AMPA — The morning of Nov. 5, 2014, started out as a typical one for Liz Vargas Juarbe.Still wearing her pajamas, she rushed around the house trying to get her daughter ready for school before heading out at 7 a.m. As she always does, Vargas let her daughter out of the car in the drop-off line at West Tampa Elementary School, then pulled her 1993 Buick into a parking spot to meet her and walk her to her classroom.At first, said Vargas, 34, she didn’t see the Tampa police officer who had pulled in behind her. He told her the plastic cover on her license plate was illegal because it made the tag hard to read.They argued. Less than a minute after they both got out of their cars because of a traffic stop over an obscured license plate, Vargas was in handcuffs, face down on the ground.Nearly 10 months later, their argument continues, but this time with lawyers. Vargas was charged with obstructing or opposing an officer without violence, a misdemeanor. Prosecutors agreed not to pursue the charge after she completed 16 hours of community service. She is threatening to sue the police department.The officer, Kevin Fitzpatrick, is the subject of an ongoing internal affairs investigation by the police department.Internal affairs investigators will have a key piece of evidence as they try to sort out the situation: Everything was captured on video.Vargas and Fitzpatrick offer different accounts of the incident, though they agree on some aspects.Fitzpatrick spotted Vargas’ car as she was pulling into the lot at the elementary school on Cherry Street. In the arrest report, he wrote that he was patrolling the area and stopped her because of an obscured license plate.Once Vargas pulls away from the school, Fitzpatrick switches on his lights and executes the traffic stop.A camera on Fitzpatrick’s dashboard captured the incident on video, although viewers can’t hear most of what is said.What started as a simple traffic stop quickly went downhill, the video shows.Vargas pulled into a parking space near the back of the school and after a few seconds got out of her car. Fitzpatrick walks toward her, gesturing at the back of her car as he does.Fitzpatrick asked for her license and registration. Vargas said her registration was in her glove compartment, but that the compartment’s handle was broken. She said she forgot her license at home in her rush to get out the door.The pair can be seen talking, and the conversation quickly escalates into an argument. Fitzpatrick grabs Vargas and attempts to put handcuffs on her as she screams for help. The video shows the two struggling for a few seconds before Fitzpatrick pushes Vargas to the ground. She hits her chin and shoulder against the pavement in the process.A resource officer from the school runs over to help.In the police report, Fitzpatrick wrote that Vargas refused to give him the documents he requested and argued with him over the validity of the stop. He said Vargas swore at him as she waved her arms and raised her voice.“Upon contacting the driver, she immediately became argumentative and repeatedly ignored my lawful requests for her documentation,” Fitzpatrick wrote in the arrest report. “The defendant continued arguing and began gesturing with her arms and raising her voice. I attempted to restrain the defendant and at that time she resisted my attempts to control her.”Vargas said she was able to give the officer her license number from memory even though she didn’t have the license with her.“They said I refused everything,” she said. “I didn’t refuse.”Vargas said Fitzpatrick was the one who was aggressive, and that she told him why she didn’t have access to her registration and drivers license.“He slammed me to the ground like I was a piece of trash,” she said.An expert in police procedures who reviewed the video at the request of the Tribune said certain aspects of the confrontation — like the quick escalation of the argument, conducting a traffic stop in a school zone and the officer’s use of force — are “iffy.”Because there is no audio on the dash cam video, it’s hard to tell what was said in the exchange between Vargas and Fitzpatrick that caused the argument to escalate, said Dennis Kenney, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.“It does appear to happen pretty quickly,” he said in an emailed response to questions from the Tribune after watching the video.A former Florida police officer and former associate director of the Police Executive Research Forum, Kenney had a number of criticisms after watching the clip.First, he said, officers generally shouldn’t make traffic stops in a school zone, and they shouldn’t speed through a school zone to apprehend someone who is not trying to flee.And if an officer has someone’s arms pinned behind them, putting them down on their face is dangerous because the suspect can’t break their fall, he said.“And if she obstructed without violence, what is the justification for putting (her) on the ground as was done?” Kenney said. “Police are permitted to use sufficient force to overcome the resistance they are meeting. Was she ... physically resisting or just screaming for help? If (there was) no physical resistance, then the force used appears excessive.”Vargas’ obscured license plate and inability to present her license and vehicle registration are offenses that could merit a citation but shouldn’t warrant an arrest, he said.If she was not cooperating with the officer — for example, refusing to hand over her license and registration — then she could be charged with obstruction, he said.Someone who is pulled over for a traffic stop doesn’t have to be nice, but they do have to what they are told, Kenney said, noting it’s difficult to get a full picture of the situation without audio.“Still, not sure how that gets to an arrest,” he said. “In that situation the office has the option of just warning or, if her attitude is bad, writing her a ticket.”After she was handcuffed and placed in the back of Fitzpatrick’s patrol car, Vargas was taken to the Hillsborough County jail. She gave a urine sample to test for drugs and was then released with a notice to appear in court at a later date. Her car was impounded.She has prescriptions for the medications that showed up in her system, including Xanax.After she was released from the jail, Vargas went to a hospital emergency room. She said the incident had exacerbated existing back injuries she received in a car accident the year before. She said she got bruises on her chin and shoulder where she hit the pavement and marks where the handcuffs cut into her wrists.Vargas said she removed the plastic cover on her car’s license plate as soon as she got it back from the impound. She said she didn’t know they were illegal when she bought it for $10 at Walmart.“If I had known that, I would not have put that on my car,” she said.Vargas’ criminal case was resolved last week after she completed 16 hours of community service in the kitchen at Metropolitan Ministries. Because she had no prior record, she was allowed to enter a court diversion program that mandates community service in exchange for prosecutors declining to pursue the charges, state attorney’s office spokesman Mark Cox said.The internal affairs investigation involving Fitzpatrick is ongoing, Tampa police spokeswoman Andrea Davis said. She declined comment on the incident, citing the ongoing internal affairs investigation.Police department records show Fitzpatrick has been with an officer with Tampa police since February 2014.In an evaluation conducted at the end of his year-long probationary period, his supervisors said he ranked “below expectations” in the areas of adherence to department policies and procedures, thoroughness of investigations and performance under stressful conditions. As a result, his probationary period was extended an additional 90 days.Records show he received monthly evaluations during the extension period in which his supervisors said he met expectations in all categories. He concluded his probationary period in May.Vargas said she filed a complaint against Fitzpatrick the day after her arrest, complaining he used excessive force.That complaint initiated the internal affairs investigation, Davis said. She said a number of factors determine how long an investigation takes, including how long it takes to track down and interview witnesses.Vargas said Tampa police haven’t contacted her since she made her initial complaint.Her lawyers who represented her on the criminal charges, Brett Szematowicz and Jason Bard at the Greater Tampa Law firm, said they will refer her to another firm as she decides whether to take civil action.Kenney said all parties involved would probably be happy to see this case resolved.“Bottom line, I would guess an overreaction on the part of both the officer and her,” he wrote. “Both are likely happy for the whole thing to disappear.”