It’s been three weeks since the mob beatdown in Cincinnati, Ohio, went viral.
Videos of the brutal attack show a mob of black people beating and kicking a white man. When a white woman comes forward to check on the man, she too is pummeled to the ground and knocked out cold.
Racial-justice warriors immediately tried to counter the accurate narrative of what happened — that a mob of people, who happened to be black, assaulted two victims who happened to be white — with one of their own. They offered a video of the white male victim allegedly calling the mob racial slurs as supposed proof that the victim should be locked up for inciting violence.
Detectives and the lead prosecutor have said in court that the victim’s use of slurs came minutes into the attack and did not incite mob violence. More information is likely to come out later. But the defense’s general storyline, that the man incited the violence, and the woman’s battering was an unfortunate consequence, has been embraced by state Democrats and black community leaders nevertheless.
At a press conference held last week to bring attention to the racial bias apparently impeding police from investigating the white victims, Ohio state Representative Cecil Thomas said the fact that the man has not been charged “raises serious questions on whether there is bias involved in the investigation.”
At the same press conference, Tracie Hunter, a former judge-turned-pastor who in 2023 was suspended from practicing law by the Ohio Supreme Court, said that “we are here today because of the injustices that we have identified in the handling, or rather mishandling, of this incident.”
“It is easy to manipulate charges and that is the problem we have identified in this case. Six Black people have been indicted . . . but the white individual that appeared to incite the fight or riot and the other white individuals involved have not been charged at all,” Hunter said.
Hunter was convicted in 2014 on a fourth-degree felony charge for having an unlawful interest in a public contract; she improperly employed her position to give confidential documents to her brother, a juvenile court employee who was being fired. Hunter claimed it was a false conviction and has said that Ohio’s “racist, corrupt” criminal justice system failed to recognize “unimaginable injustices and abuses I openly faced and endured as the first Black judge of one of the largest juvenile courts in Ohio.”
Local Reverend Damon Lynch demanded to know what and who incited the rioting and questioned why the only people charged are “the ones who look like me.”
Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval said in a statement that he “agrees with everyone’s frustration” and that “anyone involved in perpetrating the violence should be charged.”
It’s true that only black people have been arrested in connection with the attack so far. But it’s clear that the seven arrests police have made so far are a matter of justice, not a result of systemic racism. The people who have been arrested are:
- Montanez Merriweather, 34, who is “identified on video punching [the] victim while co-defendants are stomping the victim in the head with their feet,” according to a criminal complaint. Merriweather had previously been indicted in July for receiving stolen property, weapons under disability, improper transportation of a firearm, and more charges, according to the Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police. Merriweather was out on bond at the time of the downtown Cincinnati attack.
- Jermaine Matthews, 39, who is charged with felonious assault, assault, and aggravated riot. Matthews was “punching and stomping on [a] victim with his hands and feet attempting to cause serious physical harm,” according to a criminal complaint, and is also accused of dragging an unconscious victim into the middle of the street. In court, Matthews’s attorney, Brandon Fox, described the victim Matthews assaulted as “the victim that is seen running down the street screaming racial slurs, the n word,” presumably as a way of defending his client’s actions.
- Dekyra Vernon, 24, who “struck [the] victim in the face with a closed fist prior to the victim becoming unconscious from the attack.” She is accused of hitting the female victim.
- Dominique Kittle, 37, who is charged with felonious assault and aggravated riot. A prosecutor said that Kittle tried hitting a man from behind, tried to rob a victim, and knocked one man out.
- Patrick Rosemond, 38, who is accused by prosecutors and the female victim herself of hitting the female victim in the face and knocking her to the ground unconscious. Rosemond has a prior conviction for cocaine trafficking and a weapons conviction.
- Aisha Devaughn, 25, who is accused of striking the female victim in the head before the victim was rendered unconscious, and hitting and stomping on the male victim. She has two prior felony theft convictions.
- Gregory Wright, 32, who is charged with aggravated riot and aggravated robbery. Police say that Wright “did by force rip the necklace off the victim while he was being assaulted by four or more co-defendants attempting to cause serious physical harm,” according to a criminal complaint.
Ohio’s broad self-defense laws may mean that none of these individuals face serious repercussions. Even the individuals who hit the female victim may have an excuse if video footage can prove that she stepped toward the mob. Prosecutors have declined to press charges against the victims, for good reason, Ken Kober, president of the Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police, said last week.
Yet city officials are still “attempting to override the professional judgement of law enforcement or prosecutors,” Kober added.
Watch the videos for yourself. It’s not difficult to call the attack what it was: A brutal one-sided beatdown on the streets of Cincinnati. Why demand prosecution of the man whose head was curb-stomped so badly that he couldn’t defend himself?