{"id":65420,"date":"2026-05-04T20:52:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T00:52:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=65420"},"modified":"2026-05-04T20:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T00:52:08","slug":"polk-man-accused-of-abusing-boy-5-to-beat-the-gay-out-of-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/05\/04\/polk-man-accused-of-abusing-boy-5-to-beat-the-gay-out-of-him\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk man accused of abusing boy, 5, to \u2018beat the gay\u2019 out of him"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Sunday, May 3, 2026, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office arrested 33-year-old Andre Brown Jr. of Davenport, Florida, following an investigation into the abuse of three children in his care.<\/p>\n\n\n

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According to reports from the sheriff’s office, the investigation was initiated after a 9-year-old child in the home contacted her mother for help. Investigators stated that during interviews, the children reported that Brown became angry at a 5-year-old boy specifically “for being gay” and repeatedly slammed him to the ground. Brown is also accused of striking all three children in the home with a belt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the arrest affidavit, Brown admitted to deputies that he beat the 5-year-old because he believed the boy was gay, stating that he would “beat the gay out of him if possible, but since it wasn’t possible, he would beat him more.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown is currently facing charges of aggravated child abuse\u2014which has been enhanced to a hate crime due to the nature of the offense\u2014as well as resisting arrest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, May 3, 2026, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office arrested 33-year-old Andre Brown Jr. of Davenport, Florida, following an investigation into the abuse of three children in his care.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65421,"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":"14","_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":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDVcL2FuZHJlLWJyb3duLWpyLndlYnA_Zml0PTQ5OSUyQzYyMSZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IlBvbGsgbWFuIGFjY3VzZWQgb2YgYWJ1c2luZyBib3ksIDUsIHRvIFx1MjAxOGJlYXQgdGhlIGdheVx1MjAxOSBvdXQgb2YgaGltIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJkb2lzIiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.PEddlx4IxblJAqFtjj4R8TMFG8aALy09zKVzLLPS2xoMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjZcLzA1XC9hbmRyZS1icm93bi1qci53ZWJwIiwidHh0IjoiUG9sayBtYW4gYWNjdXNlZCBvZiBhYnVzaW5nIGJveSwgNSwgdG8gXHUyMDE4YmVhdCB0aGUgZ2F5XHUyMDE5IG91dCBvZiBoaW0iLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.m4BsM85gu2e_Pw_iMy6-_xNWz7ZVGvrRING8urxYaO0MQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[14544,14543,14545],"class_list":["post-65420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-5-2","tag-polk-man-accused-of-abusing-boy","tag-to-beat-the-gay-out-of-him"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65420","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=65420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65422,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65420\/revisions\/65422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}