{"id":4507,"date":"2019-11-09T17:07:34","date_gmt":"2019-11-09T22:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=4507"},"modified":"2019-11-09T17:07:53","modified_gmt":"2019-11-09T22:07:53","slug":"protesters-mad-over-clearing-of-lakeland-police-officer-in-2018-shooting-of-teen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/11\/09\/protesters-mad-over-clearing-of-lakeland-police-officer-in-2018-shooting-of-teen\/","title":{"rendered":"Protesters Mad Over Clearing of Lakeland Police Officer in 2018 Shooting of Teen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

 About a week after the State Attorney’s Office cleared\nLakeland Police officers of any criminal wrongdoing in the 2018 death of teen\nMichael Taylor protestors are calling for an independent investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Dozens of people gathered outside the Polk County Courthouse\nFriday afternoon, holding signs and lying on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is going to stop and it starts today. You can’t\nkill our young people and just keep going,” said Clayton Cowart, who\norganized the protest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taylor\nwas shot on Dec. 26, 2018<\/a> in the parking lot of Salem’s Gyros &\nSubs in Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a nine-page letter, the state attorney’s office called\nthe actions of the officers involved “justified.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The officers said Taylor was driving a stolen car and they\ntried to stop him in the parking lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They said he refused to comply and accelerated towards one\nof the officers who was standing in front of the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the letter, that officer is quoted as saying, “he\nlooked directly in my eyes and gunned it right towards me.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The officers said they feared for their safety and the\nsafety of other people in the crowded parking lot at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Cowart questions that story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We felt that he was killed execution-style and he was\nnot attempting to run over an officer,” he explained. “Witnesses have\ntold us that this young man had lifted his hands up to comply with the officers\nand the officers shot him anyway.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state attorney’s office also said it interviewed\nmultiple witnesses and reviewed surveillance video before reaching its\nconclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cowart and other protestors said they would like to see an\noutside investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We need people who are going to say, ‘Listen, I’m not\nbiased. If law enforcement is wrong, I’m going to hold you accountable. If the\ncommunity is wrong, I’m going to hold them accountable,'” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NAACP is also asking for an independent investigation to\ngo over the police department’s procedures to see whether the officer’s actions\nthat night are in line with professional standards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 About a week after the State Attorney’s Office cleared Lakeland Police officers of any criminal wrongdoing in the 2018 death of teen Michael Taylor protestors are calling for an independent… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4508,"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-4507","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\/4507","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=4507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}