{"id":72243,"date":"2026-06-28T18:24:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T22:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=72243"},"modified":"2026-06-28T18:24:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T22:24:49","slug":"fatal-crash-investigation-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/06\/28\/fatal-crash-investigation-40\/","title":{"rendered":"FATAL CRASH INVESTIGATION"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Fatal-Crash.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-436\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Fatal-Crash.jpg 400w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Fatal-Crash-300x225.jpg 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0On Sunday, June 28, 2026, at approximately 12:37 a.m., officers responded to a traffic crash involving a pedestrian in the 5700 block of State Road 33. Just before the crash,\u00a0a black Mitsubishi SUV was traveling southbound on State Road 33. At the same time, a pedestrian entered into the path of the Mitsubishi for unknown reasons and was struck by the vehicle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Lakeland Police Department Patrol Units, Polk County Fire Rescue, and the Lakeland Fire Department all arrived on scene to provide life-saving measures. The pedestrian was transported to Lakeland Regional Health, where, despite the best efforts of medical professionals, was pronounced deceased. The driver of the Mitsubishi was not injured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Members of the Traffic Homicide Unit responded to the scene and took over the investigation. The roadway was shut down for approximately three and a half hours while the scene was processed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This remains an open and active investigation. The adult female pedestrian has been identified; however, investigators are still working to notify the next of kin, and her name is being withheld at this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If anyone has additional information regarding the crash, please get in touch with Investigating Officer Travis Payne at\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:Travis.payne@lakelandgov.net\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Travis.payne@lakelandgov.net<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Mitsubishi driver was identified as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Demetrius Berry<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Age 48<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lakeland, FL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0On Sunday, June 28, 2026, at approximately 12:37 a.m., officers responded to a traffic crash involving a pedestrian in the 5700 block of State Road 33. Just before the crash,\u00a0a&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436,"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":"","_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":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAxOVwvMDZcL0ZhdGFsLUNyYXNoLmpwZz9maXQ9NDAwJTJDMzAwJnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiRkFUQUwgQ1JBU0ggSU5WRVNUSUdBVElPTiIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiZG9pcyIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9._cEmkgxhOo_ZowEw7OVmZEXSc0-nzblBt8JE6Josv_0MQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMTlcLzA2XC9GYXRhbC1DcmFzaC5qcGciLCJ0eHQiOiJGQVRBTCBDUkFTSCBJTlZFU1RJR0FUSU9OIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJkb2lzIiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.HdVu0BFQ5bR7Z1jduN0ysHcRdlZtOiByjXu-eIS4AG4MQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[298],"class_list":["post-72243","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\/72243","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=72243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72244,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72243\/revisions\/72244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}