NORTHWEST PRESS Your Community Press newspaper serving Colerain Township, Green Township, Sharonville, Springdale, Wyoming and other Northwest Cincinnati neighborhoods
WEDNESDAY, JULY 24, 2019 ❚ BECAUSE COMMUNITY MATTERS ❚ PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK
‘I saw the fear in his eyes’: Gun threats to her sons drive woman from Winton Hills Cameron Knight Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK
Amadou Sow is back home after his ordeal in federal detention. Immigration officials could not immediately provide an explanation. ALBERT CESARE/THE ENQUIRER
ICE frees Lockland man after 11 months Amadou Sow fl ed his native Mauritania 28 years ago after being enslaved and beaten, has lived without incident in U.S. Mark Curnutte Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK
LOCKLAND – Three-year-old Muhammad heard the knock on the apartment door shortly after midnight on a recent Saturday morning but could not unlock it. The child heard a familiar voice coming from outside, one he’d heard only on the phone for the previous 11 months. “I tell him, ‘Muhammed, it’s Daddy.’ He said Mommy was asleep,” Amadou Sow said Monday, July 15. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had arrested Sow during a regular appointment Aug. 22 in Columbus but – after shuffl ing him through four other states and three Ohio prisons – inexplicably released him without advance notice on Friday. Sow, 49, had lived peacefully in the United States since 1991, receiving annual work permits from the federal government, paying taxes, building a career and caring for his wife and fi ve U.S. citizen children.
Ibrahima Guisset chants "What do we want?" as the crowd yells "justice" as the Mauritanian community marches through Downtown to "Call to End Repression of Black Africans in Mauritania" Monday, July 13. CARA OWSLEY/THE ENQUIRER
Yet he, like several hundred other Mauritanian nationals, were caught in a 180-degree policy shift under the Trump administration and threatened with deportation back to the world’s most notorious slave See MAURITANIA, Page 4A
Editor’s note: Information included refl ects this article’s original publication/updated dates: July 15 and 17. Her sons have been shot at multiple times in the past month and a half. In a desperate attempt to keep her 17-year-old alive long enough to get to college this summer, Monecea Collins fl ed her Winton Hills apartment last week. It started with a fi ght at a basketball court in April. Since then, she said her two teens – the youngest is 15 – have been repeatedly threatened and targeted by other teens in the “There are still neighborhood. Guns have been pointfamily members ed at them. Shots have out here who been fi red. wanted to help me, In June, the former reswho want to say ident council president something, but said her boys were chased into the house and the laid they’re scared. They don’t want to on the ground while the attackers fi red shots into be retaliated the air outside. against.” “I need to get my kids out of here," Collins said. Monecea Collins "There are still family members out here who wanted to help me, who want to say something, but they’re scared. They don’t want to be retaliated against.” The violence escalated in recent weeks. On July 3, she said she was in Winton Terrace with her sons when the teens started fi ring shots toward them. She said she was forced to dive into her car, duck down and speed away. On July 6, she woke up in the morning to fi nd a large brick was used to smash the windshield of her car. Then last Tuesday, her 17-year-old son was walking to the bus stop with his headphones on when he noticed dirt kicking up around his feet. As he got his bearings, he realized he was being fi red at and raced home. See WINTON HILLS, Page 2A
Glendale vice mayor vacates after fi nding she can’t hold two posts Jessie Balmert Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK
COLUMBUS - You can't serve on the state board of education and a local village council at the same time. That's a portion of Ohio law that Jenny Kilgore, of Glendale, discovered about six months into performing both jobs. But Kilgore told The Enquirer
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that she's fi xed the problem, which was brought to her attention last week. She vacated her position as vice mayor of Glendale, a vilKilgore lage with a population of about 2,180, retroactive to Jan. 1. That means any votes she took as a village council member will be
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revoked. Mayor Don Lofty said a review of recently passed ordinances showed no vote was so close that vacating Kilgore's votes will change the outcome. In November, Kilgore was elected to represent Hamilton, Warren and a portion of Butler County on the state board of education, narrowly defeating former board See KILGORE, Page 2A
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Community organizer Monecea Collins left Winton Hills last week after her two sons have been repeatedly shot at and threatened. CAMERON KNIGHT/THE ENQUIRER
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