{"id":61353,"date":"2026-01-20T13:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T18:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=61353"},"modified":"2026-01-20T13:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T18:48:14","slug":"former-fire-chief-sues-polk-county-alleging-racial-discrimination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/01\/20\/former-fire-chief-sues-polk-county-alleging-racial-discrimination\/","title":{"rendered":"Former fire chief sues Polk County, alleging racial discrimination"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A civil rights lawsuit filed over the summer by an attorney representing former&nbsp;Polk&nbsp;County&nbsp;Fire Chief Hezedean Smith&nbsp;alleges a racially charged, hostile environment stoked by county leaders is to blame for Smith&#8217;s departure in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img data-dominant-color=\"5d5147\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"439\" height=\"610\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 439px) 100vw, 439px\" src=\"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Chief-Hezedean-Smith.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-49680 not-transparent\" style=\"--dominant-color: #5d5147; aspect-ratio:0.719683385419335;width:318px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Chief-Hezedean-Smith.webp 439w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Chief-Hezedean-Smith-216x300.webp 216w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Smith\u2019s\u00a0lead\u00a0attorney, Michael G. Mann of Tallahassee,\u00a0filed\u00a0the\u00a0lawsuit\u00a0on July\u00a010\u00a0in the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0Middle District of Florida Court\u00a0in Tampa, alleging that Smith\u2019s workplace environment was\u00a0hostile and that he faced racial\u00a0discrimination and retaliation after\u00a0he fired\u00a0a\u00a0battalion chief.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A civil rights lawsuit filed over the summer by an attorney representing former&nbsp;Polk&nbsp;County&nbsp;Fire Chief Hezedean Smith&nbsp;alleges a racially charged, hostile environment stoked by county leaders is to blame for Smith&#8217;s&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49680,"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":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNFwvMDlcL0NoaWVmLUhlemVkZWFuLVNtaXRoLndlYnA_Zml0PTQzOSUyQzYxMCZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IkZvcm1lciBmaXJlIGNoaWVmIHN1ZXMgUG9sayBDb3VudHksIGFsbGVnaW5nIHJhY2lhbCBkaXNjcmltaW5hdGlvbiIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.02w1JHA1h5aDHLpxTp6go5Mbnh2FEeJpMHWQzjOsFigMQ"},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[13272,13271],"class_list":["post-61353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-alleging-racial-discrimination","tag-former-fire-chief-sues-polk-county"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61353","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=61353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61354,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61353\/revisions\/61354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}