Richard Dameron Forced To Wear 'Idiot' Sign By Cleveland Judge

Richard Dameron is currently serving his public shaming sentence in Cleveland, where he must stand outside a police department wearing a sign of apology that calls Dameron an ‘idiot.’

19 Action News|Cleveland, OH|News, Weather, Sports

Dameron was sentenced in March after threatening to kill a police officers. His punishment, as determined by Judge Pinkey Carr, is to stand outside the Second District Police Station wearing the sign for three hours every day this week (Sept. 2 through Sept. 6). The sign reads, “I apologize to Officer Simone & all police officers for being an idiot calling 911 threatening to kill you. I’m sorry and it will never happen again.”

Dameron was supposed to complete his sentence in June, but refused. As a consequence, Judge Carr sentenced him to another 90 days in jail and told him that he would still have to serve his sentence of holding the sign she made for him in front of the Second District Police Station.

This is not the first time Judge Carr has used unusual punishments involving public apologies in her sentencing. In 2012, Judge Carr sentenced Shena Hardin to a similar fate after Hardin was caught driving on the sidewalk to avoid stopping for a school bus. Hardin was sentenced to holding a sign that read, “Only an idiot would drive on the sidewalk to avoid the school bus,” for one hour for two days along her East 38 St. route, in addition to having her license suspended and having to pay a $250 fine.

In an interview, Judge Carr explained that her usage of forced public apologies sends an effective message to the community as a whole.

“At the end of the day as far as punishment, yeah, I want to punish the offender, but yet, you know, it’s about the community too. I mean, she owes it to this community, she owes it to the children that were on that school bus, the parents, I mean it’s just a total disrespect, and I want to send a clear message that that’s not behavior that one should engage in,” Judge Carr said in an interview with Fox 8 News.

– Olivia Truffaut-Wong

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