For the second time in a month, Sherri Simmons took the stand to describe the brawl that left her husband, Greg, paralyzed.
Sherri Simmons testified Tuesday in the trial of Natasha Fowlkes, the third of nine people charged with fighting outside the Simmonses? Edgewood home last Thanksgiving weekend.
“She was punching him, kicking him. She had a bat in her hand, but I didn?t see her swing the bat,” Simmons said of Fowlkes. “When he was on the ground, she kicked him in the face like it was a football.”
Fowlkes, 32, is aunt to Layelle and Tommyre Reid, teenage sisters who were acquitted May 2 of all charges after witnesses could not consistently describe their alleged gang membership or their role in attacking Greg, 44. He had gone outside to disperse the crowd gathered to confront his daughter over her relationship with another man, Sherri said.
“He was telling the girls to go into the house, nobody?s fighting,” she said. Prosecutor Joel Muneses said Fowlkes? 16-year-old daughter, Shamere Germany, stabbed Greg Simmons in the back and left him paralyzed from the waist down.
One of Simmons? daughters, 21-year-old Amber Cook, admitted she?d struck Fowlkes with a bat herself because she thought Fowlkes was going to attack another girl, but became frightened when the older woman seemed unfazed by the blows and turned to confront her.
Cook said she raced back inside and braced the door while Fowlkes beat it with a bat, breaking the doorknob and a small window at the top. When police came, Cook and Simmons said the crowd broke car windows and fled.
Cook?s testimony contradicted Simmons? in several places, including what happened in a scuffle earlier that day and whether the fight was later joined by alleged gang members in blackhoodies.
“If I was ever in trouble with the law, I?d want Sherri as the state?s star witness,” said Tyrone Huff, a cousin to Fowlkes. Huff said Fowlkes hadn?t fought and was just there to make sure the younger brawlers weren?t seriously hurt.
Testimony is expected to continue today. Five others are awaiting trial, and the sixth suspect is still being sought on a warrant.
