{"id":234,"date":"2019-06-12T13:11:20","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T13:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=234"},"modified":"2019-06-12T13:11:32","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T13:11:32","slug":"lakeland-police-need-answers-to-a-crash-on-memorial-boulevard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/06\/12\/lakeland-police-need-answers-to-a-crash-on-memorial-boulevard\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland Police need answers to a crash on Memorial Boulevard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As Lakeland police continue to investigate the Memorial Boulevard crash\u00a0that killed two people, including a woman returning home from work, they released video taken from the dashboard of an officer who was following the driver who caused the accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"LPD Dashcam Video Memorial Boulevard Accident\" width=\"1110\" height=\"833\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YJqTwF_LNkE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption> Speed Approaching 100 MPH Before Fatal Crash <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cleon Truedell, 32, of Plant City, sped away from LPD\nOfficer Jim Simon and was driving his 2000 Cadillac at speeds nearing 100 mph\nbefore he ran a red light and crashed into a 2017 Mitsubishi sedan driven by\nLinel Marie Vega-Ortiz, 38, police said. Both drivers died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The video, just over a minute long, starts with Truedell\nbacking his Cadillac out of a driveway on Tropical Way near Memorial Boulevard\naround 12:38 a.m. June 5. Simon follows him onto Memorial, and an explosion is\nseen when the cars crash at Memorial and Lakeshore Drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe Lakeland Police Department continues to review evidence\nand seek additional witness statements to help explain why Cleon Nathaniel\nTruedell intentionally backed his vehicle toward the marked police vehicle and\nthen began to flee in a reckless manner,\u201d police said in a news release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Truedell\u2019s driver license has been revoked since 2005, and\nhis car contained \u201ca trafficking amount of suspected\nmethamphetamine,\u201d&nbsp;police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Police say the incident started when Officer Simon saw the\nCadillac commit an unnamed minor traffic violation. They also claim the officer\nsmelled marijuana as the Cadillac passed. The Cadillac almost hit Simon\u2019s\nvehicle as it pulled out of a driveway after Simon tried to get tag\ninformation, and Simon followed, police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Police say their investigation is focused on what Truedell had been doing earlier that \u201cmight explain his actions that caused this tragic event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Anyone with information is encouraged to contact LPD Traffic Investigations at 834-6900.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Lakeland police continue to investigate the Memorial Boulevard crash\u00a0that killed two people, including a woman returning home from work, they released video taken from the dashboard of an officer&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}