Staff report
A former University of Kentucky student and Beechwood High School graduate has been sentenced to a year in the Fayette County Detention Center for an incident in a UK dormitory in November, 2022, involving assault and racial slurs that made headlines around the world.
Sophia Rosing, 23, pleaded guilty to four counts of fourth-degree assault, one count of disorderly conduct, and one count of public intoxication.
Fayette Circuit Judge Lucy VanMeter sentenced Rosing to 12 months in the Fayette County Detention Center, 100 hours of community service and a $25 fine.
She will be in protective custody at the Fayette County Detention Center due to the nature of her offenses, her attorney Fred Peters said. He also called the punishment “excessive.”
The charges were related to an incident in November, 2022, in which Rosing physically assaulted and hurled racial slurs at Kylah Spring, a Black student working the front desk at Boyd Hall, a UK dormitory. The incident was recorded on video and went viral on social media. It shows Rosing hitting Spring multiple times and kicking her in the stomach.
In just 10 minutes Rosing used the N-word over 200 times. She then resisted arrest and bit a police officer who was sent to the scene, according to the arrest report.
The following night, Rosing posted a $10,000 bond and was released from detention. The university banned her from its campus.
She was indicted by a grand jury in February 2023 and entered a not-guilty plea. She ultimately changed that plea.
State Senator Turner dies of injuries
Kentucky Sen. Johnnie Turner of Harlan has died as a result of injuries received in an accident last month when he and the lawn mower he was using fell into an empty swimming pool.
Turner, 76, was an attorney and had served in the U.S. Army as a medic. A Republican, he had served in the state Senate since 2021, representing Bell, Floyd, Harlan, Knott and Letcher counties. He served in the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2002.
Republican Senate President Robert Stivers said in a statement that, “Over the past weeks, his remarkable resolve and strength filled the Turner family — and all of us — with optimism, making this loss all the more difficult to bear.”
Stivers said the “loss is deeply personal to me” because he also knew Turner before they were in the Senate together.
“Johnnie spent his life lifting others — whether through his service in the U.S. Army, as a member of the State House of Representatives and State Senate, or in his private legal practice. His unwavering commitment to the people of Eastern Kentucky — his constituents, brothers and sisters in Christ, whom he so fondly referred to as ‘his people’ — was at the heart of everything he did,” Stivers said.
Many other Kentucky officials, the Governor and Sen. Mitch McConnell offered condolences.
Turner’s family includes his wife, Maritza; his children Yazmin, Susie and Johnnie; and grandchildren.
Turner was seeking reelection in the 29th Senate District after winning a contested Republican primary in May. He faced no Democratic challenger in the general election.
Kentucky’s Appalshop award Naitional Humanities Medal
Appalshop, the 55-year-old media arts nonprofit based in the coalfields of Southeastern Kentucky, was among 19 recipients of National Humanities Medals at a White House ceremony this week.
Recipients included Robin Wall Kimmerer, scientist and author; Jon Meacham, historian and author; Aaron Sorkin, playwright, screenwriter and director; Lavar Burton, actor and literacy advocate. Chef and author Anthony Bourdain was honored posthumously.
The National Humanities Medal honors an individual or organization whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the human experience, broadened citizens’ engagement with history or literature, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to cultural resources, according to a news release from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Applashop said in a release that since 1969 it has “helped Appalachians tell their own stories through such media as documentary film, radio, music, theater, and more.”
New Appalshop Executive Director Tiffany Sturdivant was accompanied to the ceremony by past Executive Director Alexander Gibson and long-time staff member Tommy Anderson.
I am just so confused at her attorney thinking the punishment was excessive!!! She is lucky that is all she got and that she gets to serve it in protective custody. How many others would get such a light sentence???