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Cleveland Hero Charles Ramsey Rewarded With Burgers For Life

Charles Ramsey on the day three young women (and one of the women's daughters) were rescued from a Cleveland home. He gained fame for his accounts of what happened.
Scott Shaw
/
The Plain Dealer /Landov
Charles Ramsey on the day three young women (and one of the women's daughters) were rescued from a Cleveland home. He gained fame for his accounts of what happened.

Charles Ramsey, the neighbor who helped rescue three young women from a Cleveland home where authorities say they had been held captive and brutalized for about a decade, "will enjoy free burgers for life" in honor of his actions, The Plain Dealer reports.

Ramsey gained instant fame for his animated account of what happened on May 6 after he heard victim Amanda Berry calling for help from inside a home in his neighborhood. With Ramsey's help, Berry and her 6-year-old daughter were able to get out. Minutes later, police were able to rescue the other two young women who had been inside — Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight.

Ramsey became something of legend for saying "I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran to a black man's arms."

He also told reporters about how he had been been eating a Big Mac when he heard Berry's shouts. That inspired the restaurant where he's a dishwasher to create the Ramsey Burger. And now, according to the Plain Dealer, "more than a dozen Northeast Ohio restaurants have pledged an offer of a burger anytime Ramsey wants to stop by and dig in."

He's going to be given a "Chuck Card" that he can use at the restaurants. According to the Plain Dealer:

"Ramsey, who has been traveling during a paid leave from his job at Hodges [restaurant], was not available for comment. The Chuck Card will be formally presented to him when he returns to Cleveland."

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Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.