Five charged in Cincinnati brawl that left woman knocked out

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Five people have been charged over a savage brawl on a downtown Cincinnati street that was shared widely on social media.

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The suspects’ names were not released and authorities did not specify what charges they faced, but Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge warned that more arrests were expected.

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“We have five we have charged, and anticipate more,” Theetge told reporters on Monday, two days after the shocking incident that she referred to as a “fight.”

Online videos show a group of people stomping on the head of a man as he curled up to protect himself from the onslaught of strikes.

A woman who appeared to try to intervene was sucker-punched and knocked out as blood poured from her mouth.

Theetge shamed people on social media for sharing video of the brawl, declaring that the footage did not “depict the entire incident,” and that it only shows “one version of what occurred.”

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She then tried to downplay the brawl, explaining that a baseball game and music festival happening in Cincinnati that night both went off without a hitch.

“We had one incident — one incident — late Friday night into Saturday morning that is getting all the attention and undoing the good stuff that happened this weekend,” Theetge said.

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No update was given on the victims but the police chief said they “appeared to be as well as could be expected” when police arrived.

Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police president Ken Kober told Wlwt the man and woman suffered “pretty serious injuries” and would be “recovering from this for a while.”

And Ohio gubernatorial candidate and Cincinnati native Vivek Ramaswamy took to X to say he spoke to the woman who was knocked out, claiming she was a mother named Holly who told him “not a single local or state official had yet reached out” to her besides “one police detective.”

“She’s a single working mom who went to a friend’s birthday party,” he wrote.

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“It’s unconscionable that there were no police present in that area of Cincinnati on a Friday night, or even an ambulance to take her to the hospital,” Ramaswamy continued.

“Hard-working Americans shouldn’t have to worry for their safety when they have a good time in our cities.”

Theetge argued and said officers were on the scene within six minutes of receiving a call about the brawl, but the “fight” had ended and the mob had dispersed by the time cops arrived.

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The chief noted that they received only a single call about the incident, blaming others for watching and not calling 911 sooner.

What sparked the fight remains unclear but the footage begins with an argument between two men before it quickly escalates.

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Footage of the graphic brawl had many weighing in including Vice President JD Vance and X CEO Elon Musk.

Musk shared a post about the fight and commented on another account’s post, commenting, “That guy almost killed this woman. Aggravated assault.”

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Vance noted that he didn’t see the video in its entirety but what he did see was “a mob of lawless thugs beating up on an innocent person.”

The former Ohio senator added: “Where I come from at least, when you have a grown man who sucker-punches a middle-aged woman, that person ought to go to jail for a very long time.”

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