Donations are pouring in for the spirited Ohio man who helped rescue three women on Monday who had been held in captivity.
Charles Ramsey became an overnight sensation once the world learned of how he unhesitatingly broke through a door to help Amanda Berry, her daughter, Gina Dejesus and Michele Knight escape the Cleveland home where they had been held since they each went missing. To show his gratitude for Ramsey’s heroism, Robby Russell, of Portland, Ore., started a fundraising site that collected nearly $4,000 as of press time.
"I thought maybe there's something I could do with all this feedback that people want to provide to him," Russell told KPTV. "Maybe I could help raise a little money so that he could be a little more comfortable throughout the situation."
Russell hopes to raise $10,000 altogether.
Many of Ramsey’s supporters have praised the hero for the way in which he barged right into what he thought was a domestic violence situation.
Ramsey told WEWS that while he was eating lunch on his porch, he heard a woman screaming next door for help and he immediately went to investigate.
“I figured it was a domestic-violence dispute,” he told the news outlet.
But that didn’t stop him from getting involved. He and another neighbor broke the bottom of the door to help Berry, who had been kidnapped 10 years ago, get out of the house with her daughter where she was being held captive with two other women.
“In many times and places, a line like that [about domestic violence] has been offered as an excuse for walking away, not for helping a woman break down your neighbor’s door,” Amy Davidson wrote in the New Yorker on Tuesday. “How many women have died as a result? They didn’t yesterday.”
While Ramsey has been open to sharing his story, he’s been reluctant to accept any sort of compensation for his actions.
Hodge’s Cleveland, the restaurant where Ramsey works, is selling T-shirts with the hero’s face plastered on the front, but the do-gooder asked that all proceeds from the sales help the three rescued women’s families.
Ramsey told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that any reward money tied to the case should also go to the victims.
“I tell you what you do, give it to them,” Ramsey told CNN of the cash. “Because if folks been following this case since last night, you been following me since last night, you know I got a job anyway.”
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