CINCINNATI — Hours before Cincinnati police arrested a seventh person in connection with July's viral downtown fight, Black community leaders demanded that the city be equitable in its pursuit of justice during a press conference Monday morning.
All those currently facing charges are Black, despite videos showing white individuals involved.
A recently surfaced video shown at Monday's press conference shows a white man slapping a Black man on the cheek, which Black community leaders said was the catalyst for the fight.
You can watch that video below:
"So, what incited and who incited the riot?" Rev. Damon Lynch said. "If the riot is because of the slap, who incited the riot? And how are the only people charged — I'll say it again — the ones who look like me?"
Cincinnati Rep. Cecil Thomas organized the press conference and is the one leading the call for accountability. The group gave city leaders an ultimatum Monday: charge the white individuals involved in the fight, too, or drop all charges against the seven Black individuals previously arrested.
Thomas and other community leaders gave the city 24 hours to meet their request. That deadline came and went, so we checked in with Thomas Wednesday for any updates.
"We have not heard anything in regards to those individuals — the white individuals who were involved. We have not heard anything one way or the other, and that's concerning simply because you can't ignore what occurred," Thomas said. "You can't ignore the slap."
Thomas said the lack of additional arrests is frustrating and unjust, but he and fellow Black leaders are not deterred.
WATCH: Hear what Cincinnati Rep. Cecil Thomas had to say about the city's handling of arrests in the violent fight:
"We will not give up on the fact that there's some problems here. City of Cincinnati, we have come too far. We've come too far to turn back, to turn back the hands of time. We don't want that to happen," Thomas said. "We want to bring down the temperature and stop the rhetoric of 'the city is being unsafe and we don't want anybody coming here.' You want to stop all of that because it's not true, and all this is doing is feeding that narrative as well as failing to administer justice. Justice should be served."
While we and Black community leaders wait for a response to the ultimatum, we wanted to get another opinion on the possibility of why charges haven't been filed against the white man seen slapping a Black man in the video.
Former Chief Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Mark Piepmeier answered that question over Zoom.
"I don't see that the person, from what I've seen, committed a crime," Piepmeier said. "Assault is causing or attempting to cause harm to another person. Felonious assault is causing or attempting to cause serious physical harm to the other person. So, if I reach out and slap you, I'm not intending to harm you, and I don't harm you.
"Basically, I'm taunting you, or I'm basically challenging you to a fight. And if the fight breaks out, there's a fight going on. So I don't see that the person that did that — I think he was stupid to do it — but to me, I don't see a crime that was committed there. And again, I'm not working at the county prosecutor's office anymore, but I would not present that to a grand jury. I don't see it as a crime."
Thomas said he and other leaders will take further action against the city. He did not clarify what those plans are.
"There's obviously a lot of video that was taken by so many people. If the police have additional videos that would resolve the issue of why they have not charged the gentleman that did the slap, then they need to release that. It's just that simple if they have that information. If they don't have that, then they need to at least give an explanation. Somebody in the administration of the city should give an explanation as to why that individual in particular wasn't charged, and if there's video of others throwing blows, then we need to ask, 'Why have they not been charged?'" Thomas said. "How this became an aggravated riot is beyond me, but in the event it was an aggravated riot, under the circumstances, then clearly the gentleman that did the slap should've been charged."
