A Wyoming judge has ruled that a transgender bartender must stand trial on felony charges stemming from an incident in which she brandished a firearm at three men she says she feared were about to attack her.
Rihanna Kelver, 28, was outside her workplace, The Crowbar & Grill in Laramie, on Sept. 13, 2025, smoking a cigarette shortly before her late-night shift when the confrontation occurred.
While Laramie has no gay bars, The Crowbar & Grill has developed a reputation as an LGBTQ-friendly establishment. The bar has previously been targeted with vandalism and negative online reviews over its display of Pride and Black Lives Matter flags and its all-gender restroom signage.
As Kelver stood outside the bar, a man identified in court documents as “S.D.” or “Durham,” and accompanied by at least two other men, shouted at her from across Second Street. While the exact wording is disputed, Kelver claims S.D. yelled, “Fuck the Crowbar, that f*g bar should close down.”
Kelver told The Laramie Reporter that she responded by yelling, “Hey, what the fuck?” She alleges that S.D. then replied, “You hear me you fucking f****t,” and that he and his companions continued hurling anti-LGBTQ slurs, including “f****t” and “tranny,” while threatening to “fuck [her] up,” which she interpreted as a threat of violence.
S.D. disputes Kelver’s account. According to an affidavit, he told police that he “yelled ‘Fuck the Crowbar’ because he likes the Buckhorn bar better.” The police report also does not mention any anti-LGBTQ slurs being directed at Kelver.
The confrontation escalated when Kelver and the men approached one another in a crosswalk and S.D. pushed her to the ground. After falling, Kelver drew a teal SCCY .380 subcompact pistol from her satchel.
The altercation was captured by cameras livestreaming the intersection near the bar, although the footage contains no audio. According to a police affidavit, the video appears to show Kelver holding her hand on the satchel where she kept the firearm as she approached the men.
After being thrown to the ground, Kelver is seen pulling out the weapon, racking the slide to chamber a round, and pointing it at S.D. Kelver told the Reporter that she had no intention of firing the gun.
“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 both Kelver’s account and the affidavit describing the video footage, the three men walked away after being confronted. Kelver then got up, returned the gun to her satchel, and crossed back to the Crowbar’s side of the street. She has also claimed that the fall worsened a preexisting degenerative disc condition, leaving her with two additional bulged discs and requiring her to occasionally use a cane.
Police arrived within minutes and began interviewing those involved in the confrontation, as well as witnesses. During her initial interview, Kelver told officers she had pulled a knife, rather than a gun, from her bag and said the firearm was in her car’s glovebox. She later told the Reporter that she was confused and in shock when she gave that account.
“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 told the Reporter that she had the gun with her because of a “stalking situation” that had escalated to the point that a man was kicked out of the Crowbar. The bar’s owner confirmed the incident to the newspaper.
After realizing she did not have the knife, which she typically carried instead of the firearm, Kelver told police she had misspoken and surrendered the satchel containing the gun. She was arrested and spent two nights in the Albany County Detention Center before being released on bail.
Kelver faces charges of aggravated assault and possession of a deadly weapon with unlawful intent. If convicted on both counts, she could face up to 15 years in prison.
Neither S.D. nor his companions were charged in connection with the incident, according to court testimony.
During a May 26 hearing, Kelver’s attorney, Andrew Holcomb, sought to have the charges dismissed on the grounds of self-defense. Wyoming law prohibits a person from threatening another with a drawn deadly weapon unless doing so is “reasonably necessary” to defend oneself, one’s property, or another person from serious bodily injury. Holcomb argued that Kelver’s actions met that standard because she had been pushed to the ground during the altercation.
“There was no suggestion that Ms. Kelver got physical first or was the aggressor,” Holcomb said, describing the incident as a “fast-moving confrontation” in which his client was outnumbered three to one. “The only evidence suggests that Mr. Durham [S.D.] was the aggressor, shoving Ms. Kelver violently to the ground.”
Albany County Prosecuting Attorney Kurt Britzius argued that the state needed only to show it was “more probable than not” that Kelver committed a crime in order for the case to proceed to trial. At trial, however, prosecutors will have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Kelver committed a crime and was not acting in self-defense.
Albany County Circuit Court Judge Robert Sanford ultimately ruled that there was probable cause to believe Kelver committed a crime and ordered the case to proceed to trial. However, he noted that Kelver remains free to argue that she acted in self-defense.
Kelver told the Reporter that she feared she was about to become the victim of a hate crime and believes her actions were permitted under Wyoming law because she felt threatened with bodily harm.
“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.”
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