Last night, Ohio Gubernatorial Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy held a Town Hall in Cincinnati that addressed the ugly Cincinnati Fights of the past weekend. Ramaswamy promised no scripted questions and a free-wheeling discussions. In the first twenty minutes, that was true. The lighting was difficult, but the repartee sparkled. Mr. Ramaswamy has had difficult moments and a not so great parting from DOGE very early in the Trump 2.0 Administration. He may just do well in this race for Governor of Ohio, based on last night.
Vivek Ramaswamy will be 40 years old in a few days and grew up in Cincinnati. He attended St. Xavier High School in College Hill. He went to school at Harvard and Yale and also lived in New York City. He moved to Columbus to run for Governor.
Last night’s Town Hall was held at Jim & Jack’s on the River, which is on the Ohio River on Route 50, where Abolitionists welcomed freed slaves, which was mentioned often.
Vivek’s co-host for the evening was Christopher Smitherman, former Cincinnati Vice-Mayor and for seven years the President of the Cincinnati NAACP.
Our nation was founded on a culture of free speech, not a culture of fear. We’re hosting a Town Hall in my hometown of Cincinnati on Monday at 5:30 to reflect on recent events & discuss how to improve in the future. We’ll livestream it. Open, respectful dialogue is the way. pic.twitter.com/N1qgCqkv5Z
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) July 31, 2025
Former Cincinnati City Council member Christopher Smitherman addressed remarks from a Black man in the crowd who talked about the racial aspects of the violence. “It was not our finest moment,” Smitherman said. “Violence is never the answer.”
Smitherman said the Cincinnati Police Department is not at full force, and tied it to “defund the police” sentiment. “What all of us want is well-trained officers who approach us respectfully,” he said.
Smitherman was an excellent choice as co-host. Calm, measured and a steadying hand, Smitherman is also a Cincinnati native. It’s wonderful to know there is a leader in Cincinnati after listening to Mayor Aftab Pureval the last couple of days.
The full Town Hall is here:
Unfortunately, Christopher Smitherman is not running to oust Aftab Pureval as Mayor. Cory Bowman, the half-brother of Vice President J.D. Vance, is running for Mayor. His numbers so far have not been encouraging, but he showed up last night:
Cincinnati mayoral candidate Cory Bowman introduced himself as a pastor, father and business owner. He decided to run for mayor, he said, after he came back “to a city that was struggling” after the January presidential inauguration.
Combatting violence, he said, “has to be a conversation.”
He said he’s talked with police and other people on the ground about violence who feel that their hands are tied to combat crime. “We have to say enough is enough,” he said.
Bowman called for “clean streets, safe streets and properous streets” adding that “That is not a right or left issue. That is a city issue.”
Without mentioning Cincinnati mayor Aftab Pureval by name, he said his opponent in the race is trying to get to Washington, D.C., while “I’m trying to use DC to get to Cincinnati.”
Ramaswamy and Smitherman DID talk about the fact that Cincinnati is down about 200 Law Enforcement Officers because of the Defund the Police movement after George Floyd. Smitherman did not believe that policing is the only answer. Is it ever?
Cincinnati needs to spend more money on training police officers, especially on how to deescalate tense situations, Smitherman said. But citizens need to remember that officers want to return to their families at the end of a shift, he said. When a suspect uses a weapon, he added, “expect that deadly force is going to be used.”
Ramaswamy said that family is another part of the answer:
Ramaswamy called for a “cultural reawakening” along with reforms in policing. In classrooms, that requires students to put away cell phones, recite the Pledge of Allegiance and participate in a moment of silence. Families should be the key unit for accountability, he said, along with “belief in something higher.”
Because Vivek Ramaswamy wanted to focus on the city’s overall problems, he did not want to focus only on the fights of July 26th. He did talk about Holly and that no one from Cincinnati leadership had reached out to her.
https://t.co/p8VVLBgqF3‑changing-injuries/
Holly, the woman at the center of a brutal mob attack in downtown Cincinnati, has broken her silence, delivering an emotional on-camera message as she continues to recover from serious brain trauma sustained during the violent assault.…— Wilda V. Heard (@drWilda) August 4, 2025
The most compelling speaker of the night was Sarah Heringer. Mrs. Heringer is a local entrepreneur. Her husband was a twice deployed GWOT Army veteran. Sarah Heringer’s husband was killed by a violent felon in their home in early June of this year.
The wife of a man who was fatally stabbed in his Over-the-Rhine home is calling on Cincinnati leaders, specifically Mayor Aftab Pureval, for answers — even threatening legal action if need be.
Sarah Heringer posted to Facebook on Sunday, saying her husband, Patrick Heringer, was killed due to “negligence.”
Patrick Heringer, 46, was killed around 4 a.m. Wednesday, June 4, at his home in the 100 block of McMicken Avenue. Cincinnati police have charged Mordecia Black, 38, with murder and aggravated burglary after he allegedly stabbed Patrick Heringer in the neck.
snip–
“Let’s be clear: this was not a tragedy. This was negligence,” Sarah Heringer wrote on Facebook. “Negligence from the Ohio Adult Parole Authority, from the Cincinnati Police Department, and from the elected leaders who now speak of safety as if it’s something they’ve earned the right to claim.”
Prosecutors also said that Black was already involved in a burglary in May, weeks before Patrick Heringer’s death. A warrant was issued for Black on May 15 for the burglary, but he was not arrested for that case until June 5, when police charged him with the murder of Patrick Heringer.
In her post, Sarah Heringer called back to a recent comment about crime from Pureval, where he said “public safety is and will always be (the city’s) first, second and third priority.”
“Mr. Mayor, if public safety were your top priority, Patrick would still be alive,” Sarah Heringer wrote. “You acknowledged the pain, but you have failed to acknowledge your own role in this system’s failure. You speak to the problem but refuse to name a solution. You’ve offered no public action plan. No reforms. No measurable change.”
She was very eloquent last night:
Heringer says the city failed Patrick Heringer.
“I am not the only widow. My husband is not the only body.”
She says city leaders have ignored her and her plight, but she won’t let them.@WCPO pic.twitter.com/5SXMQFigl0— Sean DeLancey (@SeanDeLanceyTV) August 4, 2025
No city deserves this kind of weak leadership. Their first duty is the safety of the citizens. Well done to Vivek Ramaswamy for bringing the real people in to talk at the Town Hall.
Featured Image: Armorsword/Wikimedia Commons.org/cropped/Creative Commons 4.0
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Author: Toni Williams
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