Christopher Hendon dressed like a cop — often wearing what many would assume was a bulletproof vest.
He talked like a cop — greeting some Akron police like old friends, many of whom he might have known from his three years as an Akron Police Explorer, a club for young people aspiring to get into law enforcement.
And Hendon carried his handgun like a cop, tucked into a holster on his hip.
But the 26-year-old Akron man wasn’t a cop.
Yet his law enforcement swagger was so convincing, it apparently earned him — and his weapon — repeated passage into an Akron elementary school.
“He did have the jargon. He did have the look. Due to his background, he played the part pretty well,” Summit County Sheriff Steve Barry said Thursday.
Whether Hendon was using his cop persona for good — he claimed to run a sort of Scared Straight program to steer children away from trouble — or nefarious purposes is unclear. Hendon’s lawyer, Don Hicks, said it was too early in the case for him to comment.
The sheriff’s office is still investigating.
But since Hendon’s arrest this week — he faces four counts of illegal conveyance of a deadly weapon into a courthouse and four counts of criminal trespass and four counts of impersonating a peace officer — Barry said investigators have been fielding calls from worried parents, educators and others.
Najmah Habeeb-Ullah, whose son Jewan Brooks is in second grade at Leggett Elementary School, said she learned for the first time Wednesday that Hendon once brought Jewan home from school.
She was outraged that Akron Public School officials allegedly let Jewan leave with Hendon without her permission and without knowing who he was.
“That’s crazy that the school just let him go with this man,” Habeeb-Ullah said. “Anything could have happened to my son because [school officials] didn’t even check to make sure he was an officer.”
Akron schools spokesman Mark Williamson said Thursday that officials are still piecing together what happened, but Hendon’s involvement with public schools appears to be limited to Leggett and to this month.
Williamson said it unfolded like this:
On April 6, Leggett school officials called a woman to pick up her child because the student was ill. The woman said she couldn’t get there, but that her friend, Hendon, would pick up the child. The woman described Hendon, told officials what time he would be there and said he was an Akron police officer.
Hendon arrived on time. He was dressed in what appeared to be a dark-color uniform and carrying a gun. And he talked to the school resource officer — an Akron police officer — like he knew him and the business of policing.
Officials apparently assumed Hendon was a police officer because everything about him matched the mother’s description.
But no one checked his ID, which broke school policy, Williams said.
In the weeks after Hendon’s visit to the school, he apparently returned to Leggett several times without anyone checking his identification. It’s unclear how many times or how many children Hendon had contact with, Williamson said.
Akron police officers are in and out of schools frequently interacting with kids, he said. And because officials assumed Hendon was an officer, no one was suspicious.
“There were no red flags because he got past the initial threshold,” Williamson said. “He was just like any other officer being welcomed into school.”
Since Hendon’s arrest, school officials have reminded employees to check IDs of each school visitor, including Superintendent David W. James, Williamson said. Additionally, school officials are pursuing a no-tresspass order forbidding Hendon to enter any of the school district’s 55 facilities.
Habeeb-Ullah said Hendon doesn’t appear to have harmed her son.
In a strange twist, Habeeb-Ullah said she had reached out to Hendon weeks earlier, hoping he would work with Jewan.
Habeeb-Ulla said she first learned of Hendon and his Scared Straight efforts through a friend on Facebook. Her friend told her that Hendon was an Akron police officer who worked successfully with her kids.
“I actually contacted him, but before I knew he wasn’t an officer,” Habeeb-Ullah said. “I was hoping he would straighten out my son a little, show him a bit of reality.”
It never happened.
“[Hendon] told me he had other kids he was helping at that time,” Habeeb-Ullah said, “and I never heard back from him.”
Beacon Journal staff writer Rick Armon contributed to this report. Amanda Garrett can be reached at 330-996-3725 or agarrett@thebeaconjournal.com.