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EXCLUSIVE: CINCINNATI, OHIO – A viral video showing several people being brutally beaten in downtown Cincinnati has Vivek Ramaswamy decrying a pervasive “anti-law enforcement culture” in American society.
The former 2024 presidential hopeful and Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate spoke with Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview on Monday evening ahead of a Cincinnati town hall event addressing combating violence, saying that he believes the Cincinnati beating “catalyzed a conversation in our state and frankly across the country about this issue of violent crime in the cities of the United States of America.”
He called the beating of Holly, a woman in the video who apparently was attempting to intervene to help another victim, “totally unconscionable.”
In the video, a group of people can be seen pummeling two victims, one of whom, a woman later identified as Holly, ended up with “very bad brain trauma.” The incident occurred in the early morning hours of July 26 on the corner of Fourth and Elm streets, outside a popular nightclub.
Ramaswamy shared that he has been in contact with Holly after first reaching out to her to check in on her well-being after the beating. He previously revealed Holly told him that no local elected officials reached out to her after the incident.
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“One of the reasons I wanted to reach out was just to see if we could help… but also to hear her perspective on the front lines of what she wants to see come out of this,” he explained. “The fact of the matter is she, and victims like her, want to make sure that violent crime like this doesn’t spread, that we’re able to use what was a tragedy, and it was a travesty what happened in Cincinnati, to be able to adopt policies that actually stop this reckless crime in our cities, stop the wave of violent crime in cities.”
Another angle of the fight shows a victim being beaten in the middle of the street and yelling racial slurs. Some claim the male victim slapped one of the perpetrators before the fight, sparking the beatdown.
Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge said in a press conference that there are a total of six victims. Six people have been charged with crimes, and four have been arrested. The city’s fugitive task force is searching for the two suspects who are still at large. Theetge said that out of the approximately 100 people who witnessed the incident or were involved in the brawl, only one individual called law enforcement.
Jermaine Matthews, 39, Dominique Kittle, 37, Montianez Merriweather, 34, and Dekyra Vernon, 24, were arrested for their alleged involvement in the fight.
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He said the U.S. should be a place “where Americans can actually feel just safe to go into their cities, have a good night without fear of getting beaten up or assaulted.”
“I don’t think that’s too much to ask in the greatest nation known to the history of mankind. I don’t think it’s too much to ask in Cincinnati, Ohio,” he said.
Regarding the vast majority of bystanders not intervening during the beating, Ramaswamy commented, “It is sad to see the anti-law enforcement culture, the anti-rule of law culture spread across our country.”
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“I think there are deeper issues relating to just people being agnostic to the rule of the law, people being desensitized to this kind of violence,” he went on, adding, “At our best as human beings, that’s not who we are. We feel compassion when something like this happens. Ignoring it is not compassion. Ignoring is cruelty.”
He called for more “open dialogue” rather than “sweeping these issues under the rug.”
He said that some have criticized him for calling attention to the beating, saying “some of them make it seem like the bigger crime than the assault was actually noticing it.”
“I don’t think that’s the case. I think that actually the way we’re going to bring people together is through what we’re doing tonight. Open dialogue, open discussion,” he explained.
Fox News Digital’s Julia Bonavita, Peter D’Abrosca and Deirdre Heavey contributed to this report.
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