{"id":63342,"date":"2026-03-04T17:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T22:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=63342"},"modified":"2026-03-04T17:43:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T22:43:16","slug":"fatal-crash-investigation-34","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/03\/04\/fatal-crash-investigation-34\/","title":{"rendered":"FATAL CRASH INVESTIGATION"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Monday, March 2, 2026, at approximately 10:45 p.m., officers responded to a traffic crash in the 1500 block of East Memorial Boulevard at Interlachen Parkway. Just before the crash, a silver GMC SUV was traveling eastbound on East Memorial Boulevard. At the same time, a bronze Ford SUV was traveling westbound on East Memorial Boulevard. As the vehicles approached the same area, the Ford left the roadway, struck a guard rail, and then redirected southwest into the eastbound lane of travel, impacting the GMC.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Lakeland Police Department Patrol Units, Polk County Fire Rescue, and the Lakeland Fire Department all arrived on scene to provide life-saving measures. Both drivers were transported to Lakeland Regional Health (LRH). Despite the best efforts of medical professionals, the driver of the GMC later succumbed to his injuries at LRH. The driver of the Ford SUV remains hospitalized. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traffic homicide investigators are continuing to process evidence in this open and active investigation. If anyone has any additional information regarding the crash, please contact investigating Officer Travis Payne at Travis.payne@lakelandgov.net<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The silver GMC SUV (deceased) driver was identified as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deldrick A. Leonard<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Age 49<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winter Haven, FL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bronze Ford SUV driver was identified as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeffrey R. Allen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Age: 49<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lakeland, FL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday, March 2, 2026, at approximately 10:45 p.m., officers responded to a traffic crash in the 1500 block of East Memorial Boulevard at Interlachen Parkway. Just before the crash,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133,"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":"12","_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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAxOVwvMDZcL2ZhdGFsLWNyYXNoLmpwZz9maXQ9NDAwJTJDMzAwJnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiRkFUQUwgQ1JBU0ggSU5WRVNUSUdBVElPTiIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.vPKF99dDlanEK4BcOYVY53-q5SCmvR1d8IPR33vZMpUMQ"},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[298],"class_list":["post-63342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-fatal-crash-investigation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63342","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=63342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63343,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63342\/revisions\/63343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}