{"id":41818,"date":"2024-02-09T12:33:16","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T17:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=41818"},"modified":"2024-02-09T12:33:27","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T17:33:27","slug":"well-known-homeless-man-killed-by-hit-and-run-driver-in-winter-haven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/02\/09\/well-known-homeless-man-killed-by-hit-and-run-driver-in-winter-haven\/","title":{"rendered":"Well-known homeless man killed by hit-and-run driver in Winter Haven"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A well-known homeless man was killed late Thursday night in an apparent hit-and-run on Winter Lake Road in Winter Haven, and the Polk County Sheriff’s Office is looking for the driver involved.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that Michael Ratton, 47, was crossing Winter Lake Road on his recognizable pink tricycle just west of Old Eagle Lake Road and U.S. 17 about 11:20 p.m. He was struck by an unknown vehicle. The PCSO said it was possibly a commercial vehicle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sheriff’s Office said there were no witnesses to the crash. A passerby saw Ratton lying on the side of the road and called PCSO. Ratton was declared dead at the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sheriff’s Office asks anyone who might have information about the incident to contact PCSO at 863-298-6200.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you wish to remain anonymous, contact Heartland Crime Stoppers Florida<\/a> in one of four ways: call 888-400 TIPS (8477); dial **TIPS from your cell phone; visit the website www.heartlandcrimestoppers.com<\/a> and click on “Submit A Tip”; or download the free “P3tips” app on your smartphone or tablet. You could be eligible for a cash reward if your information leads to an arrest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A well-known homeless man was killed late Thursday night in an apparent hit-and-run on Winter Lake Road in Winter Haven, and the Polk County Sheriff’s Office is looking for the driver involved. The Sheriff’s… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41819,"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":[14],"tags":[7502],"class_list":["post-41818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-well-known-homeless-man-killed-by-hit-and-run-driver-in-winter-haven"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41818","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=41818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41820,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41818\/revisions\/41820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}