Three children inside a home day care and a driver were injured around 5 p.m. today when the elderly driver pushed the wrong button in her car and crashed into a house near Seventh Street, the Lakeland Fire Department reports. Identities have not been released; all four were reported in stable condition.
ALSO: In south Lakeland, a pickup truck that apparently missed a curve on Handley Boulevard early Saturday plowed through a yard and damaged three parked vehicles, pushing one of them into the laundry room. Fox 13 reports.
Polk fire crews spent the night fighting a fire that broke out at Southern Softwoods in Eaton Park before 11 p.m. The plant on Lasso Lane is just north of the Polk Parkway, and smoke could be seen a few miles away, Bay News 9’s Jorja Roman reports.
10 News: Fire is still burning (7:37 a.m. report)
Residents and businesses affected by the tornadoes spawned by Tropical Storm Nestor on Oct. 18 can now apply for low-interest disaster loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration, Polk County Emergency Management has announced. More
The mother of a young woman shot and killed by Polk sheriff’s deputies in north Lakeland this week says her daughter didn’t have to die. Deputies said they shot because Sidney Alexis Renew, 20, was trying to run them down with a stolen pickup truck. But Ohio resident Heather Renew says they could have shot the tires out and questions why one of the wounds was to the side of her 20-year-old daughter’s head if the deputies were shooting from in front of the truck.
The Meadow View Lake Dam (map) between the Terra Lago subdivision and Carlton Arms apartments in north Lakeland has been identified in poor condition in documents uncovered by the Associated Press. County officials said they’re looking into it, Fox 13 News reports.
Sidney Renew of Lakeland was shot and killed by Polk County Sheriff’s deputies who say the 20-year-old woman disregarded their order to leave a stolen Ford F-250 Monday afternoon and instead floored it toward them on rural Lakeland Acres Road.
Oscar J. Pope Elementary School is faced with rebuilding its fifth-grade building after its roof collapsed in the aftermath of Lakeland’s October tornado.
Women locked hands in prayer and men laid on the ground in a death pose in a protest at the Polk County Courthouse. They came together to protest after prosecutors cleared Lakeland Police officers in the December fatal shooting of Michael Taylor.
