NEWS
A4 • HILLTOP PRESS • AUGUST 22, 2012
Junk cars not welcome in Springfield Twp. By Monica Boylson
mboylson@communitypress.com
The Springfield Township board of trustees passed a resolution during an Aug. 14 meeting to remove junk motor vehicles from properties in the township. “This gives a formal
procedure where we can declare the cars to be junk. Tow them from the property. Hold them in our impound lot. Give the owners an opportunity to reclaim them and, if they don’t, the cost of the tow will be assessed against their taxes,” board president Joseph Honerlaw
said. According to the resolution, a junk motor vehicle is a vehicle that is Honerlaw three years or older, apparently inoperable and
extensively damaged, including but not limited to, missing wheels, tires, engine or transmission. Trustee Gwen McFarlin said that after citizen complaints, the board wanted to take action. “It’s been a major frustration for so many of our citizens,” McFarlin said.
“This will improve the quality of our neighborhoods and I’m sure everyone will be excited about it, except those who don’t want to do anything about their cars.” Junk cars on public property are subject to immediate removal per a resolution. Vehicles on
private property will be issued a written notice from the board. The owner will have 14 days to remove the vehicle or it will be towed. “This is one of the ways we’re trying to clean up the community and make it a better place for everyone,” Honerlaw said.
Account started to help man attacked by teens Judy Blumenthal says she remembers growing up in North College Hill, leaving doors unlocked and walking the streets in safety. So Blumenthal, who has lived in Miami for years, was upset when she heard this week’s account of Pat Mahaney, who was ambushed and beaten unconscious by six teenagers Aug. 11. So she’s started an account at Fifth Third Bank to help Mahaney. She’s contributed $40 and said others can contribute by asking at any Fifth Third branch about the Patrick Mahaney Fund. “I was just incensed that something like this could happen in North College Hill, where I was raised,” Blumenthal said. “As kids, we just played and didn’t have a problem.” Blumenthal went to St. Margaret Mary Elementary School, McAuley High School School and the University of Cincin-
“If not for their assistance, we would not have been able to investigate and complete it with the arrests,.”
HEAR HIS STORY » Video: Man beaten in North College Hill by six young teens recounts the incident. At Cincinnati.com
nati. She was in Cincinnati this week visiting her brother. “It was wonderful to grow up here,” she said. “I don’t remember anything like that at all.” The account was necessary after Mahaney was attacked while walking home Aug. 11 with a six-pack of beer, looking forward to a quiet evening watching sports, when something hit him in the back of the head. “The next thing I knew I woke up on my neighbor’s front step and the life squad was there,” the 45-year-old North College Hill resident said Aug. 15. Six teenagers “were just bored and were looking for something to do,” a police report said, when they ambushed Mahaney as he turned off Simpson Avenue onto Dallas Ave-
GARY FOUST
North College Hill police chief
Mahaney nue. He was immediately knocked unconscious. “I don’t remember anything,” Mahaney, 45, said as he recovered at his mother’s home. “I was walking home from the store – and ‘bam.’ ” It was probably a blessing he was knocked out during the worst of the brutal attack – one of the teens even grabbed a can of beer and hurled it at his head. The boys face felony charges of aggravated riot and felonious assault. All except one had been released from Hamilton
County’s juvenile detention center last week and are on house arrest at their parents’ residences, court officials said. The teens are scheduled for trial Aug. 24. Mother of the two of the teesn, Latasha Alford, 32, said that while not excusing her sons’ actions, they did feel peer pressure to go along with the other boys. “They are deeply sorry for what happened,” she said. “They do feel bad. They do realize what they did was wrong.” When police rounded up most of the teens, took them back to the police station and questioned them, they admitted Mahaney had done nothing to provoke being kicked and punched repeatedly in the face while he was helpless on the ground. The boys told police they only stopped assaulting Mahaney when a neighbor began yelling at them and said he was calling police. An officer who hap-
pened to be in the area responding to a call about dogs fighting spotted a crowd of people gathered at the corner of Dallas and Simpson. Several witnesses told the officer that Mahaney, who was covered in blood, “was jumped by six children,” the incident report states. Mahaney was taken to Mercy Mt. Airy Hospital, where he was treated for four days before being released Aug. 14. He suffered so many internal injuries that doctors had to insert a tube down his throat to remove all the blood from his stomach. Mahaney has no health insurance and has been unemployed for “years,” he said. He is looking for factory work but with the slow economy, jobs are almost impossible to come by, he said. He said he was taken aback by the age of his assailants. “I didn’t think kids could do something like this,” he said. “They should be punished.”
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Neighbors and police were stunned at the brutality of the attack. “It was a heinous crime, but it was not a hate crime,” North College Hill Police Chief Gary Foust said. Several residents called police, noting the suspects are black and inquiring whether Mahaney was specifically targeted because he is white. He was not, the chief said. But police were struck by how cocky the boys were for their age. “They were pretty arrogant in the interview with us,” Foust said. “It’s appalling. I think it’s despicable. This appears to be premeditated, and there was no remorse on behalf of any of the assailants. Thirteen-year-olds ought to be playing basketball, not running the streets looking for ways to entertain themselves at the expense of somebody.” Foust credited Mahaney’s neighbors for coming to his aid. “If not for their assistance, we would not have been able to investigate and complete it with the arrests,” he said. “The community as a whole was not tolerable of the offense and were very instrumental in giving us the individuals involved.” A wood plaque on Mahaney’s house reads: “Protected by Angels.” Kita Hill, 26, who lives next door to Mahaney, said, “He is real sweet. “He says ‘hi’ to me and my kids all the time. I think it is ignorant what happened to him. Why would kids jump on a man minding his own business? I think it is sad. I hope nothing like that happens again here,” Hill said. “I keep my kids inside unless I am outside to watch then. You just never know what might happen.”
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