Jameek Lowery’s mother says private autopsy will explain son’s death
PATERSON — Angry and frustrated, Jameek Lowery’s mother Tuesday night accused officials of covering up the cause of her son’s death and said she is having an independent autopsy done.
Patrice King, Lowery’s mother, spoke during a standing-room-only meeting of the Paterson City Council and said she hoped to get results from her private autopsy by Friday, before her son’s funeral. She expressed scorn for officials’ public statements that her son had meningitis, calling them “lies” and suggested that authorities were trying to deflect blame from the police.
“You keep saying, ‘Meningitis, meningitis,” King asserted. “Meningitis didn’t break my son’s bones. Meningitis did not kill my son.”
More than a week after Lowery’s death, Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia Valdes has yet to reveal the results of the autopsy done by the state medical examiner’s office.
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Lowery died on Jan. 7, after being on life support for about two days. Lowery, who said in a 911 call that he ingested too much Ecstacy, video-recorded a frantic visit to Paterson police headquarters during which he claimed officers were trying to kill him.
The prosecutor has said that Paterson police “used physical force and compliance hold” to secure Lowery in an ambulance but she also said hospital reports indicated that Lowery suffered “no acute trauma.”
Lowery’s mother on Tuesday night said that developer Charles Florio had donated money to cover the funeral arrangements. She said Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh came by her home a few days earlier to drop off the check on Florio's behalf. King did not reveal the amount of the check.
King aimed some of her fiercest criticism at Sayegh, saying she campaigned for him “in the rain” during last year’s election, but that she felt he has not done enough to help her.
“We need to vote a new mayor,” King said in the crowed council chambers. “This mayor ain’t doing nothing.”
Sayegh was at the meeting and responded by saying to King, “I am here to help you.” Sayegh said he has been “on the phone every day, asking for not just the answers, but the facts.”
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Minutes prior to King’s comments on Tuesday night, there was a disturbance in the hallway outside the council meeting room and one of Lowery’s siblings was escorted by police outside the building.
Councilman Michael Jackson, the only member of the governing body who was in the hallway at the time, condemned the way the city handled the situation. Jackson said the city ought to be more compassionate with the grieving family.
Paterson Police Director Jerry Speziale, who was at the scene, told the council that the officers were intervening during a dispute and attempted to break it up.
“We have to keep the peace,” Speziale said. “We have to keep control and order.”
Prior to the meeting more than 60 people staged the fifth City Hall plaza protest in eight days since Lowery’s death.
The Jameek Lowery case
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