Look before you leap

The SunSentinel reported the police officer's

...report, Ortiz yelled at the officers from the elevator when they tried to break up the disturbance.

Ortiz "walked right up to me hitting his nose to my nose," Lade wrote, adding that he pushed Ortiz.

"As I approached Ortiz to take him into custody, Ortiz spun around to face me and assumed a fighting stance (both left and right hand clenched into fists and body bladed)," he wrote.

But when the Prosecutor saw this video he first reduced the charge then dismissed it as an unprosecutable case. The victim's attorney commented

the officers embellished their reports to justify their aggression without knowing the videotape existed.

The Fort Lauderdale Police Internal Affairs unit investigated the matter and gave the officers a pass: no violations of policy or procedure. Embellishing the facts or lying in a police report was apparently not a violation of policy or procedure.

To the cops I suggest you look before you leap because, in this day and age, you never know who's looking.

H/T to David.