Terry Coney, president of the NAACP’s Lakeland Branch, said the community needs to come together to support the shooting victims, the officers, and their families who will all be affected. Then, the neighborhood will need to dig deep and address the root causes of any issues.
Coney also asked residents to give the police department time to carry out their investigation.
“If there’s outrage on behalf of rogue officers who do terrible things,” said Coney, referring to the recent incident involving several LPD officers under investigation for the alleged beating of a suspect, “we need to have outrage when people in our community do terrible things.”
Lakeland Commissioner Samuel Simmons calls for residents to allow the law and justice system to play its part.
“It’s unfortunate that this act is reminiscent of the roaring ‘20s,” he said. “The message is we will not allow such acts to continue not only in that particular community but any community within the City of Lakeland.”
I’ve seen this area plummet in the last 20 years. We managed the apartment complex close to this event, in the 80’s. My mother lived on Vermont in 2004 She carried a gun.
As the residents watch the explosion of nice developments in the “outskirts “ of Lakeland. We also have watched the explosion of drugs/ poverty and a lot of deterioration of “inner city”. Which way are we going here? Are we going to swallow up the poor and the community of the locals as we try to impress to new residents?
We are all in this together, let’s build up our community as we improve our city. We can do this, it’s expensive, but so are new roads, new red lights, more road work. Let’s put our money where our mouth is. This is no longer a “small” town. We are gonna get bigger, eventually becoming a “Super Metropolitan “ and we only have a short time to clean up and represent central Florida as a safe and clean community. It’s been 40 years in the making of a failed area of Lakeland “Memorial Blvd.” let’s make some healthy changes….. starting NOW!!!