Mother of defendant in cemetery shooting arraigned

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The mother of a man who was wounded in a shooting at Tod Homestead Cemetery earlier this month was arraigned Wednesday on a misdemeanor charge of assault.

Magistrate Anthony Sertick of municipal court set a bond of 10 percent of $5,000 for Bonnie Weaver, 53, of Cincinnati, who was taken into custody Tuesday after she took a bus from her home to Youngstown.

Police said Weaver and her son, Richard Harris, 25, also of Cincinnati, attacked Dwayne Brown, the husband of Weaver’s deceased sister, during a funeral service June 3 for the sister, Brenda Carol Weaver-Brown at Tod Homestead Cemetery.

Brown testified at a preliminary hearing for Richard Harris last week that he and Weaver had exchanged angry text messages before the services began. Brown said the three attacked him at the cemetery, and as they did, a gun fell from Harris’ waist.

Brown picked the gun up and shot Harris in the arm. Harris is charged with carrying a concealed weapon, a felony, and a misdemeanor charge of assault. His case was bound over to a Mahoning County grand jury last week.

Police did not charge Brown because they say he acted in self-defense.

City Prosecutor Dana Lantz asked Magistrate Sertick for a significant bond because Weaver lives out of town and she did not turn herself in for several days.

Lantz said the only previous conviction she could find on Weaver’s record was a child-endangering conviction from 1999 in Springfield in Hamiliton County.