ORLANDO, Fla. – A group of college students are alleging excessive force against two Orange County Sheriff's deputies after two of them were arrested Monday afternoon.
[WARNING, videos contain graphic language: Raw video of Deidra Reid's arrest | Second arrest]
The arrests happened Monday at The Retreat, an apartment complex near Colonial Drive and Rouse Road.
Cellphone video shows two college students, Deidra Reid and her friend, Reggie Lane Jr., being arrested for trespassing and resisting an officer. The video has now gone viral with students using the #JusticeforDeidra on Twitter.
Lane shot some of the video and told Local 6 he was defending his friend after she was confronted by an off-duty deputy inside the leasing office of the apartment complex.
"I thought I was going to die," Lane said. "When he pulled out that shotgun, I thought my life was over."
According to an arrest affidavit, the deputy asked Reid to leave the computer lab after the deputy's young son complained she yelled at him. He then asked if she was a resident, and she responded no. He said he asked her to leave multiple times, but she refused. At one point, he asked for her ID, but she told the deputy it was in her car.
Then that's when friends of Reid said it quickly escalated to violence.
"We saw our friend get attacked, and we didn't know what to do, and we recorded it," Kenneth Davis said.
The deputy called for backup, and because Reid was being combative, he wouldn't let her leave, according to the arrest affidavit. He said she took a fighting stance and closed her fist as if she were going to fight. Both deputies eventually were able to grab a wrist, forcing her to the grass.
"She fell on the ground chest down, and that's when he jumped on top of her and put her arm in the position to arrest her," Davis said.
"These deputies were 200 pounds on a little 120-pound girl, and as a bystander looking at my friend, I was scared," Lane said.
Reid was later taken to a local hospital after complaining of shoulder pain.
The Orange County Sheriff's office issued a statement, "At this time we are not aware of a use of force complaint against our deputies regarding this incident. As is customary in our agency, this arrest and use of defensive tactics/force will be reviewed by the deputies supervisory chain."