EMPLE TERRACE – A Playboy model and classical dancer says police officers roughed her up and left bruises during a traffic stop that may permanently affect her career.
Rebecca Reyes, 21, who goes by the name of Reby Sky and has appeared in Playboy, GQ and other magazines, was pulled over by Temple Terrace police a week ago because her truck’s taillights weren’t working.
On that much, Reyes and police agree.
But from there, Reyes, who had stopped in a parking space of her apartment complex when she was pulled over, says things quickly got out of control.
Reyes said that while the officer wrote a citation, she got out of her truck to move a Christmas gift for her boyfriend. She was afraid he would come out of the apartment to find out what was going on and then see the unwrapped gift in the truck.
But the officer told her to get back into her truck, and then another officer arrived, she said.
“I said, ‘Okay, I just need to get my bag,'” Reyes, contacted in New York, recalled in a phone interview. But before she knew it, both officers were coming at her with their hands on their holsters, she said.
“Whoa, hold on,” Reyes said she called out. “There do not need to be two grown men telling me to get back in my car.
“They said, ‘That’s it,'” Reyes said. They then threw her up against the hood of a patrol car and threw her to the ground, where they handcuffed her before pulling her up by her arms. Her shoulder took the brunt of the fall and now has a large gash that may scar and affect her modeling career, she said. They hyperextended one of her arms, which could affect her ballet career, she said.
Temple Terrace police have a different version.
Spokesman Michael Dunn said when the officer tried to pull Reyes over for driving without any taillights, she didn’t stop. She drove several blocks before pulling over.
When the officer asked her why she didn’t stop, she told him she was almost home anyway, Dunn said.
When the officer said “okay,” and that he was going to write her a ticket, she got out of her truck, Dunn said. He told her twice to get back into her truck, and she refused. Another officer arrived, and at this point, Reyes was walking over to her passenger side, he said. The officers repeated requests for her to get back into her truck, but she wouldn’t.
“They told her at least four times,” Dunn said. At that point, Reyes tried to walk away toward her apartment, which is when one of the officers took hold of her arm and told her to stay put, Dunn said.
“She became very belligerent and shoved the cop,” and cursed at them, Dunn said.
As she continued to push and shove the officer, they tried to arrest and cuff her, at which point she fought them even more, Dunn said.
“The reason they tell her to stay in the vehicle and stay at the site is that you don’t know if she is going to go for a gun or throw something away,” Dunn said. “It wasn’t meant to be any kind of harassment.”
The bottom line, Dunn said, is that if she had stayed in her truck, the entire thing would have been over in 10 minutes.
Reyes disputed his version and said the officer followed her but did not put on his lights until she was in the parking lot. She said she never left the side of her truck and was not violent with the officers. If she had been, she would have been charged with that, she said.
Reyes was charged with obstructing or opposing an officer without violence and released from the county jail on $500 bail, jail records show.
Reyes said she has called a lawyer to fight the charges.
She also wants the Temple Terrace Police Department to say that its officers overreacted.
“I don’t think police officers should have that power if they don’t know how to use it,” she said.
