Lakeland, Polk County | featured news

A black therapist who was trying to calm an autistic patient in the middle of the street says he was shot by police even though he had his hands in the air and repeatedly told them that no one was armed.

Dion Kaseta was back in court this morning, four years after the 55-year-old man was convicted of killing his girlfriend in 2001.

Lakeland police confirmed that a motorcyclist died in a traffic crash that occurred about 11 p.m. Wednesday on Memorial Boulevard.

For local tattoo businesses, the ink that's put on clients' skin often looks better than the ink on the bottom line of financial records. Between February 2012 and March 16, more than a third of Polk County's tattoo shops went out of business, according to data collected from the Florida Department of Health. In total, 23 of 63 shops to open in the county between those same dates or about 36 percent have gone out of business or are no longer tattooing.