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Good morning, Roca Nation.
After less than a week, Disney announced that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would return to television on Tuesday. Hackers used ransomware to disrupt automated check-ins at airports across Europe (free). Nvidia announced plans to invest up to $100B in OpenAI (free). The Trump Administration linked Tylenol use to higher risks of autism.
Now to today’s deep-dive.
This is a tragic, important, and totally under-covered story. We’ve made it free for all readers. Thanks to the Roca followers who introduced us to Sarah.
By Max Frost
Cincinnati, Ohio
“This isn’t a tragedy, this is negligence.”
That’s Sarah Heringer’s conclusion after Mordecia Black – a violent, repeat offender who was allowed to roam free – allegedly murdered her husband.
Black had spent 19 of the last 20 years in prison. In February, a month after being released after a violent crime, he cut off his ankle monitor – and police did nothing about it. In the months that followed, he committed numerous crimes, all while posting on TikTok and violating parole.
And on June 4, he allegedly broke into Sarah’s home and murdered her husband, Patrick.
How did this happen?
Sarah and Patrick could have been anywhere, but they chose Cincinnati.
Patrick had studied and completed ROTC at the University of Cincinnati. After graduating, he served as an officer in the Army for nine years, including tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2012 – after reaching the rank of Captain and being awarded two Bronze Stars – he met Sarah.
The pair first lived in New York City. They had a good life – with him working for Ernst & Young and her for Goldman Sachs – but they wanted more.
“We just really both came to the conclusion that what we were doing just was not satisfying or rewarding,” Sarah Heringer told Roca. “And it didn't really feel like it was doing good for people, or that we really felt purpose in our lives.”
“Patrick wanted to open a gym. And we were like, well, we're going to have to open a business, and we've got to do it in a place where we can really lay roots and be part of a community. New York City is not that for us.”
So they chose to open a gym in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine (OTR).
20 years ago, OTR was “uninhabitable,” Sarah told Roca – the most dangerous neighborhood in one of America’s most dangerous cities. Then a revitalization initiative invested $1B there over the last 20 years, renovating entire blocks.
By the 2010s, the neighborhood was clearly on the up: Whether a cocktail bar on a Friday night, a Saturday morning farmers market, or a beer garden before the Bengals game, OTR was the place to go. The neighborhood had a great energy; Patrick and Sarah wanted to be part of it.
They opened their gym, Findlay Movement, in 2015. A decade later, they and their business were staples of the community.
Yet the Heringers were growing concerned.
“The gunshots, we felt, had been really escalating and getting worse…we were actually working on getting our house put on the market,” Sarah said. “We just didn't feel like it was worth the potential risk.”
On June 3, the Heringers painted their house in preparation for selling it. On June 4, Mordecia Black would break in.
Black was well known to authorities.
Before he had turned 18, Black had 27 different cases in Hamilton County Juvenile Court, including for assault and gun possession. He spent nine months in a youth prison over two separate stints.
After turning 18, Black would spend 19 of the next 20 years in prison, according to Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Elyse Deters.
In 2006, he was convicted twice for selling crack. After serving a total 19 months, he was jailed for seven years for a robbery; upon release, he was jailed again for selling heroin. In 2016, he was sentenced to nine-and-a-half years for severely beating an “innocent bystander” in central Cincinnati. Police initially labeled it a hate crime (the victim was white), but later dropped that.
The judge who oversaw that case said Black’s record was “replete with instances of complete disregard for public safety.”
Black completed that sentence this January. Upon release, he had to wear an ankle monitor, check in with a parole officer, and live in a halfway house. Within a month of going free, Black cut off his ankle monitor and went AWOL. A warrant was issued for Black’s arrest, but the police did not initiate a search.
In April, police reported that Black allegedly broke into his girlfriend’s home after there was a “domestic disturbance.” In May, he broke into another apartment but was spotted and fled. The residents identified the intruder as Black and police issued a new warrant.
At 4:40 AM on June 4, those same residents called the police again to report that someone had just robbed their house. The police didn’t respond for several hours.
Camera footage shows the robber to be Black, who left their home at 4:11 AM with arms full of apparently stolen belongings. He then headed toward the Heringers’. A subsequent camera shot shows him near the Heringers’ home with a large knife in his hand.
Minutes later, he allegedly broke into the Heringers’ home. When Patrick tried to protect Sarah, Black allegedly stabbed him to death and fled the scene.
Finally, the next day, Black was arrested.
Sarah is struggling to understand how the city and police let Black fall through the cracks.
“This guy is not hard to find,” she told Roca. “They knew he was out and that he had not only popped off his ankle monitor – he had committed two other crimes, and there is no fugitive apprehension team looking for him. He’s making TikTok videos.”
“He’s not afraid of being caught. He doesn’t think anyone is looking for him,” Heringer said. “Criminals are not afraid of the police or repercussions…Why is that? Because most of the time, these felons, they can go before a judge and then they're released on a $50 to $200 bond.”
Sarah believes that the justice system does not work with people like Black.
“He spent 19 of the last 20 years in prison and every time he got out, he broke the law,” she said. “He’s going to prison for the rest of his life. He’s going to jail where he has friends, he gets visitation, he knows the system, he’s comfortable with it. He’s not going to plead. He’s going to make all of us go through trial and relive the trauma.”
“That is the problem: People like us can never think the way people like him think. You can’t fathom that,” Sarah concluded. “Especially when judges are considering and looking at someone, we have a problem with society where they are constantly letting felons out again.”
“This man – there is no rehabilitation from the criminal system. It’s not the justice system, it’s the criminal system. This entire thing, even going through this system for trial, none of this is for Patrick and me. All of this is for him.”
Editor’s Note
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Frost had a longer conversation with Sarah, and we will feature the rest of that tomorrow. He learned a lot, and the details shook him.
And thank you to those who wrote in yesterday in response to our article on the threats of online bots. We share a few of those emails below.
Collin wrote:
This is a topic that has troubled me for a long time. I think this issue started gaining more awareness following Trump's first term and into the "stolen election" claims. A majority of people on both sides love to go on twitter to reinforce what they already believe, and hear they are right and the other side is wrong. Clearly this is a massive problem and Elon needs to get this under control ASAP. As your article mentions, the process is already underway. These bots are continuing to drive people and political ideologies apart, when we need to be focused on what we all have in common. I fear this will continue to get worse and worse and am very concerned how this will affect us as a country moving forward.
Harry from Boston said:
Thank you for highlighting this issue. Foreign disinformation actors are a HUGE part of the reason for such deep division in our country right now; these accounts are actively saying inflammatory things from both sides of the aisle, creating caricatures of the most extreme views that make real people online think that all their opponents fall into such extremist camps. Countries like Russia, Iran, and others benefit massively from a divided America that can no longer get in their way. As I’ve heard said, the Cold War never ended - it just went online. We as Americans have to stop falling for it and see through the smokescreen. Most real-life voters from both Republican and Democratic camps are more reasonable than the trolls you see online.
And some advice from Greg:
Max, Max, and Billy, another great article showing Roca's amazing ability to render the complex simple(er)... yesterday's article on RNA was equally stunning in your ability to deal with incredibly complicated subject matter with finesse and balance.
When it comes to Bots (you may recall from previous posts that I was the global head of on industry AI for one of the world's largest professional services firms), I think your focus on X was reasonable, but I think it's important for your readers to know that it doesn't stop there... they are everywhere online.
Instagram, TikTok (especially), Facebook, Youtube, the comments sections of MSM media, unsolicited emails, etc. are all riddled with bots from adversary nation-states... some you might not even normally think of (like Middle Eastern nations), all focused on stirring divisiveness within the US and/or detecting behavioral patterns of US citizens. I remember standing in one of Microsoft's cyber centers watching the sheer volume of this that they monitored, happening real-time at unbelievable levels.
A few things for your readers if they want to be part of minimizing the impact of these attempts at fomenting cultural damage within the US:
1) If you can resist the temptation, just avoid the comments section; it's the primary platform of bots. I exclude "curated" responses (like Roca's and other news services) where knowledgeable folks have filtered out much/most of the "fake" content
2) When you can't resist the temptation (which is most folks), ALWAYS check the background of the "person" before you respond; the tells (like 1000s of "followers" but zero posts, weird/inept "bios", unusual avatars, etc.) are usually pretty obvious... if it seems inflammatory, it's probably designed to be so
3) Avoid forwarding and/or hash-tagging your responses... the goal of many of these bad actors is to spread the divisive at light speed. There is nothing a subversive wants more than to have the patently false "go viral"
Ultimately, this is all about taking back control of your and your community's critical thinking and suppressing (negative) reflexiveness... the actors behind these attempts understand the realities of human nature (and brain mechanisms) and will use them to their advantage wherever possible.
Even better? Only get your facts from those you trust and form your own opinions... talking is even better than typing!
If you’ve missed the latest, find Roca’s recent reports below:
Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for part two tomorrow.
—Max and Max
