Camera catches cops framing woman for cop's error.

Here is an on-going case revealing how police officers act when one of them has done something wrong.



Let us be clear about the actual circumstances first. The officer in question, Joel Francisco, of the Hollywood, FL, police department, made a mistake. This is not a case of him beating someone up but it does illustrate the pervasive mentality among cops that they are obligated to cover-up for each other.

Francisco was on patrol. He was technically in violation of the law. He was following a car too closely. The woman in the car he was following stepped on the breaks and Office Francisco plowed into the backend of the other vehicle. Any other motorist, who had done the same thing, would be considered at fault.

Francisco radios out and other police officers drive to the scene to help. Torrensvilas had admitted that she had something to drink. That gave a plausible excuse to claim she was driving under the influence, though that is not apparent. In fact, the DA dropped these charges against Torrensvilas completely.

Instead of admitting the he made an error, Francisco, and the other officers, conspired to fake a scenario so that the officer would not be held responsible for his own negligence. Alexandra Torrensvilas, who was rear-ended in the accident, was charged with drunk driving. But that was not sufficient to clear Francisco, who would have been deemed guilty of following too closely anyway. Instead the officers got inventive, as the video tape here reveals.

Officers tried to pin the blame on Torresvilas in order to exonerate Francisco. In the official police report, concocted by the officers, they claimed that a “large cat” had been sitting in the woman’s lap. They claimed it suddenly leaped from the moving vehicle causing Torrensvilias to swerve into the lane directly in front of the police vehicle, thus causing the accident. This way Francisco was not in the same lane, and not following too closely. He was the victim of Torrensvilias and not at fault at all. The problem was that this did not happen. And, because the officers were not thinking very well, they forgot that the entire incident was being recorded on their dashboard camera. Their plotting to cover-up was recorded as well.

Here is what you will hear in the attached video, though you may wish to watch the whole thing. Officer Dewey Pressley says:

“There is no reason in your head whether you keep a safe distance or not, you would be anticipating someone to abruptly slam on the brakes unless you see a large object coming and especially—as far as I am concerned I am going to put words in his mouth. She went to accelerate, a cat jumped out, literally a cat jumped out the window at which time he thought it could have been a pedestrian, which distracted him, because he was concerned and that’s normal. And before he comes to a stop, boom. Hey.”

The other officer laugh at the suggestion and the conspiracy is under way. The main conspirator says: “Actually, I mean, I wouldn’t expect a cat to come out. I mean it could have been a fucking kid jump out of the fucking widow.” A second police officer chimes in: “That’s exactly what I thought, I didn’t know what the fuck was going on.”

Officer Pressley says: “Yes. Just let me space the whole thing out. I will do the narrative for you. I know how I am going to word this, the cat gets him off the hook.” He then realizes he needs to improve the story and says: “Well, is there any way—this is what I want to articulate, that she was in this lane and cut over to this lane.” He then tells another cop: “I will write the narrative out for you. I will tell you exactly how to word it so it can get him off the hook.” Pressley said: “I mean what’s the chances of hitting a fuckin drunk when a cat jumps out the window?”

Pressley says: “Well, I don’t want to make things up ever, because it’s wrong, but if I need to bend it a little to protect a cop I’m gonna.” There it is. That is the entire problem with American police officers in a nutshell. If they have to invent stories “to protect a cop” then they will do it. And they would have gotten away for it except for the tiny detail of the camera recording every lying detail as they invented it.

Pressley comforts Officer Francisco, assuring him that no will ever find out what really happened. They intentionally change the angle of certain photos, at the scene to make the facts appear to correspond with their invented story. Officer Pressley tells Sgt. Andrew Diaz , who is taking photos of the accident:

We’ll do a little Walt Disney to protect because it wouldn’t have mattered because she is drunk anyway. You see the angle of her car? You see where the collision is?

Is there any way—this is what I want to articulate that she was in this lane and cut over to this lane. …You don’t have to get any pictures I need or any whatever, because I don’t want Joe to get any (unclear). That’s not fair to him. She is freaking hammered anyway.

Like all the officers at the scene, five different officers, Diaz agrees to help doctor the evidence to fit the story Pressley invented.

In the grand scheme of things this is a relatively small incident. But it is indicative of the attitude that prevails among police officers. Officer Francisco did not intentionally back-end this woman. But he, and the other officers, did conspire to deny her her rights and to blame her for his error. They filed deceitful police reports to back up the claim. They would have gotten away with it but for the video which exposed their scheme to frame this woman for something a police officer accidentally did. Pressley revealed the way many police officers think, even those who are not engaged in criminal actions against the public. “If I need to bend it a little to protect a cop I’m gonna.” That is the mentality of lots of cops, and that is the reason bad cops thrive, they are protected and coddled by the so-called “good cops.”