LAKELAND, Fla. – A man who was beaten at a convenience store that he worked at in Lakeland, has died from his injuries.
The 58-year-old man had remained hospitalized since the assault in January and had never regained consciousness. The findings of an autopsy, conducted on March 9, 2021, determined the cause of death to be trauma to the head, and the manner of death was classified as a homicide.
Mandel Baker, age 35, is now facing an additional charge of Manslaughter (F2). Baker remains incarcerated in the Polk County Jail.
On Friday, January 29, 2021, at approximately 5:36 p.m., officers were called to the Food Mart/Mobil Gas Station, located at 1615 West Memorial Boulevard. Inside they found an adult male motionless on the floor with a laceration to the head. According to a witness, a man, later identified as Baker, had been in the store just prior to asking for cigarettes. Baker had asked the store clerk to give him cigarettes for payment at a later date.
The clerk denied Baker’s request. Baker then approached another store employee with the same request, and he was denied again. Baker then ran toward the employee punching him in the face. The victim, age 58, fell back and hit his head on the hard floor surface, sustaining critical life-threatening injuries.
He was transported to Lakeland Regional Health for treatment in critical condition. On March 7th, 2021, the 58-year-old man died from those injuries.
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Eye for an eye.
if you don’t know the real story you need to stop commenting on things when you don’t know what went down.inside the store and the man never smoke any Cigarette. the witness say the store clerk run up behind this man with a object in his hand to hit this man Mandel when he was going out the store.. what ya’ll expect this is self defense.the truth will all come out these Arab are some nasty people at this store are always calling black people niggers and running behind them with a bat.
and this was not about cigarette it was about Mandel friend paid for him a 10 piece chicken box’s with a $10.00 dollar bill and told the store clerk to give him the rest of the change and the man told mandel he didn’t paid for any chicken and if you see in the photo Mandel has his hand up on his chest explaining what his friend had paid for his chicken box’s and the store clerk took the $10.00 bill and never gave him the chicken box’s nor the change from the purchase of the chicken. and what make it so bad these Arab new Mandel and always was harassing him every time he comes inside the store. my son never smoke cigarette in his life. if you see the photo my son has a black n mile in between his finger and not a cigarette.