The woman who was brutally beaten by a group of predominantly black individuals two weeks ago in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, told her story to Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Thursday night. Holly’s jaw-dropping account — especially her recollection of the police officers who responded — should send a chill down the spine of every law-abiding citizen.
To recap, 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 showed blood streaming from her mouth.
Holly estimates that police arrived at the scene 15 to 20 minutes after the beatdown began. Her face was covered in blood. Photos taken the following day show her bruised and swollen — making it hard to fathom how she must have looked just minutes after the attack.
Yet, according to Holly, the officers never asked her name, took no statement, and failed to call an ambulance. Despite clearly needing urgent medical attention, she was left to call an Uber to get home. Once she was home and realized the extent of her injuries, she drove herself to the hospital.
While many bystanders were recording the attack, Holly said that none of them called 911, which baffled her. One of the victims, who was “curb-stomped,” was able to “sneak away” and call the police.
Ingraham asked Holly why she tried to intervene. She replied, “I heard a man crying on the street, [and] he looked at me and held out his hand. And [he] literally said, ‘Please, God, help me. Help me please, God.’ You can’t hear it in any of the videos because all you can hear is everybody on the street cheering each other on to curb-stomp these people, and to kick them and punch them and attack them while they were down.”
She continued, “I felt it was necessary to at least jump in, and try to help and save this man’s life. It looked like they were about to kill him, to me. And that’s why I couldn’t stand there and do nothing.”
“It was just ungodly. I cannot shake the images. It goes on a loop over and over. It keeps replaying. It was very traumatic.”
The punch that knocked her to the ground occurred during the melee. Before losing consciousness, she recalled feeling “afraid, terrified. I just remember my life flashing before my eyes, and all I can think is, ‘Dear God, I hope my children know that I love them.’”
Ingraham played a clip of Cincinnati Police Chief Terri Theetge addressing her department at the end of the weekend of the attack. It had been a busy weekend in the city.
Theetge said, “You made this — outside of this one incident — an amazing success for this city. It is because of your hard work that we are able to have such large-scale events here in Cincinnati.”
Her remark was the equivalent of the infamous quote, “Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”
Ingraham asked Holly if she looked at what happened as “an incident.” No, she replied, “I look at it as attempted murder. There’s no other way to describe it. It’s insulting to be honest.”
She noted that neither Theetge nor the city’s mayor reached out to her after the assault.
Next, Ingraham referenced the viral reaction to a Facebook post from Cincinnati City Council President Pro Tem Victoria Parks. Parks had written: “They begged for that beat down! I am grateful for the whole story.”
Questioned about her remarks, Parks told reporters that she stands by them: “I am a grown woman. What I wrote on the internet, I meant it. That’s the way I felt, and I’m not going to back down from it.”
It’s amazing she still has a job. Then again, look at who’s running the city.
Ingraham asked Holly how she would respond to Parks. She said, “I just want to know what kind of leadership you think this is showing to the rest of the people who are supposed to be serving and protecting. If you are encouraging this kind of behavior, then obviously no change is going to happen for the good. It’s gonna continue. … You’re part of the problem, not the solution.”
The two went on to discuss many other aspects of the attack, including the racial motivation of the perpetrators and the toll this has taken on Holly’s three children.
The interview exposed just how profoundly — and strangely — disconnected Cincinnati’s leaders are from the very people they’re meant to protect and serve. Holly’s story is more than a failure of leadership; it’s a failure of basic humanity. Confronted with clear and immediate suffering, both city officials and the police looked the other way. Not one of them could summon even the most fundamental act of decency. In the end, Holly was left to pick up the pieces alone.
Cincinnati can’t look away from this. The city must do better.
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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