State Attorney drops charges against local college student accused of resisting arrest

Attorney Natalie Jackson says the Office of the State Attorney will not pursue criminal charges against her client Deidra Reid, the college student accused of resisting arrest in July after an argument with an Orange County Sheriff's Office deputy. 

Reid and her friend Reginald Lane Jr. filed excessive force complaints against three OCSO deputies after a confrontation at the Retreat at Orlando, an apartment complex. Reid was visiting a friend at the complex, and was trying to get into the clubhouse. A 9-year-old boy inside the clubhouse would not let her in, and after her friend opened the door for her, Reid told the boy he was rude. 

The boy went to get his father, Orange County Sheriff’s deputy Sgt. Brett Parnell, who is a courtesy officer for the complex. After a heated exchange with Reid, Parnell called another courtesy officer for the complex named Richard Nye. When Reid, Lane and their friend tried to leave the complex, Parnell stopped them and the confrontation escalated into more officers arriving and arrests for Reid and Lane.  

“They attacked me, pushed me up against the fence and dropped me on the floor while sitting on my back,” Reid wrote in her excessive force complaint. “[They] twisted my shoulder out of place while I was already in handcuffs.” Lane says in his complaint that Deputy Kristine Helms kneed him in the groin during his arrest, and he was slammed into the car by Nye, who was holding a “less lethal shotgun." 

Lane's charges were dropped earlier last year and Reid's were dropped in December, according to News 6. Jackson says her client had had to deal with medical bills and being jailed for something she should have never been arrested for in the first place. Jackson says they are considering a civil lawsuit. 

"Just because her case was dropped does not mean this is over," she writes in an email. "Of course, I'm happy for Deidra that her criminal case was dropped (and glad the state finally did the right thing), but I'm not happy at all about what the Orange County Sheriff Office, Officer Richard Nye and Officer Brent Parnell did when they conspired to ruin Deidra's future (a very young college student who is just starting her independent life) or the long lasting effects of what they have already done to her."