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Beaten cheerleader's mom says video was hard to watch

The teen shown being attacked by several girls will be home-schooled now.

LAKELAND - The 16-year-old cheerleader's face was covered with heavy makeup Tuesday in an effort to hide the bruises she suffered during a videotaped beating deputies said she suffered at the hands of girls she considered her friends.

Victoria "Tori" Lindsay, a student at Mulberry High School, said she learned a lesson from the betrayal, which led to the arrest last week of six girls, one boy and a young man on charges of felony battery and false imprisonment.

"The No. 1 friend is your family," she said in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel at her home in a quiet southwest Lakeland neighborhood.

Tori's mother, Talisa Lindsay, said it was painful to watch the video, which aPolk County sheriff's detective brought to their home days after the March 30 attack so Tori could identify the girls involved. Investigators say they planned to post the video on YouTube and MySpace.


I was flabbergasted," Lindsay said. "I felt completely helpless."

Tori has bruises, a concussion and damage to her left ear and eye, although her family said she is expected to recover. The family would like a public apology from the girls, and they also want a law to protect kids on video and social-networking Web sites. Tori plans to continue her schooling at home rather than return to Mulberry High.

Meanwhile, the grandmother of one of the girls who was arrested says her family is suffering, too.

The beating is alleged to have happened at Mary Nichols' house while she was at work. Since the Sheriff's Office released the video this week, Nichols said, she has been receiving threatening, obscenity-laced telephone calls, and someone scratched her car.

The tape shows Tori being beaten and taunted as other teenagers shout in the background. Nichols' granddaughter, Mercades Nichols, 17, remains in the Polk Regional Juvenile Detention Center along with six other minors arrested in the case. Nichols described Mercades as "really a loving, caring kid."

"This is definitely traumatic to everyone, not just to Tori's family," Nichols said Tuesday.

Tori was staying at Nichols' Lakeland home because she was having problems with her family, the Sheriff's Office and Nichols said.

Earlier Tuesday, Christina Garcia, Mercades' mother, told Today show host Matt Lauer on NBC that she was ashamed of her daughter's actions.

"My daughter should have picked up the phone and called the police. Yes, she did warn this girl not to go in the house, but I do believe my daughter should have called the police," Garcia told Lauer.

Garcia has said that thePolk County Sheriff's Office has overblown the beating.

"First of all, the tape that was released is only three minutes long. That was the worst of it," Garcia said, contradicting the Sheriff's Office report of the incident that indicated the beating was severe and lasted for 30 minutes.

Reached late Tuesday, Garcia declined to comment further.

The trouble began when Tori went into a bedroom and April Cooper, 14, began to insult and threaten her, then hit her in the face several times and slammed her head into a wall, knocking her unconscious, a sheriff's report states. When Tori awoke, she was on the living-room couch surrounded by six girls who took turns hitting and kicking her while the beating was videotaped, records show.

Polk County officials identified the teens involved as Nichols, Cooper, Brittni Hardcastle, 17, Kayla Hassell, 15, Brittany Mayes, 17, Cara Murphy, 16, Zachary Ashley, 17, and Stephen Schumaker, 18. All are from Lakeland except Hassell, who is from Mulberry. Schumaker was released on bail from the Polk County Jail. He and Ashley served as lookouts, the Sheriff's Office said.

Mayes, Hardcastle and Nichols also were arrested on charges of felony kidnapping.