{"id":47201,"date":"2024-06-30T23:24:45","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T03:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=47201"},"modified":"2024-06-30T23:24:53","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T03:24:53","slug":"citizens-come-forward-with-police-abuse-claims-against-lakeland-police-department","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/06\/30\/citizens-come-forward-with-police-abuse-claims-against-lakeland-police-department\/","title":{"rendered":"Citizens come forward with police abuse claims against Lakeland Police Department"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Victims of alleged police violence gathered on Sunday to share encounters they\u2019ve had with the Lakeland Police Department.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The gathering comes after several controversial arrests, as well as videos of some of the encounters circulation on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The families gathered in a local church to show what they\u2019re calling a pattern of abuse from the Lakeland Police Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One person after another claimed the police department had used excessive force against them, alleging police misconduct. Disturbing cell phone videos capture some of the encounters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, two officers were captured on video punching a 16-year-old boy multiple times before tasing him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut he had to fight two men who decided to punch him and tase him because of a disagreement at a swimming pool,\u201d attorney Bobby DiCello said.

In 2022, cellphone video showed Antwan Glover being beaten and tased by Lakeland police after being stopped for a seatbelt violation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn all too familiar story is once unfolding,\u201d a speaker at the meeting said to the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Glover\u2019s and the 16-year-old\u2019s charges were dropped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, attorney DiCello said that is not enough and he wants the department to acknowledge there\u2019s a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWe want a dialogue. We want these men to have a say into what happened to them. We demand a meeting with the Chief of Police of the City of Lakeland, and we demand he sits and confronts what his officers have done,\u201d DiCello said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Community members also came forward with demands for accountability and transparency from the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI call on both local and state leaders to come to the table and work towards solutions to this ever-growing epidemic,\u201d an activist on the panel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tampa Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression added a list of demands for the city of Lakeland.       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victims of alleged police violence gathered on Sunday to share encounters they\u2019ve had with the Lakeland Police Department. The gathering comes after several controversial arrests, as well as videos of… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47202,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":null,"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[8972],"class_list":["post-47201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-citizens-come-forward-with-police-abuse-claims-against-lakeland-police-department"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47201","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=47201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47203,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47201\/revisions\/47203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}