Cameron Herrin

Cameron Coyle Herrin (born September 9, 1999) is a convicted felon who in April 2021 was sentenced to 24 years in prison on vehicular homicide charges alongside other lesser charges for the deaths of a mother and daughter whom he hit with his car in 2018. A movement calling for his prison sentence to be reduced or commuted has formed on social media. He is currently incarcerated at the Graceville Correctional Facility.

2018 crash and arrest

On 23 May 2018, Cameron Herrin, age 18, a Tampa Catholic High School senior, was driving with his brother Tristan, age 20, along Bayshore Boulevard near their home in Tampa, Florida, in a black 2018 Ford Mustang which Cameron had been gifted two days earlier by his parents as a high school graduation present. The car was registered to Cameron’s mother, Cheryl Herrin, a retired corporate executive with State Farm Insurance. The evidence showed that he began street racing another driver in a gold Nissan Altima, his friend and Tampa Catholic High School classmate John Barrineau, age 17, and collided with pedestrian Jessica Reisinger-Raubenolt, age 24, who was pushing her 21-month-old daughter Lillia in a stroller across Bayshore Boulevard, a busy four-lane thoroughfare between South Tampa and downtown, at the W Knights Avenue intersection. Jessica died at the scene and Lillia succumbed to her injuries a day later. Witnesses told police that the cars were traveling approximately 60 miles per hour along Bayshore Boulevard before the crash and appeared to be racing. However according to data, retrieved by police from the Mustang's black box, the vehicle was traveling 102 mph (164 km/h) before hard braking just before the crash. The crash was one of several fatal traffic accidents during a two year period along Bayshore Boulevard, leading city officials to install new crosswalks and traffic lights and lower the speed limit from 45 mph (72 km/h) to 35 mph (56 km/h).

A witness told police that the driver of the gold Nissan quickly swerved into the left lane to avoid hitting the young mother as she stepped out into traffic, causing the driver of the Black Mustang that was in the left lane to swerve to the right, to avoid colliding with the Nissan, striking the woman and the stroller. Herrin and Barrineau were both charged with two counts of felony vehicular homicide, misdemeanor street racing, and reckless driving resulting in serious bodily injury. The passenger in the Mustang, Tristan Herrin, was also charged with a misdemeanor count of street racing. Both Herrin brothers were released on bail the following day, while Barrineau remained in jail for 22 days before posting bond.

In December 2020, John Barrineau, who did not actually hit either victim with his car, reached a plea deal with the state of Florida, pleading guilty to two counts of vehicular homicide and misdemeanor street racing, and was sentenced to six years imprisonment followed by 15 years probation and 200 hours of community service after his release. One hundred of those hours are to be spent speaking to the community about the dangers of reckless driving. His driver's license was also suspended for five years. Barrineau was required to cooperate with the state and provide testimony against Herrin. Herrin made an open plea, leaving sentencing to the discretion of a judge. In a sentencing memo Herrin's attorney John Fitzgibbons wrote: "We submit it would be a gross miscarriage of justice if Cameron receives a sentence exceeding John Barrineau’s sentence given the facts in this case of equal culpability."

On April 8, 2021, Herrin was sentenced to 24 years in prison. The judge stated that "Herrin’s history of excessive speeding" contributed to the length of the sentence. After Herrin was sentenced, the judge revoked his bail and directed the bailiff to take him into custody. Tampa Bay Area criminal attorney Bjorn Brunvand called it a "very high" sentence, saying that Herrin's defense will likely ask the court for a new trial and argue that the judge "abused his judicial authority." Herrin's attorney appealed the sentence.

In May 2021, prosecutors dropped the street racing charge against Tristan Herrin.

Social media following

In July 2021, three months after sentencing, Cameron Herrin began to gain a following on social media, especially TikTok, calling for a reduction of his 24 year prison sentence; one often stated reason among the followers being that Cameron is "too cute" for serving such a long sentence. Many questioned why a 24-year sentence was necessary given that Herrin had been free on bail for almost 3 years between his arrest and sentencing. They saw no point in imprisoning Herrin for that long when he had already demonstrated being a successful member of society since his arrest. The case also became an example of the disparity between sentences in Florida and sentences in other states for similar offenses as Herrin's. Drivers in Florida convicted of vehicular homicide often face multi-decade prison terms, while in most other states, the average sentence ranges from 4 to 10 years.

Shelby Grossman from the Stanford Internet Observatory said that Twitter activity about Herrin appears to be a mix of authentic opinions that Herrin’s sentence was too harsh, and suspicious accounts strongly resembling those used by Middle East digital marketing firms. Nitin Agarwal, director of the Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies at University of Arkansas at Little Rock, noted that unusual websites published articles about Herrin, including a hastily put together Arabic site which is a top Google search result about Herrin. Agarwal said that is a strong indication of an inexpensive hired campaign. Other sites about Herrin shared IP addresses with a Chinese company, and another company in Switzerland, where there are no regulations on who can buy or operate a website. Experts who looked at TikTok trends about Herrin said they found no evidence of fake accounts. Twitter suspended around 900 accounts that posted about Herrin for violating the company’s platform guidelines, thereby erasing around 90,000 of the 100,000-or-so tweets supporting Herrin. Herrin's mother called his newfound social media attention "almost like an obsession, an unhealthy obsession."

References

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