Florida man seriously injured and unable to speak after encounter with police, daughter says
A woman in Florida says her 55-year-old “medically fragile” father was falsely accused of theft at a Florida grocery store last week and then seriously injured in a violent encounter with police.
A woman in Florida says her 55-year-old “medically fragile” father was falsely accused of theft at a Florida grocery store last week and then seriously injured in a violent encounter with police. Now, she says, he is hospitalized and has lost the ability to speak.
The incident occurred about 8 p.m. Tuesday at a Save A Lot in Lakeland, according to an arrest report and the man’s daughter, Anjelica Lee, who spoke with her father before his condition worsened.
She said she was doing laundry at a laundromat near the Save A Lot with her father, Joseph Lee, when his arms and legs began to cramp up from an infection. He walked a couple of doors down into the Save A Lot grocery store to get some bananas because potassium would help relieve the cramping, she said.
She said he told her that he picked up four bananas, one of which he ate on the way to the register, and that he told the cashier that he needed to pay for four bananas even though she scanned only three. Anjelica Lee said her father told her he was followed closely while he was shopping by a white female employee, who, she said, accused him of stealing the banana he ate.
He told the woman that he had not stolen anything and that he had paid for four bananas, but she followed him outside and continued to falsely accuse him of stealing, Anjelica Lee said her father told her. When she noticed the commotion, she said, she confronted the woman.
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