An Ohio judge is facing some much-deserved backlash after releasing a violent criminal with a documented history of assaulting random people on the street.
Serus Walters, 20, pleaded guilty earlier this month in a Cleveland court to three separate assault charges after prosecutors said he attacked at least three different men in the Cleveland area in the spring of 2024.
One of Walters’ victims, a 64-year-old attorney from Los Angeles named David Dudley, was visiting Cleveland on business in May of 2024 when Walters attacked him at the Hilton Hotel in Downtown Cleveland, repeatedly kicking Dudley in the torso and the back of the head. Of the attack, Dudley said he’s “fairly certain [Walters] was trying to kill me.”
Another victim, identified only as “Tony,” said Walters attacked him in Tower City in March of that year, just two months before he assaulted Dudley. Tony told local news outlets the attack left him with knots on the back of his head, a black eye, and a broken pair of glasses. Police arrested Walters in connection with the assault, but released him the next day.
Walters was also arrested for a separate assault near Whiskey Island in an attack so brutal, it left his victim needing stitches.
Despite his admitted habit of assaulting people unprovoked, Judge Cassandra Collier-Williams last week reduced Walters’ felony charge to a simple misdemeanor and released him on time served - which amounted to about two months in jail - after he pled guilty, leaving his victims baffled as to why such a violent individual wasn't held accountable and was instead released back onto the streets.
Related: Man Released from Jail, Steals Courthouse Vehicle, Breaks Into Home, Arrested Same Day: Police
"Judge Williams didn't even put him on any kind of supervision. [The] prosecutor was shocked at that," Dudley told WOIO. "He neither apologized to me nor any of the other victims he acknowledged to attacking.”
While it’s not clear why Collier-Williams decided to release a man with an unabashed penchant for randomly attacking people, social media users were quick to dredge up an old video of the judge saying why she believes judges should "look like" - i.e., share the same skin color as - the people they’re convicting and sentencing because it allows criminals to feel they’ve got “a better shot.”
"Judges should look like the criminals"
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 28, 2025
Judge Williams downgraded charges on a repeat offender who repeatedly attacks random white strangers in Cleveland
(Her son is in jail for homicide) pic.twitter.com/52qIf2hhL1
"I thought that it was important that, especially in criminal cases, where, when you have people where, on one side of the bench, they can look at the judge and say ‘Wow, she looks like me, then maybe I have a better shot,’” said Williams, whose own son is currently serving a life sentence for murdering his wife.
Two days after being released, Walters was again arrested for what Fox News describes as a “minor offense” in Garfield Heights, for which he was once again booked and released.