Covington ‘committed to finding answers’ as residents speak out against police action on bridge

Several Covington residents spoke out against the actions of the Covington Police at this week’s meeting of the Covington City Commission.

The meeting, which happened Tuesday night, was the first time the city government has held a meeting with time dedicated to public comments since 15 people were arrested during a chaotic encounter with several police departments on the Roebling Bridge on July 17.

“This is a time of unrest,” said Anne Mitchell, who said she’s lived in Covington since 1981. “These things are going to happen again. I hope that we’ll be prepared.”

Mayor Ron Washington reiterated on Tuesday some comments he’d made about the investigation at the caucus meeting on Aug. 5, which was less well-attended than Tuesday’s meeting. Caucus meetings do not usually have time dedicated to public comments.

“This review will take as long as needed because the matter deserves to be handled in a professional, fair and thorough manner,” Washington said.

He concluded his statement by informing attendees that the police chief would “present the investigation’s results during a public commission meeting, where he can share the findings. To our residents, I ask for your patience while we work through this process. Transparency and accountability are what you deserve, and that’s exactly what we intend to deliver.”

The arrests took place after a protest in Cincinnati branched off from a vigil for former Cincinnati Children’s chaplain Ayman Soliman, whom ICE recently detained following the revocation of his asylum status. Soliman is currently being held at the ICE Detention Facility in the Butler County Jail in Hamilton, Ohio.

You can read LINK nky’s media partner WCPO’s ongoing coverage of Soliman’s case here.

All 15 people arrested on the bridge, most of whom were from Cincinnati, according to court records and police reports, were initially charged with felony rioting. Many of these charges were dismissed during a preliminary hearing in Kenton County District Court on July 23.

Specifically, seven protesters received deals in which they pleaded guilty to a single, lower charge in exchange for the dismissal of their other charges, including those for rioting. The court granted them time served, but did not waive their court costs.

Four protestors’ rioting charges were dismissed, but their lower charges were upheld. These included two journalists from Cincinnati CityBeat: Lucas Griffith and Madeline Fening. A hearing for these remaining charges is scheduled in Kenton County District Court for Thursday morning.

Finally, four protestors, including Brandon Hill, who was videotaped getting repeatedly punched by a police officer, had the probable cause for their rioting charges upheld and sent to a grand jury. One of those protestors, Logan Imber, is due back in court on Wednesday for a status hearing. The other protestors for whom the probable cause for rioting was upheld, Ameer Alkayali, Taylor Marshall and Hill, do not yet have court dates.

The police and protestors clashed as the protestors attempted to cross the bridge from the Ohio side. Nick Swartsell, a reporter with WVXU, was on the scene and recorded several videos that later became widely circulated among news media and on social media (he later wrote a complete story about it).

Videos show the police making arrests, deploying tasers and other weapons and arresting Fening. City Beat later released a statement in support of the reporters. Both Fening and Lucas were represented by an ACLU lawyer in court on July 23. Other video footage shows an officer, Zachary Stayton, punching Hill in the head while other officers hold him down.

A lawsuit filed in September 2023 details another time Stayton was accused of excessive force. According to court documents, Stayton and another officer were accused of slamming a man to the ground and arresting him outside a Covington Kroger. The man stated he refused to give police his ID when they walked up to him outside of his vehicle in the Kroger parking lot. The man who filed the lawsuit dismissed his claim in February 2024 after settling with the city for $27,500.

After the encounter on the bridge, Stayton was placed on paid administrative duty, meaning he’s still working in the office but not out on patrol, while the police conduct an internal affairs investigation.

The investigation consists of reviewing the hundreds of hours of body cam footage as well as interviews with people on the scene, civilian and officer alike. Mayor Ron Washington told attendees that video footage for the investigation was still going through the redaction process but would be released once that’s complete.

Much of the backlash from the community has taken the form of criticisms against the police’s use of force and process of de-escalation. These concerns were reflected during the public comments.

“We are normalizing the choice to approach in numbers with aggression and appearing to completely cut off [the protestors’] path, creating a more dangerous situation,” said Missy Spears. Spears is an activist in the community and the executive director of Queer Kentucky, a periodical that writes about LGBTQ+ people in the commonwealth, although she was speaking at the meeting as a private citizen. “We are normalizing intimidation over cooperation.”

Spears contrasted the police’s actions on the bridge with the behavior of Spike Jones, a former Covington police chief, whom Spears said, “set the standard by treating protesters as people first, and he went as far as to lend a protester his own bullhorn because their batteries ran out.”

“This is a challenging time in our country,” Mitchell said, “and it’s important that people feel they can exercise their Constitutional rights as the NAACP did in 1983 when they marched across the bridge in support of voter rights.”

Commissioners addressed the public comments toward the end of the meeting. Commissioners Tim Downing and Shannon Smith both thanked the residents for coming out to share their views.

“This is a bit of a unique circumstance, and so we’ve had more comments around this than we have other topics,” Downing said. “But I really appreciate those who engage with us and let us know what your thoughts are, regardless of what the topic is.”

Smith said that the commission supported the city’s police officers but acknowledged that many in the community were concerned.

“When we [the commissioners] saw what we saw, we had a lot of questions,” Smith said at the meeting, “and the only thing that I want to say now is we share a lot of those questions, and we are very committed to finding answers.”

Smith elaborated to LINK nky after the meeting, emphasizing that a full-scale investigation was necessary before reaching any “final judgements,” as she put it.

“It would irresponsible of the city or anyone else to take action based on clips…,” Smith said after the meeting. “The Police Department and the City is 100% committed to getting the full story and the full investigation and acting accordingly.”

LINK nky will report more on this situation as it develops.

Taylor Weiter of WCPO contributed reporting to this story.