LAKELAND, Fla. — It’s deja vu in the City of Lakeland. Friday evening, the same man, Antwan Glover, was arrested by the same officer, Det. Dillon Cornn, who arrested him almost two years ago in a controversial, caught-on-camera incident.
Back in 2022,there were calls for the officer and his colleagues to be fired after Glover was punched and tased during the viral arrest.
“I sat in the back of the police car, and I cried,” Glover said in Jan. 2023. “I cried.”
However, last year,Cornn and the officers were cleared after a Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) investigation.
The state attorney, Brian Haas, wrote, “From my review of the report, it is clear to me that…Glover presented an ongoing and escalating threat to the Lakeland Police Officers.”
Now, there are new concerns from activists like Val Beron after the most recent arrest on Friday evening.
“It feels too much like some form of retaliation against Glover for speaking out about what happened to him,” Beron said.
In a news conference Tuesday, Lakeland Police Chief Sammy Taylor said Glover was not targeted and was arrested by coincidence as officers patrolled parts of Lakeland after a recent shooting.
“We had no idea that Antwan was even around,” he said.
Taylor said two officers, including the one who arrested Glover previously, spotted a driver who ran a stop sign and didn’t have a seat belt on. According to Taylor, they then recognized the driver as Glover who they knew had a suspended license, so they tried to pull him over.
Taylor says police cameras show Glover did not immediately stop for his officers.
He says body-worn camera video also shows Glover resisted arrest for almost four minutes until Cornn threatened to tase him to get him in handcuffs.
Watch full clip of redacted body camera video released by Lakeland Police
Taylor stands by the arrest and his officer’s actions, which he called “very restrained”.
“He did nothing wrong,” the chief said. “He did his job. He did the job, as taxpayers, we pay him to do.”
Glover has been charged with cannabis possession, resisting arrest without violence, and driving with a suspended license.
"You're going to see a big improvement to traffic flow in this area,"
Nearly $865 million later and the new Howard Frankland bridge is entering its final phase of construction.
