{"id":41514,"date":"2024-01-30T18:55:23","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T23:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=41514"},"modified":"2024-01-30T18:55:42","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T23:55:42","slug":"lakeland-man-seriously-injured-and-unable-to-speak-after-encounter-with-lakeland-police-daughter-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/01\/30\/lakeland-man-seriously-injured-and-unable-to-speak-after-encounter-with-lakeland-police-daughter-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland man seriously injured and unable to speak after encounter with Lakeland Police, daughter says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anjelica Lee said police were called to a Save-A-Lot store in Lakeland after her father.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Joseph Lee in a hospital bed. Courtesy Anjelica Lee<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A woman in Lakeland says her 55-year-old \u201cmedically fragile\u201d father was falsely accused of theft at a Lakeland grocery store last week and then seriously injured in a violent encounter with police. Now, she says, he is hospitalized and has lost the ability to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The incident occurred at a Save A Lot in Lakeland on Memorial Blvd, according to an arrest report and the man\u2019s daughter, Anjelica Lee, who spoke with her father before his condition worsened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said she was doing laundry at a laundromat near the Save A Lot with her father, Joseph Lee when his arms and legs began to cramp up from an infection. He walked a couple of doors down\u00a0into the Save A Lot grocery store to get some bananas because potassium would help relieve the cramping, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n

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She said he told her that he picked up four bananas, one of which he ate on the way to the register, and that he told the cashier that he needed to pay for four bananas even though she scanned only three. Anjelica Lee said her father told her he was followed closely while he was shopping by a white female employee, who, she said, accused him of stealing the banana he ate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He told the woman that he had not stolen anything and that he had paid for four bananas, but she followed him outside and continued to falsely accuse him of stealing, Anjelica Lee said her father told her. When she noticed the commotion, she said, she confronted the woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt first, I was trying to ask her what happened, and she was like, \u2018People like you and him shouldn\u2019t come into the store if you don\u2019t have money to pay for things,\u2019\u201d Anjelica Lee said. \u201cMy mom is white, and my dad is Black. So I\u2019m mixed. So I think she meant Black people. And it just escalated from that, and she went to cussing me out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said she feared for her father\u2019s safety, so she got a bat from her car, approached the woman, and told her to \u201cpick on someone her own size, someone able-bodied.\u201d She said she did not threaten the woman with the bat. Still, she said, the woman called the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eight cars responded with six officers and two sergeants, a police spokesperson said. When they arrived, Angelica Lee said, she was sitting in the driver\u2019s side of her car with the door open and her father was standing outside the vehicle as they waited for her laundry to dry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe police got out with their guns drawn, repeatedly saying, \u2018Get out of the effin\u2019 car,\u2019\u201d Anjelica Lee said. \u201cMy dad said to me: \u2018Don\u2019t get out of the car until they can fully see you, because they\u2019re going to shoot.\u2019 And after he said that, nine or 10 of them jumped on him, and then they slammed him on the car.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Anjelica Lee <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

She said she could hear her father screaming: \u201cYou\u2019re hurting me. I can\u2019t breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter that, I stepped out of the car, because the police were on the driver\u2019s side,\u201d she said. \u201cThey told me to shut the f— up. Handcuffed me. Put me in the back of the car, and as they were driving me away, my dad was no longer on the sidewalk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said that she could see him lying in the middle of the road and that several officers were on him. \u201cAnd as they\u2019re driving me away, the last thing I heard was my dad screaming: \u2018Help, help. I can\u2019t breathe. You\u2019re hurting me,\u2019\u201d she said through tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A separate affidavit says that when officers arrived, Joseph Lee was standing outside the store, directly in front of the vehicle his daughter was in. The affidavit quotes police as saying that Joseph Lee was asked \u201cmultiple times to step away from the vehicle as he was interfering with the officers\u2019 investigation\u201d but that he refused and allegedly told police, \u201cI\u2019m on a sidewalk.\u201d He was then detained, according to the affidavit, which says he was arrested on a charge of resisting officers without violence.\u00a0He was issued a notice to appear at 8:30 a.m. on Feb. 29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A police spokesperson that after Joseph Lee was placed in the backseat of a patrol car, at some point he began to complain of chest pain and requested medical assistance because of a \u201cprevious medical condition.\u201d The spokesperson said that officers \u201cquickly called for medical assistance\u201d and that first responders arrived within a few minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spokesperson said he was \u201calert and responsive\u201d when an ambulance arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anjelica Lee said her father, who already had a pacemaker, sustained an acute kidney injury in the encounter and is undergoing dialysis. She also said he can barely talk and is disoriented and confused. \u201cHe\u2019s waking up panicked,\u201d she said. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t know where he\u2019s at. He can no longer feed himself. We have to do that for him. They\u2019re saying that some of the injuries could be long-term.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She shared photographs of her father in the hospital with the media but has not been able to make medical records on his condition available.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy dad could have died in the parking lot,\u201d she said, her voice breaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was arrested on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and battery on a law enforcement officer, according to the arrest report obtained by the media. She said that she does not recall hitting anyone and that she is trying to obtain security video from the Save A Lot, as well as police body camera video, to prove so. She has not yet retained an attorney. Her next court hearing is Feb. 27.\u00a0A police spokesperson said that the body camera video would not be released until the cases are resolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her arrest affidavit says police responded to a report of a female armed with a bat causing a disturbance inside a store, alongside a male subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the arrest report, an officer \u201cgave a lawful command\u201d to Joseph Lee and he ignored it. When an officer moved in to detain him, the arrest report says, Anjelica Lee approached an officer and \u201cstuck him in the arm against his will.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was then detained, according to the affidavit, which says the woman who called 911 told police that \u201cafter an incident with Joseph inside the store,\u201d she encountered Anjelica Lee waiting outside with a metal bat in her hand. The woman told police that Anjelica Lee while holding the bat, had told her to \u201cclock out cause I\u2019m gonna whoop your ass,\u201d according to the affidavit. Anjelica Lee said she remembers telling the woman to meet her outside but not saying that.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afterward, the affidavit says, Anjelica Lee put the bat back into her car, went inside the store, and knocked items off the shelves. She denies having done so. The woman told police she \u201cwas placed in a well-founded fear that\u201d Anjelica Lee was going to cause her harm while she was holding the bat outside the store, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The affidavit says Anjelica Lee told police she got her bat out of the car because her father told her that the store employee had put her hands on him. Anjelica Lee is alleged to have told a police officer that the employee was \u201ctalking junk\u201d and admitted to threatening her with the bat, according to the affidavit. Calls to the telephone numbers listed in public records for the employee named in the police report went unreturned Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n

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An assistant manager at the Save A Lot declined to comment when reached by phone and referred the media to the store\u2019s corporate office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Save A Lot spokesperson Sarah Griffin said in a statement that the store is \u201caware of a confrontation between customers and store team members\u201d at the Lakeland store. \u201cThe local owner\/operator of the store is working with local authorities and the store team to investigate the incident,\u201d Griffin said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anjelica Lee said police were called to a Save-A-Lot store in Lakeland after her father. A woman in Lakeland says her 55-year-old \u201cmedically fragile\u201d father was falsely accused of theft… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","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":[7426,7425],"class_list":["post-41514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-daughter-says","tag-lakeland-man-seriously-injured-and-unable-to-speak-after-encounter-with-lakeland-police"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41514","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}