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A man whose videotaped arrest in December 2022 prompted outcries of police violence was arrested again last week by one the same officers. However, this time dashboard and body camera footage recorded the entire incident. And Lakeland’s police chief insists the footage proves the officers showed restraint as the suspect resisted arrest.
Lakeland Police Chief Sam Taylor showed the videos during a Tuesday afternoon press conference, saying he was angry that Detective Dillon Cornn had been falsely accused of targeting convicted drug dealer Antwan Denard Glover, 38, during this latest arrest.
Taylor narrated what was happening in the videos for a crowd of journalists and multiple LPD officers who lined the back wall of the department’s community meeting room.
The arrest: Taylor said Glover’s latest arrest happened during a “proactive patrol” of a wide area of Lakeland following the attempted murder of two Lakeland police officers last week several blocks from where Glover was arrested Friday. The patrol involved multiple LPD department, along with at least 40 Polk County sheriff’s deputies and multiple Florida Highway Patrol troopers over several days.
He said as far as his agency knew, Glover had left Lakeland and moved to Tampa and he was “the last person” they expected to see Friday. In July, Glover’s grandmother had told LPD officers that he had moved. That information came when they served an arrest warrant for Glover at her home — and his former address — on North Vermont Avenue.
“We had no idea he was even in Lakeland until he made that turn in front of us and we saw him in the car,” Taylor said.
LkldNow tried to contact Glover at the North Vermont Avenue home and was also told by his grandmother and uncle that he was living in Tampa.
Body-worn cameras are relatively new for Lakeland police. Officers were outfitted with them in 2022 and 2023 at a cost of $938,000 per year for 10 years. The purchase was approved by city commissioners after community members demanded greater accountability following the nationwide protests of the death of George Floyd in May 2020 at the hands of Minneapolis police.
At the time, then-Police Chief Ruben Garcia told commissioners that body-worn cameras could help resolve complaints, identify and correct potential internal-agency problems, and strengthen accountability between the public and police.
Cornn’s unit had not yet been issued body cameras at the time of Glover’s 2022 arrest.
The latest incident: On Friday just before 6 p.m., dash camera footage shows Glover circling the block near his grandmother’s house on North Vermont Avenue, a block north of Memorial Blvd.
Taylor said Glover had violated several laws:
- Running a stop sign (which was not captured on the video)
- Driving with a suspended license — about which Cornn knew when he spotted Glover behind the wheel
- Driving without a seat belt
Dashboard video: The dashboard camera video shows Cornn, sitting in the passenger seat, and LPD Detective Jason Gates following Glover for two minutes and 41 seconds. Their flashing lights can be seen reflected in the rear of Glover’s car and viewers can hear the marked patrol car’s siren. Viewers can also hear Cornn repeatedly telling Glover to pull over, stop and don’t go any farther.
Body camera video: Glover finally pulled over in his grandmother’s yard. Cornn is seen on his body camera video exiting the patrol car and quickly walking up to Glover’s still-moving white Infiniti, ordering him to stop and get out and telling him he was under arrest.
Glover repeatedly asks: “I’m under arrest for what?” and “What are y’all doing?” and “Are you serious?” and “What is wrong with y’all, man?” and “Call your supervisor!”
Taylor said that Cornn and Officer Jason Gates showed restraint as they physically wrangled with Glover. Cornn’s body camera video shows a two-and-a-half-minute struggle.
Once Cornn caught up to Glover in the driveway of his grandmother’s house, the video shows:
- Glover repeatedly refusing to get out of his car
- Both Cornn and Gates pulling on Glover’s left arm to remove him from his grandmother’s car
- Cornn reaching into the car to grab Glover’s right forearm to pull him from the car
- Cornn kicking Glover once in the shin
- A leafy substance filling a McDonald’s cup in the car’s cupholder
- Both officers finally pulling him from the car
- Glover tensing his body so they couldn’t handcuff him
- Glover refusing to put his hands behind his back
When Cornn pulled out his taser, Glover began to comply. Unlike the December 2022 incident, the LPD officers are not seen hitting or punching Glover.
Chief defends officer: The police chief bristled at questions about Cornn’s actions.
“I know the people in the community are talking about Officer Cornn. Stop referencing him,” Taylor said. “He did nothing wrong. He did his job. He did the job that taxpayers, we paid him to do.”
A brief video of the Dec. 2022 incident shot by Glover’s step-daughter shows Glover resisting arrest and officers, including Cornn, repeatedly punching him and tasering him.
Cornn was part of a street crimes unit that targets high-crime neighborhoods, like those around Memorial Boulevard.
Major crimes in the area: In 2023, 11 men were shot several blocks from where Glover was arrested Friday. It was the largest shooting in Lakeland history. Two men were sentenced to federal prison and a teen was sentenced to a juvenile incarceration program designed to rehabilitate him for the shooting.
Also in the same area, Taylor said an 18-year-old with a juvenile criminal record fired more than a dozen rounds at two Lakeland Police detectives last week as they rode in the unmarked dark blue SUV, “clearly attempting to kill” them. The teen was arrested and faces two counts of attempted murder on a law enforcement officer.
Cornn cleared: In July 2023, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation cleared Cornn and three other LPD officers of wrongdoing in Glover’s 2022 arrest. State Attorney Brian Haas announced the investigation’s conclusion.
“From my review of the report, it is clear to me that during his arrest on Dec. 18, 2022, Antwan Glover presented an ongoing and escalating threat to the Lakeland Police officers,” Haas wrote in a press release. “Glover is very familiar with arrest procedures, as his record reflects being arrested more than 10 times during his life. Glover refused the lawful command of the officers, made the decision to actively fight them and aggressively and violently prevented the officers from securing a satchel that was strapped to his body. The officers, with good reason, suspected the satchel contained a deadly weapon.”
Haas stated that Glover’s violence escalated to the point that he placed Cornn in a headlock, wrapping his entire arm around the officer’s neck.
In May, Haas dropped the charges against Glover, noting, “One or more of the officers involved in the Glover case have subsequently been involved in an unrelated incident that is subject to an ongoing investigation. During the pendency of that investigation, the State Attorney’s Office will not be calling those officers as witnesses.”
Taylor said he can’t discuss the pending case because it is still under internal affairs investigation. And it may or may not involve Cornn.
He said it is not related to complaints made by Deverett Inman and his girlfriend Kieanna Garrett, who told reporters that Cornn had been following them and had punched Garrett in the eye during an arrest. Their cases are still pending in court.
Another Cornn complaint: In addition, in 2019, Cornn was one of three officers in an internal affairs investigation after Jarvis Harper said Cornn was targeting him and following him, showing up at his job as a manager at the north Lakeland Olive Garden to arrest him for selling drugs. Cornn and the other officers were cleared by the investigation, as evidence showed Harper lied to investigators and was dealing drugs from his job.
Harper was charged with filing a false police report, but the State Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute him. Taylor said it was not unusual for the State Attorney’s Office to drop false police report charges.
Harper was found guilty of use or possession of drug paraphernalia, not having a valid driver’s license, and resisting an officer without violence. He also pleaded guilty to felony possession of marijuana, but through a plea deal, adjudication was withheld. He was sentenced to 30 months probation.
Cornn commendation: According to records requested from Lakeland Police, Cornn helped to save a fellow officer who was in danger of bleeding out after being hit by shrapnel during a live-fire course. Cornn ran and retrieved a tourniquet after the first one failed. Then-Chief Ruben Garcia said Cornn’s quick “actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the Lakeland Police Department.”
Glover’s criminal record: Glover still faces two other charges from the December 2022 incident: driving without a seatbelt and having an open container of alcohol. The case is set for a non-jury trial on Oct. 22
Glover’s past record includes:
- Four felony convictions, including for selling cocaine within 1,000 feet of a church
- Multiple traffic infractions
- A temporary restraining order
There is also an arrest in January 2021 for kicking in the door to his pregnant girlfriend’s apartment and punching her in the face when she screamed her address to a 9-1-1 operator, who was on a cellphone he had taken from her. Those charges were direct filed by the State Attorney’s Office, but then later dropped when his girlfriend refused to cooperate and recanted her statement to police.
Civil rights groups: In a story on Newschannel 8, a spokesperson for the Tampa Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression accused Cornn of stalking and targeting Glover.
Taylor maintained that this was false, that Cornn didn’t know Glover was in town.
Clayton Cowart, founder and president of The Poor Minority Justice Association, based in Polk County, said he watched the press conference on Tuesday and the video of the arrest.
“We’re grateful that this time nobody was beat up,” Cowart said. “That’s one of the concerns. So maybe they’re trying to get it right and not beat people up.”
Taylor acknowledged that his officers, including Cornn, have undergone further training since Glover’s December 2022 arrest.
But Cowart said there are other complaints against the department for excessive force. One case involves the beating and arrest of a 16-year-old on Memorial Day weekend after the teen refused to leave a swimming pool following complaints that he and his friends were profusely swearing in front of children.
An investigation into that is almost complete, Taylor said, adding that body camera footage of that incident will be released once the internal affairs report is finished.
Cowart acknowledged that people must obey the law, but that includes Lakeland Police officers, too.
“I’ll say this, if someone violates the law, regardless of who they are, I agree that they should be held accountable,” Cowart said. “Our only concern is making sure that is done in the confines of what the law permits to happen, you know? And that’s, that’s what our concern is.”
Justified force: Taylor said that when people resist arrest, his officers are within their legal right to exercise justified force to make them comply.
“Very simply, you do not have a legal right to resist arrest. You did not have a legal right to run from a police officer when they tell you to stop,” Taylor said. “You don’t have a legal right to hit a police officer. You don’t have a legal right to shoot at a police officer … as I said last week, and I’ll say it again today, this will not be tolerated in the city of Lakeland, and certainly not here in Polk County.”
Taylor denied that LPD has a history of violence.
“I think that’s the case of certain activist groups that want to generate that narrative, and they use incidents like this. We do not have a track history of that at all. I would absolutely disagree with that,” Taylor said. “They use Antwan Glover as their poster child for this, which I think is absolutely, I mean, this is the guy you want to use as your poster child? Look at his criminal history — it’s terrible.”
Results of last week’s two-day, proactive patrol
Lakeland Police Department:
- Arrested 19 individuals, five of whom were documented gang members
- Issued four trespass warnings
- Seized two firearms
- Conducted 42 traffic stops on Friday
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Highway Patrol:
- Deployed more than 40 deputies
- Made 48 arrests
- Made 198 traffic stops
- Issued 39 traffic citations
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