Outside a bar in downtown Laramie, what started as a heated exchange on a Saturday night ended with a trans bartender on the ground, a drawn handgun, and—months later—a felony trial that could carry years behind bars.
Ríhanna Kelver, who works as a bartender at the Crowbar, is now facing charges of aggravated assault and unlawful intent with a deadly weapon after a confrontation she says began with harassment and ended in self-defense. The man she says assaulted her has not been charged. If convicted, Kelver could face up to 15 years in prison.
A shift that never got started at the Crowbar
It was late September, around 10 p.m., just before Kelver’s shift was supposed to begin. Outside the bar, she noticed three men across the street. What happened next, she says, escalated quickly from shouting to targeted insults.
RELATED: Anti-Gay Post by GOP Rep. Andy Ogles Draws Backlash From His Own Party
According to Kelver, the group first shouted criticism aimed at the bar itself, but the tone soon shifted toward her personally after she responded. She described being met with homophobic and transphobic slurs, along with threats, including repeated use of anti-LGBTQ+ language and suggestions of physical violence.
One of the men involved, identified in court documents as “Durham,” disputes that version of events. He has said the only comment made was directed at the bar, not at Kelver.
When distance collapsed
Kelver says the situation turned physical when she was knocked down during the confrontation and found herself on the ground facing multiple people. At that point, she reached into her bag and pulled a handgun. Video evidence reviewed in the case shows her drawing the weapon and pointing it at one of the men after the fall.
Kelver says she never intended to fire. She described chambering the weapon as a warning and keeping her finger off the trigger, saying her goal was to stop the escalation, not continue it.
RELATED: Transgender Students Targeted by Congress While the Nation Burns
One incident, two legal outcomes
Even though Kelver says she was attacked, the legal response has not followed a symmetrical path. She is now facing felony charges, while the man she says threw her to the ground has not been charged in connection with the incident.
Her defense team argues that her actions fall under Wyoming’s self-defense protections, including its “Stand Your Ground” principles. They say she was outnumbered, physically overpowered, and reacting in a moment where retreat was not realistically possible.
The prosecution, however, maintains there is enough evidence to proceed to trial under the state’s aggravated assault statutes, which allow charges when a firearm is displayed in a threatening way unless it is clearly justified as necessary defense.
The legal question at the center
Wyoming law allows people to carry firearms openly without a permit, but it also draws a boundary around when displaying or threatening to use one crosses into criminal conduct. That boundary—whether the use of force was “reasonably necessary”—is now the central issue in the case.
A judge recently ruled that the case should move forward to district court, saying the prosecution had met the initial burden of proof required at this stage. Kelver’s self-defense argument, the court noted, can still be fully examined at trial.
For now, the case sits in that uncomfortable space between competing narratives: one person describing an assault and fear of further harm, another legal system treating the response as potentially criminal.
What began outside a bar entrance has now become a courtroom test of how far self-defense can stretch—and who gets the benefit of that interpretation when the facts are still being contested.
Source: The Laramie Reporter