Ohio Nazi demonstration and police protection

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Some Black leaders and residents in greater Cincinnati expressed dismay after armed, masked neo-Nazis were allowed to gather on a freeway bridge without arrest.

Some have called for a quick investigation of the response by Evendale police and Hamilton County sheriff's deputies after the demonstration Friday afternoon on the Interstate 75 overpass between the Village of Evendale and Lincoln Heights, the latter a historically Black community.

The biggest question for critics of the response is why none of the neo-Nazi demonstrators was arrested after the group was confronted by community members, firearms on display on both sides.

The Rev. Julian Armand Cook of Lincoln Heights Missionary Baptist Church said in an interview that the demonstration of hatred, which included swastika-adorned flags, was shocking.

"To see it show up at the gateway to this historic community, the first, the oldest Black self-governed city north of the Mason-Dixon Line, it is very clear what message it is sending," he said. "So it was — I was angry. I was hurt. I was shocked."

Evendale police said in a statement Tuesday that officers were bound to protect the First Amendment rights of demonstrators and that, even though the demonstration was carried out without a permit, it was legal. The police department said ticketing demonstrators for smaller matters such as transporting people in the back of a box truck — which they boarded as they left — without belted seats was overlooked in the name of preventing violence.

The department did not address the nature of the demonstration, which some Black residents described as existentially threatening.

Lincoln Heights resident Eric Ruffin said at Tuesday night's village meeting that one of the demonstrators called him a racial epithet.

"Do you want a community you don't feel safe in?" he asked.

The police department said officers were put in an incendiary situation that was resolved without injuries or loss of life.

"One of the groups was heavily armed with multiple firearms and tensions among opposing groups were escalating," it said. "As such the overriding priority was to continue efforts to isolate groups, limit new participants and further deescalate the situation."

To reach that goal, the department said, officers allowed a U-Haul box truck to safely get through counterdemonstrators, and an officer gave a ride to a neo-Nazi demonstrator who was told it was unsafe to return to a vehicle because counterdemonstrators were in the pathway.

In a separate statement, Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey said de-escalating the situation on the bridge so no one was hurt was a top priority for responding deputies.

"Lincoln Heights residents are understandably upset," she said. "We continue to work with the community, and emphasize that there is no place for hate in Hamilton County."

The Village of Evendale has held two town hall meetings about the matter in two days, and the neo-Nazi demonstration was a topic of discussion for Hamilton County's Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday.

We had questions about why there was no arrests made when there were clear violations of the law," Cook said.

State Rep. Cecil Thomas, D-Cincinnati, said he would support legislation to ensure authorities have tools they can use to arrest such demonstrators in the future.

“I can guarantee you we will get some action so that if this happens again, law enforcement will have the authority to take action,” he said at a community meeting Monday, according to NBC affiliate WLWT of Cincinnati.

County Commissioner Alicia Reece, speaking at the commission meeting, supported calls for an investigation into the law enforcement response, saying demonstrators were made too comfortable.

Residents, she argued, fended for themselves.

"They had to go in they own house, get they own guns, go out there and risk they own life," Reece said at the meeting, captured on video she posted to Facebook. "And they felt the only thing that happened was a defense, in their mind, of the Nazis."

Cook praised a community with a noted history of self-governance for taking care in the face of hatred.

A small Ohio municipality has apologized for not publicly responding to neo-Nazi demonstrators, some holding flags with swastikas, who marched in town recently, and ordered an independent review of how police handled the matter.

Residents had urged officials in Evendale, a suburb of Cincinnati, to explain what prompted the protest and why no one was arrested in the Feb. 7 incident that ended when a group of Black residents confronted the marchers and burned their flags.

“We apologize about not meeting or speaking to you sooner about the problems,” Mayor Richard Finan said in a Monday news conference, adding that officials wanted to determine what transpired before addressing the public.

“We want to improve, make things better and see if we did anything wrong on that day,” he said.

How'd that song go? Oh right: Some of those who work forces / are the same who burn crosses.

Nearly every morning for the last month, Jay has been waking up before sunrise to drive around the streets of Lincoln Heights, patrolling neighborhood bus stops to make sure children are getting to school safely.

“We have a very tight community, so all of our kids, they know us,” he said.

But for anyone outside the community, Jay’s presence might be a mystery. He wears a face covering along with tactical vests, and Jay is not his real name, which he asked not to use to prevent harassment from hate groups.

He’s a member of the Lincoln Heights Safety and Watch program, an initiative that started shortly after Feb. 7, when a neo-Nazi group waving swastika flags and shouting racial slurs demonstrated on a highway overpass just on the edge of this majority-Black community about 30 minutes north of Cincinnati.

Officers from Evendale, which borders Lincoln Heights, and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office both responded that day. No arrests were made, and Evendale police officers did not take down any names or identifying information from members of the neo-Nazi group, according to the mayor’s office. The Hamilton County Prosecutor’s office is currently investigating the incident to see if criminal charges could be filed.

But for Daronce Daniels, the safety and watch group’s spokesperson, the police response was just as alarming as the neo-Nazi appearance, making residents feel they wouldn’t be protected if another hate group were to visit their town.

“They’ve been very clear that if it happens again, they’ll allow it to happen again, that their hands are tied,” Daniels said.

Lincoln Heights residents said the police response to the incident was insufficient, prompting Daniels and other members of the Heights Movement, an existing community empowerment organization, to devise the safety and watch program, which includes armed volunteers wearing tactical gear and face coverings. Some of the same volunteers who helped mentor youth through the Heights Movement are now going on armed patrols. Ohio state law allows anyone legally allowed to own a gun to open carry without a permit.

“I’ve never felt safer as a Black man in my community than I have right now,” Daniels said. “These are my friends. These are my cousins, my brothers, my sisters, my aunties.”

Local business owner Eric Ruffin was accosted in his car by the neo-Nazi group as he was coming home from a work meeting.

He said he supports law enforcement, but that its handling of the Feb. 7 demonstration doesn’t give him faith that it will protect him in the future. For that reason, he says he’s proud of the neighborhood safety and watch program, even though he wishes it weren’t needed.

“What I don’t understand is how I can be standing here in America in 2025 and somebody can walk up to my window with a swastika and have guns and call me the N-word and law enforcement watch,” Ruffin said.

“We don’t want to become what we hate. You know, we don’t want to become a group of people that walk around feeling like we have a reason in America to have to protect ourselves. That’s what the Nazis want.”

The village of Lincoln Heights was formed in 1923 for Black families escaping the South, and it incorporated in 1946 as the “first African American self-governing community north of the Mason-Dixon Line,” according to the town’s website. However, residents say the community has been underserved by local municipalities, and its police department was disbanded in 2014, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, leaving it under the jurisdiction of the Hamilton County Sheriff.

For many safety and watch volunteers, that history plays a role in their decision to add to their everyday duties as parents and workers.

“It’s just something that our grandfathers and our great-grandmothers — they started this. So we’re going to make sure that that history stays intact,” said one volunteer, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from hate groups.

Yard signs that read “We Support Lincoln Heights Safety & Watch” are peppered throughout the town, and community members could be seen waving to safety and watch volunteers as they stood guard near the local elementary school one Tuesday morning.

Chantelle Phillips said she saw the neo-Nazi rally playing out on social media as it happened. She said she trusts the neighborhood protection group to be more proactive than officers with the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, whose jurisdiction includes Lincoln Heights.

“I feel like it’s more secure now,” Phillips said. “I know my son can walk home and be OK.”

Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey is now calling on the Ohio state Legislature to pass laws that make it illegal to wear a mask “for the purpose of intimidation” while open carrying. She said this measure would have given her officers more leeway to make arrests during the neo-Nazi rally.

In an interview with NBC News, she defended her officers’ response on Feb. 7 but said she understands why Lincoln Heights residents are concerned for their safety. Still, she worries that an armed confrontation between neighborhood residents and another hate group could lead to a dangerous situation.

“They feel they need to arm their residents, and they’re allowed to,” McGuffey said. “At some point, we are going to likely face a very dangerous situation that we are trained to handle. But the unknown is, who else is armed? How many juveniles are standing around with a gun in their hand? I cannot be more emphatic that this issue that we’re embedded in, and the way that people are reacting and acting with guns with open carry is directly related to the inaction of legislators who say they support law enforcement, who say they support families and order, and they do not.