Fake cop gets 6 years in prison for his Scared Straight tactics
Akron man took students out of school in handcuffs.
Christopher Hendon is: A) A man who impersonated a police officer to gain access to young people and then verbally and physically abused them.
B) A man who tried to help parents with their unruly children by steering them onto the right path.
These were the two very different portraits of Hendon painted Wednesday by prosecutors and defense attorneys during Hendon’s sentencing for charges related to his Scared Straight tactics with local youths.
“I do accept the fact that a lot of the stuff I did was wrong and not by law,” Hendon, 26, of Akron, said during his brief statement before he was sentenced. “I have definitely learned from this mistake. And, I do apologize to anybody and everybody who was involved in this situation.”
Summit County Common Pleas Judge Christine Croce sentenced Hendon to 5 years, 11 months in prison. Hendon, who had been free on bond, left the courtroom in handcuffs. He will be eligible for early release in 18 months.
The courtroom was packed, mostly with supporters of Hendon, including some of the parents of children he worked with. A few of them clapped briefly when he first entered the courtroom.
Hendon pleaded guilty in January to 31 charges, including impersonating a police officer, abduction and kidnapping. Prosecutors dropped the other 29 charges and amended gun specifications on several of the remaining charges from three-year to one-year mandatory prison terms.
Investigators say Hendon impersonated a police officer and took children in handcuffs from their schools and elsewhere to the Summit County Juvenile Detention Center or the Summit County Jail between March 29 and April 6 as part of his Scared Straight-style effort. The effort wasn’t affiliated with any official program.
Hendon is not a certified peace officer in Ohio, though he does have a concealed carry permit.
Assistant Summit County Prosecutor Teri Burnside said Hendon held himself out in the community as a police officer by the way he dressed, behaved and how he carried a gun. She said he tricked the staff at Leggett Elementary School in Akron and Middlebury Academy, a charter school in Akron, into believing he was an officer and part of a Scared Straight program.
Burnside said Hendon took children out of their classrooms and handcuffed them. In some instances, she said, he slammed them to the floor or against lockers, desks, chairs or cabinets. She said the children were between the ages of 6 and 14 years old and one girl was hearing-impaired.
Burnside said Hendon had permission to work with three of the 13 children in the indictment, but didn’t have authorization to curse at, manhandle or cuff any of them. She disagrees with those who say Hendon meant well.
“I really beg to differ,” she said. “It’s against the law. You can’t hold yourself out as a police officer.”
Burnside urged Croce to sentence Hendon to three years — one year for each of the three gun specifications — as well as prison time for charges involving each of the 13 children in the indictment. She asked that the terms run consecutively, but didn’t suggest a specific prison term.
Rosyln Christian, the mother of an 8-year-old boy whom Hendon worked with, said Hendon “put fear into the mind and heart of my son.”
“I remember wondering where he was, if he would return home,” she said. “I thank God he returned home. You put our son at risk.”
Christian and her husband, Louis, said Akron Public Schools shares in the blame because the district gave Hendon access to their son. If the district had followed proper protocol, they said, this wouldn’t have happened.
Shanti Portis said Hendon’s interaction with her 12-yearold daughter and 6-year-old son in which he handcuffed them and shouted profanities at them had a lasting, negative impact on her son. She said she has had to remove him from two schools and enroll him in weekly counseling. She said he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.