On the 17th, demonstrators protested against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the Roebling Bridge connecting Ohio and Kentucky, blocking traffic and clashing violently with the police. At least 15 people were arrested.
The New York Post (NYP) and Cincinnati media Cincinnati.com reported that Ayman Soliman, a pastor at the Children’s Hospital, was detained after reporting to the ICE office near Cincinnati last week, sparking mass protests and demands for the release of the Egyptian-American Soliman.
The Daily Mail quoted Soliman’s lawyer as saying that the 51-year-old Soliman was persecuted as a journalist in Egypt during the “Arab Spring” revolution and was granted asylum by the United States in 2018.
About 100 protesters walked onto the Roebling Bridge from the Cincinnati side of Ohio and were violently suppressed by about 50 police officers from Covington, Kentucky. At least 15 demonstrators were arrested and charged with rioting and other crimes, and one police officer was administratively suspended.
The scene showed that a police officer repeatedly beat the head of unarmed white man Brandon Hill; after Hill was pinned to the ground, another police officer continued to beat him, and protesters shouted at the police; the police took away another protesting woman who tried to intervene, and another man was pushed to the ground by a police officer.
Covington Police Chief Brian Valenti said Hill tried to disarm a police officer carrying a pepper ball gun.
Hill was covered in scrapes and bruises, and his arm was suspended in a cantilever sling. He insisted that he just wanted to avoid being shot. “It’s all very painful, and I’m still trying to calm down, to be honest, and if that happened, it would have been because someone just randomly pointed a gun at my face,” Hill told local TV station WCPO.
The officer who beat Hill has been suspended during the investigation, Covington police said.
The unidentified officer’s body camera footage showed him chasing Hill as she ran along the sidewalk before being caught near the bridge railing.
Other officers’ body cameras could hear Hill yelling “ouch” and “stop” as he was hit in the head.
In a use of force report, the officer explained why he was violent toward Hill, who was unarmed, writing, “(Hill) continued to resist physically and would not put his hands up. I engaged him in close combat because I was concerned that he might try to get a weapon and the crowd around him posed a threat to my safety.”
Police said protesters refused to obey orders to disperse, and police subsequently arrested 15 people, including two journalists.
Covington police issued a statement saying that officers who initially tried to talk to protest organizers were threatened and felt hostile.
Police said, “While police support the public’s right to peaceful assembly and expression, threatening police officers and blocking critical infrastructure such as major bridges will pose a danger to all involved.”
The charges faced by those arrested include rioting, failure to obey police orders to disperse the assembly, obstruction of emergency rescue, criminal damage and disturbing the peace; the judge ruled on the 18th that each person should be paid $2,500 in bail.
