Villa Hills native and performer Logan Wagner has performed in operas throughout the country.

Now, he has been accepted into the prestigious Merola Opera Program, a 10-week live-in training program in San Francisco that, as Wagner put it, is “like a stamp of approval for your career.”

The program had a record number of applicants this year: over 1,500, from all over the world. Wagner was one of only 28 people accepted. Starting this summer, he and the other artists selected – who come from everywhere from South Korea to the UK to states throughout the United States – will travel to California to complete the program.

Merola alumni include Joyce DiDonato, who has won a Grammy for Best Classical Vocal Solo three times, and Stuart Skelton, who won Male Singer of the Year at the 2014 International Opera Awards, among numerous others dating back to the mid twentieth century.

“Once they have completed this program, they will join a vibrant community of distinguished alumni who have gone on to thrilling careers with major opera houses around the world,” said Merola Executive Director Sean Waugh in a press release.

LINK nky talked with Wagner about his career, his love of opera and the form’s appeal before he heads off later this year.

“I grew up being really fascinated by music,” Wagner said.

His father, Tom Wagner, plays keyboards in local rock band The Fast Forward, which is still active in and around Northern Kentucky. Observing his father’s “sense of discipline,” Wagner said, “is the thing that taught me how to really be passionate about something.”

He started doing plays and musicals in middle school and high school. He showed an aptitude for singing, so he started taking private voice lessons. One day his instructor, Carl Resnick at the Musical Arts Center in Cincinnati, asked him if he knew how to dance. Wagner said no, and so Resnick began teaching him how.

“I just started falling in love with opera because it was like all of these emotions in musical theater were then heightened by like 10,000,” Wagner said.

He went to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, often shortened to CCM, for both his undergraduate and graduate studies. He also earned an artist diploma after completing a post-master’s performance program there.

Since then he’s performed in programs in Des Moines, Santa Fe, Pittsburgh and Virginia. Last year, he performed with New World Orchestra, a program in Miami Beach Florida.

He has a handful of favorite operas. One is Fellow Travelers, which was actually developed in a collaboration between the Cincinnati Opera and CCM, about the 1950s lavender scare that saw mass firings and other forms of social persecution of gay employees in the government. He performed in a production of Fellow Travelers at the Pittsburgh Opera. Others include Peter Grimes, a twentieth century classic by Benjamin Britten, Tosca by Puccini and Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky, which is, in turn, based of a poetic novel by Pushkin.

“What draws me to is the fact that it’s such a long standing art form and something that really explores every bit of the human psyche and that’s told through not only words but also music,” Wagner said.

He encouraged people to explore the art form, which has continued to evolve throughout the centuries.

“My philosophy as an artist is to allow people to see feelings that they have felt themselves on stage and hold up a mirror to that and let people have a cathartic experience in the theater,” Wagner said. “Because we’re all in this place together and experiencing this one thing together for the first time and only time because it changes constantly. That’s a beautiful thing that we shouldn’t take for granted.”

Check out one Wagner’s performances below, and learn more about him at loganwagnertenor.com/media.

This story originally appeared at linknky.com.

The post NKY native accepted into prestigious opera program appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story stated the Kenton County Sheriff had a task force agreement with the federal government. This was not accurate. Instead, the detention center has a jail enforcement agreement and a warrant service agreement, which are distinct kinds of agreements. The relevant lines have been corrected.–LINK nky editorial, Feb. 11, 2026.

Donna Hughes-Brown moved to the United States with her family in 1978 when she was 11 years old.

Her parents are Irish nationals, but Hughes-Brown was born in England just outside of Birmingham. She met her current husband, U.S. Navy veteran Jim Brown, in 2015; they got married three years later. She’s lived in multiple states and has had legal residency status (i.e. a green card) for much her life.

She speaks with an American accent.

“I don’t look like I’m from another country, nor do I sound like I’m from another country,” Hughes-Brown said. “Anybody, to meet me on the street, would assume I’m American, and I’m not.”

She’s lived in Missouri since 2011 and legally left and re-entered the country in 2016 to go to Ireland without issue. She took a similar trip in 2025, departing from Dublin to Chicago O’Hare International Airport on July 29. As she and her husband got off the plane, Hughes-Brown said they were separated in the shuffle of the crowd. When she presented her passport to the Customs agent, he told her that she needed “fill out some paperwork.”

This was the beginning of Hughes-Brown’s roughly five-month journey through immigration detention, much of which was spent at the Campbell County Detention Center. Her story received national attention and even became the topic of a Congressional hearing in Washington, D.C.

She was released from custody in Campbell County on Dec. 18.

Hughes-Brown talked with LINK nky at length about her experience moving through the machinery of immigration detention, both in and out of Kentucky. Although we weren’t able to corroborate every detail of her account, her journey offers insight into immigration detention, both locally and throughout the country.

“I don’t want to assign blame to anybody,” Hughes-Brown said. “I want it to stop. It needs to be fixed. I don’t care who started it. I don’t care what your political affiliation is. It has to stop.”

Sins of the past

Hughes-Brown had a green card, which makes her a legal permanent resident of the United States, at the time of her detainment in Chicago. So, why was she detained?

Federal law allows for the deportation of legal residents if they commit a crime of “moral turpitude” for which they received a sentence of one year or longer within the 10 years prior to entering the country.

The category of moral turpitude is admittedly broad and actually began appearing in U.S. immigration law in the 19th century. Yet, committing such a crime doesn’t necessarily guarantee someone will get deported; it just makes them eligible. At the end of the day, whether one is actually deported or not comes down to whether enforcement agencies believe it’s worth the effort and resources.

What were Hughes-Brown’s crimes?

Writing two bad checks in Missouri, one in 2012 and the other in 2015. Hughes-Brown told LINK nky that “both times, neither check was an intended fraud check.” Essentially, she wrote the checks without checking to see if there was money in her bank account first.

“The first one was written for groceries,” Hughes-Brown said. “The second one was written for gas.” Both checks were written for less than $50 each.

The bounced checks, naturally, landed her in court. The courts didn’t find her lack of intention a compelling reason to forego sentencing her: “Did the check clear? No. Therefore, I am guilty. Whether I intended for it to clear, not clear is a moot point because the end result was still the same. It did not clear.”

Hughes-Brown was ordered to pay restitution for the first check to offset the money the grocery store lost and sentenced to a year of probation. LINK nky was not able to track down court records for the first check, but other news outlets have obtained charging documents. LINK nky did locate court records for the second check, which show the judge sentenced her to 30 days but suspended the sentence, meaning she didn’t spend any time in jail. Court records indicate she successfully served a year of unsupervised probation.

In short, she did her time and moved on.

Until 2025.

Certain countries, including Ireland, allow for U.S. border agents to operate in their airports. According to Hughes-Brown, the American Customs agents in Dublin stopped her and her husband for about an hour and half because of “something about them needing some paperwork” before finally letting them both on the plane.

“As we’re landing in Chicago, there’s an announcement that comes on the loudspeaker about, ‘Please have your passports ready to show the officer at the door,'” Hughes-Brown said. “That was the first clue that maybe something was awry, but I didn’t think much of it.”

She got off the plane first, getting separated from her husband in the line of people behind her. Upon meeting the border agent, she got the same line she got in Ireland: “I had some paperwork that I needed to sign.”

She and her husband were set to fly to St. Louis next, and as they were waiting for the papers, the agent informed them that her husband could go ahead and get on their next flight. She could catch the next flight to St. Louis, the agent said, according to Hughes-Brown. So, her husband got on the next flight as planned.

After her husband left, the agent informed her that they were going to handcuff her and take her down on the tarmac to be transported to a special office on the opposite end of the airport. The handcuffs went on, and she was taken in a van to the office.

“I wait three hours in the waiting room,” Hughes-Brown said. “They finally bring me into the inner sanctum, if you will, and that’s where they tell me that they are waiting on paperwork from Wright County,” where her fraud cases had taken place. At this point, it was about 11 p.m., meaning they weren’t going to get any documents until the next morning.

“The next morning, Thursday morning, the paperwork arrived, and I got told I had to go before a judge,” Hughes-Brown said.

Looking down at her paperwork, she spied the date of her hearing: Aug. 13. Nearly two weeks out.

“They couldn’t detain me there,” Hughes-Brown said. So, on Aug. 1, 2025, Hughes-Brown was transported to a processing center in Broadview, Illinois.

The journey to Kentucky

The Broadview Processing Center, located in Chicago’s Broadview suburb, became the site of public outcry last year following the deployment of large numbers of federal agents to Chicago.

A lawsuit filed late last year accused the government of using the facility to perpetuate “mass constitutional violations.” Reporting by the Associated Press, who covered the court hearing where testimony about the facility’s conditions took place, describe the allegations of the suit: denying proper access to food, water and medical care, and coercing people to sign documents they didn’t understand. Without that knowledge, and without private communication with lawyers, people unknowingly relinquished their rights and faced deportation, the lawsuit alleges.

Hughes-Brown spent three days at the Broadview facility in August before learning she was going to be transported to Campbell County. A transport team came to pick her and two other detainees up, she said.

They were handcuffed and put into a paddy wagon, “no windows, no nothing, and it has two sides to it, and each side seats six people,” Hughes-Brown said.

There were seat belts and handhold straps to secure the passengers, Hughes-Brown said.

“There’s a sign right in front of you on the divider that says, ‘please hold on to the straps,'” she said. In spite of this, Hughes-Brown said, “they handcuffed us in front so we couldn’t reach reach the straps that were behind us, and they did not seat belt us in. Therefore, we were literally thrown around the van.”

The driver, Hughes-Brown said, “would punch the gas and slam on the brakes, and so we were constantly being thrown against each other. And in my case, I was closest to the driver’s seat, and I kept getting thrown against the side wall there between the driver and the cargo area.”

The journey took about five and a half hours, Hughes-Brown said. They arrived in Kentucky around 7 p.m. without having eaten.

Then, the booking process began.

“Anytime somebody local got brought in, they would stop in-processing us and would do the new person that came in,” Hughes-Brown said. “So, it took us – took them – four hours to in-process.”

The three of them were placed in a holding cell while processing took place, still not having eaten.

“This holding cell was absolutely horrific,” Hughes-Brown said. “It was full of bugs. There was feces on the wall. There was an awful odor coming from the drain.”

They were given mats to sit on.

After about another hour of waiting, Hughes-Brown said, the three immigration detainees – two of whom spoke English, according to Hughes-Brown – were moved into the general dormitories of the Campbell County Detention Center. Hughes-Brown estimated the entire process, from getting picked up in Broadview to finally moving into the Detention Center’s dorms, took about 12 hours.

At Campbell County Detention Center

Other immigration detainees – about 14, Hughes-Brown estimates – were already there in the pod where Hughes-Brown was placed. One woman, she said, was from England, two were from India and the rest were Latina. They co-mingled with local inmates.

“Some on aggravated assault charges, some on drug charges, some on pay-to- stay, like they didn’t pay fines,” Hughes-Brown said. “They ran the gamut.”

Although Hughes-Brown was critical of her treatment and the treatment of others during her time in Campbell County, she had no illusions about the fact that she was in, well, jail. She used the example of prison food.

“You’re in a jail, OK.” Hughes-Brown said. “It’s not going to be home cuisine; I get it.”

Still, one criticism in particular that stood out in Hughes-Brown’s account were what she saw as inadequate attention to healthcare necessities among the detainees. As someone who works in home healthcare, Hughes-Brown said there were several tendencies she observed and even experienced that didn’t sit right with her.

“I had really high blood pressure going in there, imagine that,” Hughes-Brown said. “I was in there a week and a half before I finally got blood pressure meds; my blood pressure meds that I actually have prescribed to me.”

Another issue she said she observed was an inadequate supply of feminine hygiene products for the female detainees. At one point, she said, as much as a third of the women in her would be without hygiene products, which is disallowed under Kentucky administrative regulations.

When Hughes-Brown spoke out about these and other issues, she said, she was retaliated against.

“I was put in isolation twice,” Hughes-Brown said. “Plus, I had bunk restrictions, mat restrictions, you name it. They tried their damnedest to break me down.”

Her husband, Jim Brown, was trying his best to resolve some of these issues from the outside. In a complaint submitted to the Kentucky Board of Nursing about one of the nurses at the facility, Brown alleges that his wife was denied proper migraine medication.

“She has migraines about once or twice a month,” Brown writes in his complaint, dated Oct. 1, 2025. “Has prescription medication for them but is detained and doesn’t have them [sic] She started a headache over 24 hours ago and asked …[sic] for some medication like tylenol [sic] to help with medications [sic] He refused to give her even tylenol.. [sic] And instead told her to use breathing exercises and drink water. Id [sic] like to know which protocol he got that from.”

Needless to say, Brown is not a fan of the Campbell County Detention Center.

“The first month that this happened, I called and called and called because there was things that were going on that were wrong in the jail,” Brown said. “One of the instances was Donna was forced to eat a pill off the floor for medication. There was toilets that were clogged up for a week at a time. There were five, six people in a pod having to share the same toilet, all kinds of different things, just egregious stuff.”

After about a month and half of calling, Brown said he was finally able to get through to James Daley, the jailer.

“He, point blank, told me that Donna was lying to him, that that couldn’t possibly be in his jail,” Brown said.

Brown works as a CT scan tech. In the months that followed, he said, he made numerous calls to various departments within the commonwealth, including the Attorney General’s office, to get answers. Like Hughes-Brown, he was perturbed by what he characterized as inadequate medical care.

“The Department of Corrections called me and finally asked me to ‘Please don’t call the attorney general again.’ I had left 18 voicemails,” Brown said. “Because I it was like, my wife’s in jail. You’re telling me nothing, and then you’re calling me a liar. She’s not getting a proper medical care. That was a big thing with me. I mean, I understand she was in jail, and it’s not going to be the Taj Mahal, but proper medical care, sorry, but that should be not a privilege. It should be a right.”

Aug. 13 finally arrived. No hearing.

“Aug. 15, I was told first thing in the morning, I was told, ‘Get ready, you’re going before the judge,” Hughes-Brown said, for a bond hearing, only for it to be denied.

“The DHS attorney says that I am considered an arriving alien because even though I’m a [legal public resident], my status as a [legal public resident] was stripped because I had committed a crime while I was here in the United States,” Hughes-Brown said. According to Hughes-Brown, the DHS attorneys argued that the court lacked jurisdiction to decide if she was eligible for bond or not. Hughes-Brown’s lawyer later requested another bond hearing, but that request was denied.

The media began to notice Hughes-Brown’s story in early October. After doing an interview with Fox 19, her case gained prominence back in Missouri. With the help of the Irish consulate in Georgia, she said, her lawyer and husband began getting the word out about her case.

She had what she believed to be a final hearing in late October that would determine whether or not she would be deported, but the hearing type was changed at last minute, Hughes-Brown said. She was unsure why.

“Well, the day before that hearing, my lawyer gets a message saying it’s not going to be a final hearing,” Hughes-Brown said. “There was no reason for it. Like, no explanation, no nothing.”

After some back and forth with the judge and the DHS attorney, another hearing was rescheduled out to December. Until then, Hughes-Brown was back in jail.

Meanwhile in Congress

Hughes-Brown credited Seth Magaziner, a Democrat U.S. House representative from Rhode Island, with making her case nationally prominent by bringing her husband to DHS committee hearings in Washington D.C. in November and December. At one committee hearing on Dec. 11, Magaziner questioned DHS Director Kristi Noem about Hughes-Brown’s case.

“What possible explanation can there be for locking up his [Brown’s] wife for four months when she has committed no crime other than writing a couple of bad checks for $80?” Magaziner asked Noem.

“Sir, it is not my prerogative, my latitude or my job to pick and choose which laws in this country get enforced and which ones don’t,” Noem replied.

But, Magaziner challenged, Noem has broad discretion.

“You can issue parole,” Magaziner said. “You can do all kinds of things, but you’re choosing not to.”

When asked if she would review Hughes-Brown’s case, Noem replied, “I will review the case.”

About a week later, Hughes-Brown had her last hearing on Dec. 18. She admitted that didn’t understand all of the ins and outs of the process, but she told LINK nky that it wasn’t clear which way the judge was leaning by the end of the hearing. Two hours later she was released. Given the ambiguity of the hearing, she wasn’t sure what happened, but she was finally out.

When LINK nky spoke with Hughes-Brown, she said she would like to apply for citizenship and go back to work, but she can’t because the federal government has yet to return her passport and residence permit.

“They’re still in Chicago somewhere,” Hughes-Brown said.

Immigration detention in NKY

Criticism against federal immigration agencies has increased over the past month or so, especially in the wake of the killing of two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, by ICE agents in Minnesota. In Northern Kentucky, people have come out to all three county fiscal courts to express concern about local institutional cooperation with ICE. One speaker in Campbell County recently characterized ICE as a “vigilante force” with which local governments shouldn’t contract.

LINK nky interviewed two of the county jailers, as well as some lower-ranked staff at the county detention centers, prior to the publication of this story, and toured two of the detention centers: Boone County and Campbell County. Jailer Daley invited LINK nky to tour the jail but declined to be interviewed. However, he recently spoke publicly before Campbell County Fiscal Court to address residents’ concerns about the jail’s relations with ICE. All three jails in Northern Kentucky house immigration detainees.

The tours were admittedly brief, but officials at the jails all expressed a commitment to professionalism and respect toward the inmates.

“The one thing that we preach and we expect and we demand from our employees,” Kenton County Jailer Marc Fields said to LINK nky, is “that everybody’s treated the same. I don’t care what you’re there for… They’re being treated just like every other inmate, and we will continue to do that.”

Boone County Jailer Jason Maydak said that while people think detainees are treated poorly when they are incarcerated, it is actually the exact opposite.

“That’s why I allowed you to walk through there,” Maydak said.

LINK nky did not witness any mistreatment of inmates during our tours.

Unlike Boone County, Campbell County did not allow LINK nky to take photos of the jail’s interior. The Campbell County Detention Center is split into different sections, which were built at different times. It shows: Maj. Ryan Grosser, who guided LINK on the tour, described how various parts of the center had been repurposed for different uses throughout the building’s history. Pods varied in size and inmate amenities, depending on the type of prisoner they housed and their age.

The areas in the Boone County Detention Center that LINK nky observed were comparatively more uniform. Camera feeds of prisoners’ areas were displayed on screens in Maydak’s office.

LINK nky wasn’t allowed to speak with the inmates during the tours, either. However, we did interview via teleconference another immigration detainee, Beata Siemionkowicz, who had been transported from Illinois to Campbell County with Hughes-Brown.

Siemionkowicz is Polish and first came to the United States in 1995. She got her green card in 2003 and was detained by ICE in Illinois in August, per DHS documents her family shared with LINK nky.

Siemionkowicz has two petty theft charges in the States, and DHS argued in her removal order that she had a record back in Poland. Siemionkowicz’s family shared a stamped affidavit from the Polish government stating she didn’t have a criminal record in Poland, as of Feb. 25, 2025, challenging the DHS’ account.

“I lost everything,” Siemionkowicz, who had built a whole life in Illinois, told LINK nky.

Siemionkowicz reiterated some of the criticisms about health and cleanliness at Campbell County that Hughes-Brown had expressed. She was ordered to be deported on Dec. 8, but she has time to appeal the order. She is still in the Campbell County Detention Center.

Grosser, like the other officials who spoke with LINK nky, seemed to take his role of keeping the inmates safe seriously. As an aside, Hughes-Brown, even though she was critical of Jailer Daley, was complimentary of her interactions with Grosser.

LINK nky inquired after some of the health concerns Hughes-Brown expressed with Grosser during our tour. The jail did not, Grosser argued, have issues with mold or other pathogens. He even took care of ordering supplies for feminine hygiene products himself, he said, although he did say that inmates would sometimes repurpose feminine pads for other uses, which could lead to dwindling supplies.

Invoice records from the detention centers indicate the centers make $88 per day per detainee, not including transportation and other reimbursements. This is a considerably higher rate than what they get for housing state detainees.

LINK nky made several records requests to the jails in an effort to get a handle on the volume of immigration detainees that move through Northern Kentucky.

Kenton County has been housing immigration detainees for the shortest amount of time of the three detention centers. Invoice records to the federal government indicate the Kenton County Detention Center invoiced anywhere from $41,272 in May (shortly after immigration detention began there) to $271,392 for housing immigration detainees, as of the end of October. There were 157 immigration detainees in Kenton County as of the end of October, according to invoice records.

Campbell County denied a direct request for information on immigration detainees but honored a request for invoice records. Records indicate the detention center would invoice the federal government as much as $112,000 a month in 2025.

Boone County was the most forthright in its responses to our records requests. One response was a 254-page document detailing not only immigration detainees’ names but also their nationalities, booking dates and release dates. Between Jan. 1, 2020 and Dec. 2, 2025, Boone County Detention Center housed 6,343 ICE detainees. Most of them, roughly 98%, were men. A monthly invoice in 2025 from Boone County could reach as high as $574,000.

Eight county facilities in Kentucky hold ICE detainees.

Immigration arrests themselves largely fall to federal enforcers, although there is currently a push at the state level to mandate ICE task force agreements with local departments throughout the commonwealth. The bill, House Bill 47 (which is sponsored by several NKY legislators), is still moving through the committee process. No departments in the region have task force agreements currently. However, the Kenton Detention Center does have an agreement that enables corrections officers to issue arrest warrants and removal papers so that inmates who have committed immigration violations can be transferred to federal custody upon their scheduled release from local criminal custody. A separate agreement enables corrections officers to question inmates about their immigration status.

ICE agents are present in Northern Kentucky. Sources in the community have informed LINK nky of raids and arrests throughout the region. In March of last year, the City of Covington even released a statement denying involvement in federal arrests after videos of agents began circulating on social media.

Following the passage of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill in July, ICE is now one of the most well-funded federal enforcement agencies in the county, with nearly $78 billion at its disposal.

Given all of this, one wonders how many more people are stuck in the machine?

“It has got to stop,” she said.

This story originally appeared at linknky.com.

The post One woman’s journey through immigration detention in NKY: ‘I want it to stop’ appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

A jury found Suzanne Bratt, one of 15 people arrested in a chaotic encounter with Covington Police last summer, guilty of failing to disperse, a misdemeanor, Wednesday.

Her trial lasted about six hours, including preliminary motions and jury selection, and the jury deliberated for about 15 minutes before rendering a unanimous guilty verdict. As a sentence, Bratt must pay a $250 fine but will not serve any jail time. With court costs, Bratt now owes the Kenton County District Court $394, which she must pay by May 8.

Bratt had also previously been charged with resisting arrest (a misdemeanor), but that charge was dropped the day before her trial.

Bratt’s trial marks the end of the court’s actions against people whose felony rioting charges were dropped at a hearing in July. Three of the demonstrators – Brandon Hill, Logan Imber and Ameer Alkayali – had the probable cause for their felonies upheld, but their trial dates have not been set yet. Only one other person arrested on the bridge, CityBeat Photo Intern Lucas Griffith, has gone to trial. Everyone else was either granted time served in July or had their charges dropped later after taking deals with prosecutors.

“What this case boils down to is that protesting does not give you a right to not listen to lawful orders by the police,” said Holli Spaulding, who served as one of the prosecutors, during opening remarks. “It does not give you the right to block traffic.”

Much of the debate between the attorneys during the trial focused on whether or not Bratt had willingly disobeyed an order from Covington Police Officer Ross Woodward, seen in the video below brandishing a collapsible baton, or whether she was intending to comply but couldn’t due to her position on the bridge railing and the overall chaos of the environment.

Woodward had instructed Bratt to move off the railing where she was standing and onto the walkway. When she failed to comply, he pulled her from where she stood onto the bridge’s metal surface.

The evidence in Bratt’s trial consisted largely of police body cam footage, testimonials from Woodard, another Officer, Robert Fain, and Bratt herself. The encounter was preceded by a vigil in Cincinnati put on by inter-faith group Ignite for Peace for former Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Chaplain Ayman Soliman, who at the time was being detained in Butler County Jail following the revocation of his asylum status.

A portion of the vigil had split off from the main locale in Cincinnati and attempted to walk across the bridge, where they encountered police.

Bratt did not know Soliman but knew a priest familiar with him, hence her attendance at the vigil. Bratt is active in her church, sings in the choir there and is currently the Interim Head of the University of Cincinnati’s Performing Arts Library. The courtroom benches were packed with people Bratt knew from both her professional and spiritual life.

During jury selection, most of the people said that the were not even aware of the July protest, and only one or two had even a cursory knowledge of Soliman. One man admitted that people standing on bridge designed for vehicle traffic didn’t sit right with him, but he was not in the end selected to be a juror. Media and members of the public were not allowed to talk to or photograph jury members.

The question of Bratt’s intentions quickly became a center point for the jury to deliberate.

“Suzanne did not intentionally refuse to disperse,” said Defense Attorney Daniel Schubert. “I want to plant that flag right here now because, honestly, that’s the question that you’ve [the jury] been brought here to answer based on the evidence. The reason she never made it to the walkway is because she got manhandled and tackled by Officer Woodward.”

The prosecutors’ case relied heavily on the police officers’ repeated orders to people to disperse and move off the road onto the sidewalk, which they argued justified Woodward’s actions. Fain was among the first to arrive on the scene and had issued multiple orders to disperse over his cruiser’s PA system.

Other officers had also arrived and issued similar orders verbally.

The defense argued that Bratt, as evidenced by her position off the road itself and onto bridge railing, indicated that she was in the process of moving away. They also pointed out that several other people had not immediately moved onto the sidewalk after being ordered to but were never tackled or arrested.

Bratt said during her testimony that she assumed the vigil had gotten a permit to be on the bridge when people began crossing. She described her position where she was a standing as a “bottleneck,” given its proximity to the bridge’s triangular support beams and the number of people in the crowd. Essentially, Bratt said, she had looked down to find a way to cross, but there wasn’t enough room for her to move onto the sidewalk.

“I’m trying to get to a rectangle, instead of a triangle,” Bratt said, “so I can get over it.”

Defense attorneys also pointed to a woman sticking her head out of a gap in the railing, arguing it blocked Bratt’s path, and the fact that another woman (dressed in a black shirt in the video below) standing next to Bratt had stated “I’m trying to; I can’t” when instructed to get onto the sidewalk as evidence of the area’s difficulties. That woman was not arrested.

Both the defense and the prosecutors employed Woodward’s body cam footage of the arrest during the trial.

Bratt said she sustained injuries due to being thrown on the bridge, the surface of which is a metal grating, due to Woodward’s handling. She also said that she had developed PTSD since the incident, but her medical documents had not been submitted into the court before trial, so they were deemed inadmissible.

Defense attorneys made motions twice for a verdict from the judge, but Easterling chose both times to defer to the jury. During closing statements, prosecutors characterized Bratt and her attorney’s reasons for not moving as “excuses” and “distractions.”

In the end, the jury sided with the prosecutors.

If Bratt wishes to appeal the jury’s verdict, she must due so within 30 days.

This story originally appeared at linknky.com.

The post Roebling demonstrator found guilty of failure to disperse appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Dos Hermanos, a new Oaxacan brick-and-mortar on Elm Street, celebrated its grand opening on Friday.

Dos Hermanos started off as a single food truck in Columbus but has since expanded to five food trucks and seven brick-and-mortar locations. This is not only their first location in Cincinnati but also their first full-service restaurant.

All of the food on offer is authentic Oaxacan fare, said Owner Lisa Gutierrez.

“We find a lot of traditional seasoning,” Gutierrez told CityBeat. “Banana leaves for our tamales, instead of corn husks. Our salsas are the same thing that they get back home. We spend a lot of time on using not only local ingredients but also ingredients that’s traditional to Oaxaca.”

Oaxaca is a state in the south of Mexico. The restaurant’s name (literally two brothers) is in reference to Gutierrez’s husband and brother-in-law. Gutierrez’s husband was actually busy preparing food when CityBeat attended the opening on Friday.

Dos Hermanos is joining the Findlay Market District as a long-term resident of the Findlay Launch Program, an entrepreneurial accelerator that’s helping it pilot this first full-service restaurant. The concept began as a single food truck 14 years ago, and has now grown into a fleet of food trucks, as well as several quick-service locations in Columbus and Athens and a catering program.

“We have a back room for events, we have $9 Fiesta deals,” said Director of Operations Robert Packer. “So, you can come and eat for under 10 bucks, any day, all day, every day of the week.”

The restaurant celebrated with a dance performance and a distribution of food.

“We are authentic Oaxacan,” Packer said. “All of our sauces are handmade in house. All of the marinades, hand-cut chicken [are] truly authentic flavors.”

“We’re excited to be here in the community,” Gutierrez said.

Dos Hermanos is located at 1819 Elm Street in Over-the-Rhine. Learn more about them at eatatdos.com.

Katherine Barrier contributed reporting to this story.

The post Dos Hermanos brings authentic Oaxacan fare to Findlay Market appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Charges against Kean Babcock, one of fifteen people arrested during a chaotic encounter with police on the Roebling Bridge last summer, were dropped on Wednesday, according to court documents, after he admitted the police had probable cause to arrest him.

The 15 arrested on the bridge were initially charged with felony rioting, but most of the rioting charges, including Babcock’s, were dropped at a hearing in July. The court upheld Babcock’s lower charges: unlawful assembly, failure to disperse, second degree disorderly conduct, obstructing a highway and obstructing an emergency responder.

His trial was originally scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 15. Judge Kenneth Easterling dismissed the charges with prejudice, meaning the case can’t be refiled.

Although his charges have been dropped, by admitting the police had probable cause to arrest him, Babcock forfeits his right to sue Covington Police for wrongful arrest in civil court.

Four other demonstrators had their rioting charges upheld and their cases sent to a grand jury, which will determine if there is enough evidence for them to stand trial. Those cases are ongoing and subsequent court dates have not yet been set.

The post Charges dismissed against Roebling protestor appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Several Northern Kentucky residents came out to a Kenton County Fiscal Court meeting Tuesday night to call for an end to the Kenton County Detention Center’s agreement to house ICE detainees.

“I love seeing families be able to walk to the park, be able to walk to church, just be able to walk around town, and I don’t want that to go away,” said RJ Johnson, a Covington resident. “I care about my neighbors. I want them to feel comfortable here.”

The meeting was well-attended, and Johnson was one of five speakers who came out to ask the Fiscal Court to reconsider an intergovernmental agreement to cooperate with ICE and house ICE detainees in the county detention center. At least one of the speakers had spoken about the same topic in December.

Many of the speakers referenced recent events involving ICE agents around the country, such as the death of Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen who was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Good’s death was followed by nationwide protests, which included demonstrations both in Northern Kentucky and in Cincinnati. Several of the speakers who talked with LINK nky said they had been spurred to speak out after having either attended a rally or seen calls to action on social media.

They called upon the county to terminate its so-called 287(g) agreement, a moniker that comes from the section in the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows ICE to delegate enforcement functions to local police departments.

All three detention centers in Northern Kentucky have contracts with the U.S. Marshals to house ICE detainees; on paper, ICE agreements are subcontracts with the U.S. Marshals. Yet, Kenton County is a comparatively latecomer to such agreements, only beginning to house ICE detainees in the middle of last year. In contrast, Boone County Jail’s contract with ICE goes back to 2005.

Kenton County Jailer Marc Fields, who attended Monday’s meeting, has been forthright about his point of view on ICE detention — and inmate detention more generally — in the county and has spoken about it in public before. In June, Fields and Kenton County Detention Center Col. Trey Smith talked about their goals for the program.

“We had worked very hard to try to get [population management] to benefit us in the community,” Fields told the Fiscal Court in June, expressing a hope that money brought in through the detention center could be used to augment various public services, including medical and addiction services, within the center itself.

“We receive over two times per [day] the amount for federal detainees versus state detainees,” Smith said in June. “And we’re also reimbursed for mileage, for transportation.”

Invoice records from the Detention Center indicate the center makes $88 per day per detainee, not including transportation and other reimbursements. Invoice records from the Detention Center to the federal government LINK nky had previously obtained indicate the Kenton County Detention Center invoiced anywhere from $41,272 in May (shortly after the contract began) to $271,392 as of the end of October. There were 157 immigration detainees in Kenton County as of the end of October, according to invoice records. LINK nky did not have immediate access to more up-to-date records.

County commissioners did not immediately respond to speakers’ comments, although later in the meeting, Commissioner Joe Nienaber made a point to compliment what he saw as the positive way in which the detention center was run.

Fields did speak briefly with LINK nky after the meeting about the speakers’ concerns.

“The one thing that we preach and we expect and we demand from our employees,” Fields said, “that everybody’s treated the same. I don’t care what you’re there for… They’re being treated just like every other inmate, and we will continue to do that.”

The post Residents call for an end to ICE cooperation in Kenton County appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Labubus and “anything K-Pop Demon Hunters,” said Jane McEntyre, general manager at Learning Express Toys & Gifts in Crestview Hills, are top gift asks from kids this year, although that’s not the only thing that will make kids happy this Christmas.

Any parent who’s familiar with the Labubu trend won’t be surprised. Ditto for K-Pop Demon Hunters, a Netflix-produced animated movie released earlier this year. It has since become the most-watched movie in Netflix history at over 325 million views, according to Netflix’s own numbers.

If you don’t know what Labubus are, you probably don’t have kids. They’re small monster figurines that were first sold by Chinese retailer Pop Mart. They took off in popularity after a member of the K-pop group Blackpink was spotted with a Labubu key chain on her backpack last spring. They have since taken over the world.

They’re sold in blind boxes, meaning you don’t know which figurine you’ll get when you buy a box, and there’s a (very small) chance that you might get a secret Labubu that hasn’t been advertised. Over 300 different figurines have been released as of 2025.

“In one of the series, [there’s] like a chance of getting one that’s black, and everyone wants that one,” McEntyre said, although she didn’t know off-hand what that figurine’s name was.

“We have adults that collect them,” McEntyre said.

All right, all right, there’s got to be other things the kids want.

McEntyre said that fidget toys and board games tend to sell well in her shop, as well as science education kits. One fidget toy that does well is called NEEDoh, which is a soft squishy fidget that comes in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes. As far as games go, one of the best-selling games, especially among adults, is one called Tapple.

In Tapple, players compete using a wheel stocked with cards with letters of the alphabet on them. Players choose a category and then have to name items in that category starting with a letter available on the wheel. So, if the category is animals, and the letter S is still available on the wheel, you could say snake.

A letter can only be used once, though. So, as the game’s turns progress, there are fewer and fewer letters to choose from. The last player left in each round wins.

“That one’s a lot of fun,” McEntyre said.

Check out some local NKY toy shops below.

• Learning Express Toys & Gifts in Crestview Hills
• Stoney’s Etc. in Covington
• Miss Tabby’s Toys and Treats in Latonia
• Handzy Shop + Studio in Covington
• Box Lunch at the Florence Mall

This story was originally published by LINK nky and is republished here with permission.

The post Labubus, ‘K-Pop Demon Hunters’ Merch Top Gifts in NKY This Year appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Click here to jump straight to mailbox locations.

Several communities in Northern Kentucky have enlisted Santa’s helpers to gather letters from local kids and send them to the North Pole. Santa will even write them back, but local families will have to act quickly because many of the deadlines to send letters are approaching.

“Santa’s got to have time to get them mailed out to everybody,” said Rhona Ritzi, Kenton County Recreation Program Coordinator and Santa’s helper with the county.

Kenton County itself has seven drop off locations for letters, listed below. Monday, Dec. 15 is the last day to drop off letters. Families will need to include a stamped return envelope with the kid’s name so Santa can write back. Families can also send letters online at bit.ly/kcsantaletters.

Boone County has a similar program as well, but its program is all online. Ben Oldiges, deputy director of Boone County Parks and Santa’s helper in Boone County, said this enables them to collect more specific information about each kid so that Santa and his helpers can better customize their responses.

“We kind of ask, like, what is the participant? What are they interested in? What are they asking for Christmas?” Oldiges said. “Just certain things like that… What are some of their pets names? It’s just another detail that we can add into the letter to make it just a little bit more personal.”

Boone County’s deadline is also Monday, Dec. 15, and there is a $5 fee. Visit Boone County’s registration page (linked below) to pay and fill out a form you can mail to the Parks Department.

Several cities also have their own programs, including Covington and Fort Wright, whose deadlines are Dec. 18 and Dec. 31, respectively. Drop off locations for those cities are also listed below.

When asked what the kids seem to be asking for this year, the answer is what you’d expect: toys!

“The majority of it is all what toys they want for Christmas,” Ritzi said.

Some of the older kids, Oldiges said, will occasionally ask for electronics, but it’s still mostly toys.

“It just really depends on the kid, really depends on the age range,” Oldiges said. “I think a little bit older the kids are getting, the more technical items that they’ve been requesting. The younger they are, the more toy based [it is.]”

“Some of the letters will also ask how Santa’s doing,” Ritzi said. “Or, ‘How [are] things at the North Pole?’ Or they let Santa know that they’ve been a good girl or boy.”

Check out locations and deadlines for letter drop offs below:

Did we miss any locations? Send us an email at news@linknky.com, and we’ll update our list.

This story originally appeared on linknky.com.

The post Deadlines to Send Letters to Santa Are Approaching. Don’t Miss Out! appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.