Last February, a police officer struck the rear-end of another vehicle with his squad car at a traffic light in Hollywood, Florida around midnight. When other officers converged on the accident scene, they suspected that the woman who was hit was driving under the influence in Florida, the veteran colleagues decided to frame her for the initial accident. The audio pick-up on the dashboard camera, however, recorded their actions.
The officer who caused the accident, Joel Francisco, collaborated with Sgt. Dewey Pressley in fabricating a story of how Alexandra Torrensvilas was driving with a large gray cat on her lap and that the cat jumped out the window, causing Torrensvilas to swerve and stop unexpectedly. Torrensvilas was subsequently charged with suspicion of drunk driving in Broward County Florida and for an improper lane change. While coordinating their stories, Pressley is heard saying, “We’ll do a little Walt Disney to protect the cop because it wouldn’t have mattered because she is drunk anyway.” He was also heard saying that he didn’t want to make things up but was willing to “bend it a little bit to protect a cop.” The person photographing the scene was instructed to deliberately take images from certain angles to make it look as though Torrensvilas swerved in front of the officer. The officers acknowledged that they knew what they are doing is illegal, obviously unaware that they were being recorded.
As a result of the audio, four veteran police officers and a crime scene technician have been placed on administrative duty with pay until an internal affairs investigation is completed and the Broward States Attorney
