Three charged with assault in connection with viral Cincinnati brawl

Montianez Merriweather (L) and Dekyra Vernon, shown here in mugshots released by police, were charged with felonious assault

Three people have been arrested in connection with a brawl in Cincinnati after footage of the incident went viral.

Police in the US city earlier said they were searching for a total of five people in connection with the fight, which sparked reaction by Vice-President JD Vance, Elon Musk and others.

Montianez Merriweather, 34; Dekyra Vernon, 24; and Jermaine Matthews, 39, have been charged with assault and aggravated riot.

According to police records, Mr Merriweather and Ms Vernon were additionally charged with felonious assault, which is punishable by up to eight years in prison.

The melee broke out just after 03:00 local time (07:00 GMT) on Saturday, according to Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge. Footage went viral after being posted online, including to a local crime-focused Facebook page.

Mr Merriweather was indicted earlier in July on weapons charges and a count of receiving stolen property, but was released on bail after paying 10% of a $4,000 (£3,000) bond.

Police union officials criticised the judge in the previous case. Ken Kober, president of the city's Fraternal Order of Police lodge, told the Cincinnati Enquirer that Mr Merriweather "never should have been out" of jail.

Records indicate Mr Merriweather is now being held on $500,000 bond. Bond has been set at $200,000 for Ms Vernon and $100,000 for Mr Matthews. Lawyers for the three could not immediately be identified.

Fox News and other US media reported that the FBI is also investigating the incident.

Cincinnati is a city of about 300,000 people in south-west Ohio

It is unclear what triggered the brawl early on Saturday, or what happened before or after people started recording the incident with their phones.

One video showed two men square off, with bystanders variously filming, watching and attempting to intervene, before a vicious fight broke out. One of the men was surrounded by others who began beating him in the middle of a downtown street.

Other scuffles broke out and a man was seen punching a woman until she lost consciousness.

At a news conference on Monday, Chief Theetge said that out of the roughly 100 people in the area at the time, only one called police and that alcohol consumption played a part.

"They were fighting in front of traffic. Why didn't somebody [else] call us?" the police chief said.

Vice-President Vance told a crowd in Canton, Ohio on Monday that the incident was "disgusting".

'What I saw, and I haven't seen the full context, but what I saw is a mob of lawless thugs beating up on an innocent person," he said.

"I hope every single one of those people who engage in violence is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

Vance grew up nearby, and his half-brother Cory Bowman is running for mayor of Cincinnati. Bowman criticised city officials and called the video a "wake-up call".

Vivek Ramaswamy, a former Republican Party presidential candidate who also grew up in the area and is running for Ohio governor, criticised the response and accused "leftists" of being soft on crime.

Chief Theetge said traffic was heavy in the area because of several events late on Friday, but officers were on the scene six minutes after the call. By that time, the assailants had scattered.

The virality of the video was also propelled by people suggesting that race was a motivation for the fighting and that the story allegedly did not receive media attention because several assailants were black.

An unnamed witness told local news station WXIX the confrontation began 15 minutes before the video's start, and a group was overheard making "racial comments".

One man in the initial confrontation shown on the video was white while several others were black, and the white man was later beaten by a group of what appeared to be mostly black men after the serious violence began.

The woman who was punched appeared to be white and struck by a younger black man.

Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, posted: "Nobody in our great nation should be the victim of such a crime, and where race is a motivation, federal law may apply."

Videos, though, also showed black men trying to help quell the violence.

Signal 99, the Facebook account that first brought some of the footage to light, posted that "these are not blacks targeting whites, simply for being white".

"We saw several black men attempt to intervene last night, knowing they could be jumped next by the mob. So please stop with the racist commentary," the post also read.

The uncertainty around the event did not stop several popular right-wing accounts from speculating about its cause.

"HORRIFIC: White couple brutally beat by black mob in Cincinnati," wrote the Libs of TikTok account on X. "You probably won't see this story in the MSM [mainstream media]."

Elon Musk replied to that message and to another tweet, writing "Why zero stories?", despite coverage in a number of local and national news outlets.

The BBC has contacted Musk, Libs of Tiktok and Signal 99 for comment.