Deidra Reid and Reginald Lane Jr. thought they were just going to visit a friend Monday, maybe hang out by the pool, but an encounter with a young boy whose father is a Orange County, Fla., deputy sheriff ended with the pair being arrested and Reid's arm in a sling.
"This is someone who used his badge to bully Deidra," Natalie Jackson, an Orlando, Fla., lawyer representing Reid, told the Orlando Sentinel. "It's fine for him to be concerned about his son, but you don't get to use your badge and the power of the law to bully a citizen."
Reid, 21, and Lane, 20, were at the Retreat at Orlando apartment complex when the day began to come to an end. They decided that they were finished hanging out by the pool, so they walked over to the clubhouse. According to the Sentinel, the clubhouse doors automatically lock at 6 p.m., but residents of the complex can still use the facility and can open the door using a key fob. Reid and Lane, who were visiting and didn't have the key fob, arrived at the clubhouse first. The door was locked, but they could see a young boy inside, so they knocked. The boy saw the pair but didn't open the door. Reid and Lane's friend arrived and used the fob to open the door.
According to the Sentinel, Reid told the 9-year-old boy that he was rude and needed to be respectful of his elders. The boy left and told his father, Sgt. Brett Parnell, who arrived and confronted the college student.
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"I was currently in the gym area of the clubhouse when I was approached by my son, who was in tears," Parnell wrote in his police report, viewed by the Sentinel. "I asked what had happened and was told by my son that an unknown black female had entered the clubhouse and began yelling at him."
Parnell reportedly asked Reid, who was sitting in the computer room of the clubhouse, if she lived in the complex, to which she replied that she was visiting a friend. The officer, who the Sentinel notes was not in uniform but was wearing his badge around a lanyard, then told her that she had to leave the complex.
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Video footage of the incident shows Reid being confronted outside the clubhouse. Three officers are on the scene, and at one point Reid is seen on the ground, screaming and crying. An officer, identified by the Sentinel as Deputy Richard Nye, is on Reid's back and appears to be pushing her arm at an awkward angle. Lane claims that the officer dislocated Reid's shoulder, and the Sentinel notes that Reid appears in her mug shot wearing a sling.
On Wednesday, Reid appeared at a news conference with her right hand in a splint and her left arm still in a sling.
"At night I can't sleep; I'm on two different types of medication," she told those gathered. "Basically, my life has been put on hold."
Reid and Lane, neither of whom had a criminal record before this incident, were both charged with resisting an officer with violence. Reid was also charged with trespassing.
The Sentinel notes that all of the officers involved in the arrest remain on active duty.
"As is customary in our agency, this arrest and use of defensive tactics [and] force will be reviewed by the deputies' supervisory chain," Deputy Lourdes Clayton, a sheriff's spokeswoman, told the Sentinel.
Read more at the Orlando Sentinel.