CRIME

Scores protest alleged abuse at Lowell prison

Austin L. Miller,Austin L. Miller
austin.miller@starbanner.com

LOWELL — Scores of men, women and children gathered in front of Lowell Correctional Institution on Saturday to protest the brutal beating of 51-year-old Cheryl Weimar, an inmate at the prison, and to call for an end to inmate abuse.

The roughly 60 protestors, many wearing blue T-shirts, stood in front of the prison at 11120 NW Gainesville Road, north of Ocala. The held signs and banners, and waved to passing vehicles. Some of the protestors had tape covering their mouths.

Debra Bennett, organizer of the protest and once an inmate at the women's prison, said the corrections officers who beat Weimar, who is now paralyzed, should be locked up.

"Its unacceptable. Nothing is happening. We want arrest. We want change," she said. Bennett said the money for the T-shirts, signs and banners came from donations.

Within the last year, corrections officials at the facility have been arrested in connection with a wide range of offenses, including sexual battery, aggravated battery on an inmate and drug trafficking.

Misconduct there has attracted the attention of the federal government. In 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division met with alleged victims, families and loved ones of Lowell inmates in Ocala to get their statements about alleged sexual abuse there. Government officials said that if their investigation uncovers other allegations, then they might expand their probe, and noted that the investigation would take months. It is ongoing.

Lawyers have filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Weimar and her husband. She was severely injured by corrections officers at Lowell on Aug. 21, when she refused to do her work.

The suit alleges one or more of the four guards involved “slammed Plaintiff Cheryl Weimar to the ground.” It says “they brutally beat her with blows to her head, neck, and back.” One of them “elbowed Plaintiff Cheryl Weimar in the back of her neck, causing her to suffer a broken neck,” according to the document. Weimar was then “dragged” like a “rag doll” to a wheelchair, “allowing her head to bounce along the ground along the way.”

The lawsuit says she was dragged outside the compound so the officers “could continue their brutal attack in an area that was not covered by surveillance cameras.”

The lawsuit’s defendants are listed as the Florida Department of Corrections and four corrections officers identified only as John Doe 1, John Doe 2, John Doe 3 and John Doe 4.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials are investigating the incident, and so far no one has been arrested. State officials said the guards have been re-assigned. Weimar, once a patient at Ocala Regional Medical Center, has been removed and is presently at the Florida Women’s Reception Center in Lowell.

Those who gathered at Lowell came from as far as West Palm Beach. Others traveled from Kissimmee, Martin County and Jacksonville. Locally, Delphine Herbert, a member of The Bridges Project in Ocala, a group devoted to improving race-relations, was among the people protesting on Saturday.

Joe Carson, whose wife Cassandra Carson was a former inmate at the prison, came from Clearwater protest.

"It's time for the abuse to stop. We need prison reform," said Joe Carson, waving a sign that had pictures of women with their mouths covered.

A former Lowell inmate for 19 years, Susanne Manning of Orlando, said Saturday's protest "is about the people behind the fences, not about us." Since her 2011 release, Manning said she has formed the Leading Returning Citizens, a group whose aim is to take care of inmates once they're released from prison.

With tears streaming down her face, Letysia Larry of Kissimmee, said it's her first time facing Lowell since her release more than a decade ago. She called the reported abuse unfair and said she wants to see a change. 

"It's not fair the way they treat us," she said.

Bennett said her goal is to continue highlighting the injustices at Lowell. She vowed to take her fight to Tallahassee and Washington, D.C.

"I want to spread the word to everyone that this abuse has to stop," she said.

Contact Austin L. Miller at 867-4118, austin.miller@starbanner.com or @almillerosb.