LAKELAND, Fla. – The head baseball coach for Southeastern University was arrested Tuesday after he battered an elderly man following a confrontation over illegal dumping, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies responded to an unspecified location in Lakeland and made contact with a 72-year-old man who told deputies he got into an altercation with a subject, later identified as 38-year-old Adrian Dinkel, which turned physical once the victim attempted to take a picture of Adrian’s license tag, according to a news release.
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The victim told deputies he owns the property where the incident occurred, which is an active construction site for Verizon. The victim said that he caught Dinkel dumping trash into a dumpster on his property and confronted him as Dinkel was dumping and trespassing illegally.
According to a report, Dinkle’s 8-year-old son was there at the time of the altercation.
When the victim tried to take a picture of Dinkel’s license plate and record the incident, Dinkel smacked the phone out of the victim’s hands, threw it into nearby woods and fled the scene at a high rate of speed, investigators said.
The victim’s wife was in a car at the scene and began recording the incident when she noticed it became heated. The Sheriff’s Office released that video which can be seen below:
According to investigators, there was a chain with lock connected to two steel posts on either side of the driveway leading to the location of the incident and a “NO TRESPASSING” sign posted to the right of the chain. Deputies said there is also construction equipment and a “No Trespassing” sign adjacent to the dumpster.
Dinkel was arrested and charged with battery on a person 65 or older, trespassing on a posted construction site, petit theft and violation of Florida litter law, Polk County Jail records show.
It was not immediately clear if Dinkel faced any repercussions from Southeastern University.