‘I didn’t know what to do’
Weeks after an Orange County school resource deputy was fired for yanking her by the hair, 13-year-old Wilmica Edmond said Friday she’s still suffering from neck pain that makes it hard to sleep at night.
During a news conference with her mother and attorneys at the Orange County Bar Association, Wilmica said she was “scared” and thought she was going to jail when the deputy, Harry Reid, forcefully grabbed her head and detained her Nov. 7 outside the Summerset at International Crossing apartments. The complex is a short walk from Westridge Middle School, where Wilmica attends eighth grade and Reid was a resource deputy.
“I was crying and stuff,” Wilmica said. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I was going to end up in jail.”
Wilmica’s attorneys, Ryan Fletcher and Joe Osborne, called for Reid to be charged with battery and said they want more transparency from the Sheriff ’s Office on its hiring and training processes for deputies working at schools. The attorneys said they are considering “all potential civil claims,” but have not yet filed a lawsuit against Reid or the Sheriff ’s Office.
“When something like this happens, we have to question, how does that person get there to begin with? And what is it that leads someone to have that mentality, to come upon a scene and call these children ‘stupid little children’ and wave a baton at them?” Osborne said.
In an email, an unidentified spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office declined to respond to the attorneys’ comments, saying the agency had received a letter indicating a potential lawsuit. When he announced Reid’s firing, Sheriff John Mina said it appeared the deputy had “lost control” and called his actions “totally inappropriate.”
Body camera footage, recorded by another deputy present during the incident, and video from a by