{"id":12031,"date":"2011-12-22T15:46:07","date_gmt":"2011-12-22T20:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=12031"},"modified":"2011-12-23T10:00:42","modified_gmt":"2011-12-23T15:00:42","slug":"family-of-road-rage-victim-upset-with-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=12031","title":{"rendered":"Family Of Road Rage Victim Upset With Decision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY LEON B. CREWS<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Sentinel Staff Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On November 21, 2011, <strong>Wathson Adelson<\/strong> was driving south on Manhattan Boulevard near Waters when he encountered <strong>Alcisviades Polanco<\/strong>, who was driving in the same direction.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff\u2019s Office, <strong>Adelson<\/strong> sped around <strong>Polanco\u2019s<\/strong> vehicle then came to a stop in the roadway blocking <strong>Polanco\u2019s<\/strong> vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>Deputies said both men got out of their cars, exchanged words, and at some point, <strong>Polanco<\/strong> armed himself with a weapon, and stabbed <strong>Adelson<\/strong> in the head and shoulder area. <strong>Adelson<\/strong> was hospitalized and eventually died from his wounds.<\/p>\n<p>An investigation was initiated, and<strong> Polanco<\/strong> claimed he was defending himself and used the \u201cStand Your Ground\u201d law as a defense.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, the Hillsborough County State Attorney\u2019s Office released a statement, saying they had completed their review of the incident and no charges will be filed against <strong>Polanco<\/strong> as \u201cthe evidence is insufficient to rebut <strong>Polanco\u2019s<\/strong> claim of self defense.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Adelson\u2019s<\/strong> uncle, <strong>James Medard<\/strong>, said the family is angry over the decision, and plans to take action.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m personally investigating the case based on what witnesses said and it makes no sense. I don\u2019t see how this could be self defense when <strong>Wathson<\/strong> was sitting in his car when he was stabbed. What kind of threat could he have represented to that man sitting in his car?\u201d<br \/>\n<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Medard<\/strong> said the family is going to hire an attorney to appeal the decision that this was self defense.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToo many people stand behind this law when something like this happens and in this case, the facts don\u2019t justify that,\u201d said <strong>Medard<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy nephew was never threatening to this man, and from what we\u2019ve been told, Polanco got out of his car and approached <strong>Wathson<\/strong> and attacked him. He never had a chance to protect\u00a0 himself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Medard<\/strong> said the family wants the incident heard in a court system that will see all the facts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight now, it seems someone took <strong>Polanco\u2019s<\/strong> story and just ran with it. We feel this has racial overtones and when I get back to Miami, I will sit down with my pastor, who is president of the NAACP chapter there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Medard<\/strong> said the family is planning a candlelight vigil for <strong>Wathson<\/strong>, and they are willing to do whatever it takes to make sure this case doesn\u2019t disappear.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have opened a can of worms and now they are going to have to deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY LEON B. CREWS Sentinel Staff Writer On November 21, 2011, Wathson Adelson was driving south on Manhattan Boulevard near Waters when he encountered Alcisviades Polanco, who was driving in the same direction. According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff\u2019s Office, Adelson sped around Polanco\u2019s vehicle then came to a stop in the roadway blocking Polanco\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12031\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}