Not a Rosy Day for Alleged Flower Thief

Jason Reyes thought that he’d say it with flowers.

Unfortunately, police said, he let a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol do the talking.

The 20-year-old Oxnard man is sitting in County Jail today, accused of robbing a roadside flower vendor at gunpoint Monday night for a dozen red roses.

“Poor guy,” Oxnard Police Det. Dennis McMaster said of the victimized vendor, Andres Cortez, “traumatized over a dozen roses.”

It was McMaster who turned out to be the thorn in Reyes’ side.

He said he saw Reyes putting gas in a car driven by Janell Welch, 20, of Oxnard, who was the intended recipient of the red-hot roses.

Knowing of Reyes’ lengthy rap sheet, which includes weapons, drug and traffic violations, the plainclothes detective wondered what he was up to. He decided to follow the duo in his unmarked police car.

McMaster was just about to make a U-turn as the couple headed onto the northbound Ventura Freeway from Town Center Drive.

But then he saw the car stop on the onramp 75 feet from Cortez’s flower stand.

Reyes got out of the passenger seat, put on a black beanie cap and walked to the stand, McMaster said. He said Reyes grabbed a dozen roses with his left hand, holding a loaded and unregistered gun was in his right. He ran off with the flowers, and the couple sped down the freeway, McMaster said.

Rather than chase them, McMaster and other officers sat at the offramps coming back into Oxnard.

“I figured he lives in Oxnard, he’ll probably be back,” McMaster said.

Two hours later, the couple drove back into town. The car was pulled over, and McMaster said police found the gun, the roses and the black-knit beanie still in the car.

“This was just a fluke,” McMaster said. “I wasn’t even looking for him. . . . That’s fate, isn’t it? It just wasn’t going to be his day.”

No money was taken. Reyes took only the flowers, police said.

He gave the flowers to Welch.

She told police that she thought that Reyes had paid for the bouquet. Police didn’t buy it.

Both are being held in County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail, a jail spokeswoman said.

Times staff writer Tracy Wilson contributed to this story.