sanford that it was “more probable than not” that a crime was committed. This standard of “probable cause” differs from the standard Britzius will be working with in district court, where, to convict Kelver, he will have to show “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Kelver committed the crimes she’s accused of.
Britzius argued the facts of the case met the preliminary hearing’s “low burden of proof” that a crime was committed, “and that Ms. Kelver is the individual that committed the crime.”
“The video is clear,” Britzius told the judge. “She pointed a handgun at Mr. Durham.”
Kelver’s attorney, Andrew Holcomb, argued Kelver’s actions were clearly self-defense, which is explicitly allowed in the aggravated assault statute Britizus is using to charge Kelver.
Wyoming State Statute 6-2-502(a)(iii), the aggravated assault and battery law, punishes any person who “threatens to use a drawn deadly weapon on another unless reasonably necessary in defense of his person, property or abode or to prevent serious bodily injury to another.”
Holcomb argued the phrase “unless reasonably necessary” was key.
He said Britizus would have had to show “the firearm was not reasonably necessary for defense,” and he argued the prosecution had failed to do that.
Holcomb described the September encounter as “a fast-moving confrontation” that started “with hostile, threatening language” directed at Kelver and the Crowbar.
“There was no suggestion that Ms. Kelver got physical first or was the aggressor,” he said. “The only evidence suggests that Mr. Durham was the aggressor, shoving Ms. Kelver violently to the ground.”
Holcomb said it was also relevant that while Kelver was alone in the crosswalk, the man on the other side of the confrontation was not.
“A person was threatened, outnumbered, physically shoved to the ground in pain and on their back, looking up at two to three assailants,” he said, adding that Kelver was not “in the same position as someone who simply brandishes a firearm” during an argument.
Those factors make it clear, he said, that Kelver was acting in self-defense, that her response was protected by state law, and that the charges against her should be dropped.
But Judge Sanford sided with Britzius, saying the prosecution had shown “probable cause on both counts” sufficient to advance the case to district court. His ruling binds the case to district court, where felonies are typically tried; it does not mean that a court has rejected Kelver’s claim of self-defense, just that the facts, as presented, leave enough doubt to justify further examination in the appropriate criminal court.
“Of course, that [legal] defense [claiming self-defense] is perfectly available in district court,” Sanford reminded Holcomb and Kelver. “And we’ll see where that goes with a different standard of proof.”
Kelver said she believes she acted within the confines of state statute and hopes to prove that.
“My hope initially is that the truth of the situation prevails,” she said. “My hope is that I am found not guilty, and that we get to pursue genuine justice for what happened to me.”
S. Durham is almost certainly Patriot Front member Scott Durham, who transferred to the University of Wyoming after his membership in the hate group was made public at CU Boulder. He changed his name from Patryck Scott Durham in 2025.
Solidarity with Ríhanna.
So Durham clearly first committed a physical assault on camera, but the police and DA charged the person pushed to the ground? Discovery and the trial should be fun.