CINCINNATI – A candidate for Cincinnati’s mayorship slammed city leadership Monday afternoon after a viral downtown beatdown that has reverberated across the nation. 

“People don’t even see the sense in calling 911 anymore,” said Cory Bowman, who is also Vice President JD Vance’s half-brother in addition to being a candidate for city mayor. 

Bowman placed second in a nonpartisan primary race in May. He will square off with incumbent Mayor Aftab Pureval in November. His thoughts on citizens seeing no sense in calling 911 came after Police Chief Teresa Theetge said in a press conference that only one person called police while the attack was ongoing. 

“That is unacceptable to not call the police,” she said during a Monday press conference. “Traffic was horrendous. People saw this. They were fighting in front of traffic. Why didn’t people call us?”

Bowman said that with police handcuffed by the current city leadership, he is not surprised by the events of early Saturday morning, which took place on the corner of Fourth and Elm Street outside a nightclub in the city’s downtown business district. 

A fight broke out on Friday night in downtown Cincinnati, leaving several people injured. (X/@Anthea06274890)

“It’s just nothing more than a savage attack on a couple of people. I mean you see somebody that’s completely defenseless, trying to cover their head in their face, and they’re just being stomped on by multiple individuals,” Kober said. 

Kober was upset that the positives of the weekend, the Cincinnati Reds winning three home games and the storied Cincinnati Jazz Festival, were overshadowed by the vicious viral video. 

He, too, blamed local officials for increasing crime. 

“We have a problem with judges that don’t wanna hold people accountable, and when they know that there aren’t gonna to be any consequences for their actions is when people are gonna go out and we’re gonna see incidents like what happened Saturday morning,” he said. 

The corner of Fourth and Elm Street outside of LoVe, a local nightclub, where the beating took place, as seen on July 28, 2025, in Cincinnati. (Peter D’Abrosca/Fox News Digital)

“I hope that the court system actually holds these people to the fullest extent of the law. It would be nice to see headlines six or eight months from now saying that these people were convicted, and they’re now gonna get the maximum sentence for whatever crime they’ve been convicted of.”

On Monday afternoon, CPD said it charged five people in connection with the incident. The names of the individuals were not released.

Cincinnati Chief of Police Teresa Theetge added that there were over 100 witnesses to the attack, and some even filmed it. However, only one call was placed to 911. 

Police sources told Fox News earlier in the day that they are working to identify at least eight more suspects. 

People with information are asked to call the Cincinnati Police Department or Crime Stoppers at 513-352-3040.