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Tampa Police, Twins Differ On Tale Of Horse's Tail

News Channel 8 photo by ERIC HAUSMANN

Alecia Roberts, left, and her sister Trecia Roberts say they were roughed up by a Tampa Policeman mounted on horseback in Ybor City.

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By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 18, 2008

TAMPA - A hairy moment has landed identical twins in a web of trouble.

After leaving a club, Alecia Roberts stood on an Ybor City street about 3:20 a.m. Sunday, looking at police horse Sequence's tail. Roberts decided it would make a nice hair weave.

So the University of South Florida sophomore touched the tail.

That decision ultimately led to her arrest – as well as the arrest of her 19-year-old twin sister, Trecia.

Officer Will Wagner spun Sequence around. Alecia Roberts said she then ran because the horse charged at her. Wagner rode the horse up to her, grabbed her and snagged a piece of Roberts' hair weave, she said.

"He ripped it straight from my scalp," she said.

Wagner also struck Trecia Roberts and the Roberts' sister, Sukela, and a friend of the women, they said. All four said they never struck the officer or the horse.

Alecia and Trecia, also a USF student, were arrested and charged with battery on a law enforcement officer and offenses against a police animal. The others weren't charged.

"I couldn't believe what he was doing," said Alecia Roberts, a Tampa resident whose major is nursing. "All I did was touch the tail of the horse. … How could I have battered him when I am only 5 feet tall and he's mounted on a horse?"

Trecia Roberts said she came to the scene after her sister had run. She approached Wagner, and he punched her in the mouth, she said. She said she was shocked by his actions and that she was an innocent victim.

Sukela Roberts, 21, said the officer struck her on her left cheek and that she had done nothing wrong.

"It was, honestly, a complete injustice," Trecia Roberts said of the experience.

A fifth person, someone not known to the twins, Jonathan Garcia, also was arrested. He was charged with harassing or intimidating a police animal and resisting arrest without violence.

Tampa police tell a different story about the twins' actions.

Police spokeswoman Andrea Davis said Wagner wasn't going to arrest anyone until Alecia Roberts ran when he tried telling her not to touch the horse. When he caught up to her, four people – including the twins – attacked him from both sides, Davis said.

The four grabbed at Wagner's sweater and tried to pull him from his horse, and he needed to stay on it to maintain control, so he did everything in his power to stop them, she said.

Wagner told Davis he didn't pull off Alecia Roberts' weave.

"The bottom line is, you don't tug on a horse's tail," Davis said.

Tampa police took a video camera from the scene, but the evidence was not made available to the media today. The twins have asked that anyone with video evidence of what happened Sunday morning come forward.

Sequence, who also is known as Justice, is 18 and has been with the department since May 2000. Before joining the force, he was a reserve mounted horse for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

News Channel 8 reporter Chip Osowski contributed to this report. Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at (813) 259-7691.

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