Antwan Glover

Antwan Glover was tased and beaten by the Lakeland, Florida Street Crimes Unit for allegedly not wearing a seatbelt. After the cops pulled him over in front of his child’s mom’s home, Glover, 36, was trying to get out of his car as the cops had demanded. Police tased and beat Glover. A video of the beating by Glover’s 17-year-old stepdaughter went viral.

As described by The Ledger (23 Dec. 2022), “The two videos posted on Glover’s Facebook page both begin after Glover is out of the car and on the street with at least two LPD officers kneeling or standing above him. About 10 seconds into one video, an officer appears to punch the suspect in the upper back with a closed fist. An unidentified girl is heard screaming and calling, ‘Hey, stop punching my dad’!”

Glover described, “They arrested the mother of my stepchildren and even one of my daughters after they both complied with what was being asked by the officers. The officers went onto the property of my stepchildren’s mother and with unnecessary force, removed her from the yard in handcuffs (as seen in the video). She was not near them at the time and did not physically or verbally threaten any officers at the time. My daughter was released from the police station and was not taken inside. After the abuse, I was put in handcuffs and thrown in the back of the police vehicle…”

“This assault was completely out of line and unnecessary,” he says. “I was in fear for my life and the life of my family. This incident has caused emotional trauma for me and my daughter who was recording the incident. She tells me that the night of the incident plays in her head and she has nightmares from this. The events of this night have also left me extremely anxious, emotional, angry, and scared.”

The officers involved in Glover’s beating had a history of similar incidents, including one where two of the cops had brutally beaten Timothy Davis for supposedly not wearing a seatbelt. But the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Polk County State Attorney exonerated the cops. Glover was charged with resisting arrest and possession of marijuana, although he had a medical license to possess it. In February Glover rejected a plea deal. “No, no charges. Dropped. And I want every officer that was involved either charged or fired. And we are not stopping,” said Glover’s mom, Pamela Glover.

Then, in May 2024, the State Attorney dropped the case because some of the officers who arrested Glover were now under investigation for another incident. “Based on facts and circumstances, the above-listed charges cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” the prosecutors admitted. In January 2025, three of the officers involved in the beating were forced to resign from the department because they had turned off their body cameras during a car chase. Yet the remaining officer, Dillon Cornn, is still active and continues to stalk and harass Glover. In August 2024 Cornn pulled Antwan’s car over in Lakeland and charged him with resisting arrest and driving on a suspended license. Hands off Antwan Glover!

In response to the beating, Glover has been active building support in other cases of police brutality in the South and is founder of Build Bridges Florida. There were courthouse protests attended by families of cop terror victims in the area, along with Black Lives Matter Grassroots, Tampa Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Poor & Minority Justice Association and New Era Young Lords. The urgent need to rebuild the movement against racist cop terror is clear. Antwan Glover has endorsed the Open Police Archives campaign and spoke at the Partisan Defense Committee’s New York Holiday Appeal for Class-War Prisoners fundraiser to bring attention to his and other cases in the Polk County and Tampa area.

Open the archives! Antwan’s beating, false arrest and the coverup were just the tip of the iceberg. His courage has inspired other black Lakeland victims to come forward, including by the same officers. Lakeland and Polk County law enforcement archives must be opened to public scrutiny. We also demand release of all video recordings of the incident. All statements by the cops involved and witnesses, including texts and emails and internal investigation notes and reports must be released to public scrutiny. Same with the personnel records of the officers involved, including the separate investigation that forced the dropping of the charges against Glover!