A federal prosecutor suggested local authorities should think about using federal hate crime law while handling a fight in downtown Cincinnati that went viral over the weekend.
Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, retweeted a post on X from Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno and said, “Our federal hate crimes laws apply to ALL Americans.” Dhillon said that the division will monitor how local authorities handle this incident.
“Nobody in our great nation should be the victim of such a crime, and where race is a motivation, federal law may apply,” she added.
The Enquirer reached out to the office of the new U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Dominick Gerace II, but did not immediately receive a response.
Connie Pillich will prosecute ‘to the fullest extent of the law’
Ohio has its own hate crime laws on the books that can increase the level of an offense if someone commits a crime based on the “race, color, religion, or national origin” of another person or group of people which the law calls “ethnic intimidation.”
Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich said in a statement to The Enquirer that she will prosecute the attackers “to the fullest extent of the law.”
“I stand by my statement and, when I receive the police reports, I will determine what charges legally available to us to present to the Grand Jury,” she said.
Regional politics reporter Erin Glynn can be reached at eglynn@enquirer.com, @ee_glynn on X or @eringlynn on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati fight video: Trump, prosecutor on hate crime charges