An Ohio grand jury charged six people on Friday with assault and rioting over a Cincinnati brawl that allegedly left six injured and drew national attention.
The six suspects, with ages between 24 and 39, could face three decades in prison over the July 26 street fight, according to court records and the Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Viral footage showed one woman beaten to the ground for trying to stop the fight in an incident that has sparked concerns about mob-like behavior spilling into America’s large cities.
“What I saw on video is not the Cincinnati I know and love,” said Hamilton County prosecutor Connie Pillich. “These charges hold those involved in the attack accountable.”
Police have identified six total victims of the brawl, which allegedly started at a jazz festival due to an argument in which someone uttered a racial slur, according to WCPO 9 News. The woman seen lying unconscious on the concrete, identified as Holly, later appeared on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” on Thursday to allege that police neglected to take her statement about the incident and that she was not picked up by an ambulance.
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Vice President J.D. Vance, who formerly represented Ohio in the Senate, also called attention to police’s response in a podcast interview released August 1.
“The most important thing that states and cities can do is to actually solve the law enforcement recruitment challenge that we have … part of the story there is that there weren’t enough police officers at the Cincinnati Jazz Festival,” Vance said.
Cincinnati Police Department Chief Teresa Theetge responded to outrage against the brawl by scolding members of the public for how they chose to spread footage.
“Social media, the posts that we’ve seen, does not depict the entire incident. That is one version of what occurred. At times, social media and mainstream media and their commentaries are misrepresentations of the circumstances surrounding any given event,” Theetge said at a July 28 press conference. “What that does, that causes us some difficulty in thoroughly investigating the activity and enforcing the law. Because what happens, that social media post and your coverage of it distorts the content of what actually happened and it makes our job more difficult.”
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