To Police, It’s a Pick-Me-Up Bouquet

Jason Reyes thought he’d say it with flowers.

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

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

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

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

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 said he decided to follow the duo in his unmarked police car.

A bit later, McMaster was just about to give up the tail when the couple headed onto the Ventura Freeway offramp at Town Center Drive. It was at that point, he said, that he saw the car stop, 75 feet from the flower stand.

McMaster said he watched as Reyes got out of the passenger seat, put on a black cap and walk over to the stand. He said Reyes grabbed a dozen roses with his left hand, his loaded and unregistered handgun in his right. He ran off with the flowers, and the couple sped down the freeway.

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 cap still in the car.

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

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

He gave the flowers to Welch.

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

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