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Time of India
9 hours ago
- Time of India
Cincinnati horror: Councilwoman Victoria Parks under fire for remark on downtown assault; users demand resignation
City Councilwoman Victoria Parks is facing mounting criticism after a comment from her Facebook account appeared to defend a violent attack in downtown Cincinnati last weekend. The backlash erupted after a Facebook user, Leohna Alia La JCannon, posted a video showing a brutal assault on two individuals near the corner of Fourth and Elm Street in the early hours of Saturday morning. In response to the video, a comment linked to Parks' Facebook account read, 'They begged for that beat down!' The comment continued, 'I am grateful for the whole story.' The account in question appears to belong to Parks and lists her job title as 'City Council Member at City of Cincinnati Government.' It also mentions her past roles as Commissioner at Hamilton County, Ohio Government, and as Chief of Staff to Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune, details that match her official biography on the City of Cincinnati website, the New York Post reported. Cincinnati's city council operates as a nonpartisan body, but all nine members, including Parks, have been endorsed by the local Democratic party. Parks appears to have at least two other Facebook accounts, one last active in May and another that has not been updated since 2022. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like TV providers are furious: this gadget gives you access to all channels Techno Mag Learn More Undo The page linked to the controversial comment includes several years of posts, mostly about her professional background. The comment sparked widespread outrage online, with screenshots being circulated rapidly across social media platforms. 'Cincinnati Councilwoman Victoria Parks must resign immediately! Defending violent criminals who viciously beat innocent people is disgusting,' Ohio's 39th District State Representative Phil Plummer posted on X. 'Her words 'They begged for that beat down!' are outrageous. Prosecutors must charge the attackers with a hate crime. We must protect our streets!' Other posts included strongly worded messages like, 'You're a racist pig, Victoria Parks,' and 'THIS IS INSANE!' with several users demanding her resignation. The attack captured in the video shows a group savagely beating two people, including a woman who was knocked unconscious and left lying in the street. The incident took place in Cincinnati's central business district and has been widely condemned by city residents and officials alike. In her official biography, Parks highlighted her role in 'passing Racism as a Public Health Crisis' during her time working with the Hamilton County government. She also claims credit for introducing and passing Juneteenth as a paid holiday for county employees. Parks announced in January that she would not seek reelection and plans to retire at the end of her current term. Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police President Ken Kober criticised the comment, telling Fox News Digital, 'It's unconscionable that an elected official would be celebrating violence in the very city she was voted to serve." "This highlights the poor political environment that police officers, residents and visitors are currently enduring. Thankfully, there's an election in November. I urge voters to vote for change!' the officer further added. Parks has not responded to multiple requests for comment. Mollie Lair, Communications Director for the Cincinnati City Manager's Office, confirmed she viewed the Facebook post in person at City Hall but declined to comment.
NDTV
23-07-2025
- NDTV
Video: Black Man Punched, Dragged Out Of Car By Cops In Florida
Jacksonville, Fla: A Black man who was shown on video being punched and dragged from his car by Florida deputies during a traffic stop will speak to the public on Wednesday. William McNeil Jr., along with his family and attorneys, is set to host a news conference at 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Paul Church of Jacksonville. Footage of the 22-year-old man's arrest has sparked nationwide outrage, with civil rights lawyers accusing authorities of fabricating their arrest report. The video shows McNeil was sitting in the driver's seat, asking to speak to the Jacksonville deputies' supervisor, when authorities broke his window, punched him in the face, pulled him from the vehicle, punched him again, and threw him to the ground. But Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters says there's more to the story than the cellphone video that went viral. He warned the public about "a rush to judgment" that could lead to faulty conclusions. McNeil's lawyers say the video clearly depicts police brutality. The punch was totally unnecessary. He already broke the window, unlock the door and pull him out. Hope he gets fired for that. Disgusting. — 🅼 (@iiMARKISii) July 21, 2025 Body camera footage of the encounter shows McNeil had been repeatedly told to exit the vehicle. And, though McNeil earlier had his car door open while talking with authorities, he later closed and appeared to keep it locked for about three minutes before deputies forcibly removed him, the video shows. The vantage point of the body camera footage that was released makes it difficult to see the punches that were thrown. The cellphone footage from the Feb. 19 arrest shows that seconds before being dragged outside, McNeil had his hands up and did not appear to be resisting as he asked, "What is your reason?" He had pulled over and had been accused of not having his headlights on, even though it was daytime, his lawyers said. "What happened to William McNeil Jr. is a disturbing reminder that even the most basic rights - like asking why you've been pulled over - can be met with violence for Black Americans," lawyers Ben Crump and Harry Daniels said in a statement. Crump is a Black civil rights attorney who has gained national prominence representing victims of police brutality and vigilante violence. "William was calm and compliant," they said. "Yet instead of answers, he got his window smashed and was punched in the face, all over a questionable claim about headlights in broad daylight." The sheriff said the cellphone camera footage from inside the car "does not comprehensively capture the circumstances surrounding the incident." "Part of that stems from the distance and perspective of the recording cell phone camera," the sheriff said in a statement, adding that the video did not capture events that occurred before officers decided to arrest McNeil. Cameras "can only capture what can be seen and heard," the sheriff added. "So much context and depth are absent from recorded footage because a camera simply cannot capture what is known to the people depicted in it."
The Print
22-07-2025
- The Print
Bihar mimics 19th-century American South. Citizenship is now weaponised to exclude voters
There is nothing wrong with re-stating the well-known constitutional principle that only citizens can vote. However, the way in which citizenship is to be established, and the list of documents required, would lead not to a vote by all citizens, but to disenfranchisement, especially of underprivileged citizens. What is, in principle, an inclusionary idea – namely, citizenship – will, in practice, become an exclusionary device. The democratic process in Bihar has been dealt a shock. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced that only those who can prove their citizenship will be allowed to vote in the forthcoming Assembly elections. Citizenship and subjecthood In modern political literature, a great distinction has always been drawn between subjects (praja) and citizens (nagrik). Subjecthood marked the polities of the pre-modern era, though it managed to bleed into modern times as well. Kings had subjects, whose privileges and entitlements depended on royal blessings (raja ki kripa). In contrast, born with the American and French Revolutions of the late 18th century, citizenship is a fundamentally modern concept. In principle, citizenship stands for membership in a political community and the rights that come with it. Citizenship rights do not depend on royal wishes. Citizenship is inclusionary and equalising, whereas subjecthood was exclusionary, as it came with a diverse set of privileges for different classes of people. In the 20th century, when more and more modern polities became democratic (though not all did), voting increasingly became a citizenship right without any distinctions of class, ethnicity, or gender. Universal franchise became the lifeblood of democratic citizenship after the Second World War. There have been instances in history when the inclusionary thrust of citizenship was severely curtailed. We need to keep such examples in mind as we think about the implications of what the ECI is trying to do in Bihar. The best-known case of citizenship truncation, even crushing, is the American South during the 1880s and mid-1960s. After the Civil War between the largely Republican-led North and Democrat-led South ended in 1865 – in which the North was a victor – the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution abolished slavery, the 14th Amendment gave Black Americans citizenship for the first time, and the 15th Amendment gave Black adult males the right to vote. By 1873-74, 80-85 per cent of southern Blacks had registered to vote. After 1876, Democrats started returning to power in southern states. One of their biggest political objectives was to deprive Blacks of their voting rights. How did they do it? By developing literacy tests, instituting poll taxes, and demanding various other documents. The literacy rate of Black Americans was very low, and their incomes were so meagre that they could not afford the poll taxes necessary for voting. Partly as a result, a vast majority of southern Blacks lost their voting rights, dropping from 84-85 per cent in the mid-1870s to a mere 4-5 per cent by 1904-05. Only in 1965 did universal franchise finally return to America, the vote truncation thus lasting nearly seven to eight decades. Also read: ECI's voter verification drive in Bihar is tailor-made to keep Dalits, Muslims, EBCs out Similarities with Bihar ECI's plans for Bihar have quite a few similarities. The basic similarity – and a big surprise – is that, much like in the US, the onus of registering voters is now being placed on citizens, when it was always the responsibility of the government. People must supply proof of their citizenship to vote. The assumption of India's founding figures was that the poor citizenry would not have the literacy, or wherewithal, to step forward and register for voting. The government would, therefore, use its great resources to reach out to the poor and include them in the electoral rolls. The second similarity has to do with literacy. According to the last Census (2011), Bihar's literacy rate was a mere 61.8 per cent (as against the all-India average of 73 per cent). Illiterate citizens, like many in Bihar, are unlikely to have documents ECI needs — birth certificates, passports, matriculation certificates – to prove their citizenship. For those temporarily residing outside of the state with or without documents registered in Bihar, the requirement is that they download the partially pre-printed enumeration form from a computer, fill them out, and upload them on the ECI's website or app. For millions of Bihar's migrants – working as doormen, watchmen, and labourers in cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Chennai – this requirement is absolutely forbidding. Also read: The price of citizenship for Indians like Goa's Joseph Pereira—uncertainty, red tape, tears Weaponisation of citizenship The problem is compounded by the fact that the Government of India issues no single citizenship document. Very few Indians, including the literate ones, have birth certificates or passports. Citizenship is inferred from a variety of documents. The long-lasting practice is that if citizens say they are citizens and would like to vote, they are presumed to be one unless challenged by others and issued a notification. To try to solve the problem of ineligible voters via a documentation process, for which citizens are wholly responsible, is to inflict exclusion. It is well known in social science research that the idea of documentary adequacy works against the poor and those who have low literacy (which they did not choose but had to suffer). Which communities will be disenfranchised as a result of this exercise? Most of Bihar's poor are Dalits, Muslims, and lower OBCs (The Adivasi community constitutes a very small share in Bihar). The electorate will be disproportionately based among the upper castes and upper OBCs. Voting data shows that these are also the communities that heavily vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Whether or not one can prove that the ECI wanted this to happen, the effect of the new documentary process will tilt the scales in favour of the BJP. Fair and inclusive elections have been a well-known hallmark of Indian democracy. India needs to return to it. Disenfranchisement by institutional fiat is profoundly undemocratic. Citizenship, an inclusive political idea in principle, is being weaponised to exclude citizens in practice. Ashutosh Varshney is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University. Views are personal. (Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
