Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH) has been in contact with the woman who was brutally assaulted last weekend in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. With her permission, he shared photos showing her bruised and swollen face—injuries inflicted by a group of predominantly young black individuals.
Her name is Holly. The assault began when a woman struck her. Moments later, a man punched her directly in the face, knocking her to the ground. She lost consciousness, and video footage shows blood streaming from her mouth.
In his post, Moreno criticized the city’s leadership, beginning with Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval, whose three days of silence following the violent attacks was deafening. When Pureval finally addressed the incident, he downplayed the savage beating of a white couple by a group of black youths as a “fight.”
Moreno also called out Cincinnati Police Chief Terri Theetge who pointed her finger at reporters during a Monday press conference and said, “Social media posts and your coverage of it distorts the context of what actually happened, and that makes our job more difficult. … Yes guys, that’s you. That is you.”
Asked by a reporter what exactly had been distorted, Theetge dodged the question. I covered this story here.
While many users on X expressed outrage over the vicious attack on this woman, a few seemed to feel she deserved what happened to her.
By far, the most appalling comment came from Cincinnati City Council President Pro Tem Victoria Parks who responded to a Facebook post: “They begged for that beat down! I am grateful for the whole story.”
[Fox News noted that the comment was made by “an account that appears to belong to Councilwoman Victoria Parks.” It was a response to a post from “a Facebook user called Leohna Alia La JCannon that shows the vicious assault.]
Given her prior advocacy for causes such as declaring racism a public health crisis, her sentiments aren’t surprising. What is startling, however, is that a public official would be reckless enough to put them in writing.
Although Parks announced in January that she plans to retire at the end of her current term, her breathtaking comment has triggered demands for her immediate dismissal.
Ohio State Rep. Phil Plummer, a Republican, wrote on X: “Cincinnati Councilwoman Victoria Parks must resign immediately!”
Another commenter called her “a racist pig.”
The attack did more than inflict physical harm—it exposed the simmering racial tensions that so often lurk just beneath the surface. The straight-up racist responses from predominantly white commenters, but some black users on X, made clear that these divisions are still very much alive in America today.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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