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https://mmajunkie.com/2019/01/ufc-nick-diaz-bodycam-video-domestic-assault-arrest-las-vegas
Supervising police officer Bryce Martinez summoned two other officers, steps from where Nick Diaz sat in a Las Vegas Police Department patrol car.
From the moment officers put him there, the 35-year-old UFC star said he was innocent, claiming a woman who’d that night called in a report of domestic violence was “obviously harassing me” and that he’d never given her the address to the house he was at.
“I work too hard to do anything wrong,” Diaz told officers. “I didn’t do nothing wrong.”
Martinez had a more pressing concern, however. Diaz had found a way to maneuver his cuffed hands from his back onto his lap. The position was a violation of police protocol that allowed officers to treat him as a hostile suspect.
Martinez gave Diaz a stern warning to put the restraints back in place.
“Nick, I’m going to be real frank with you, man,” Martinez said. “I do not want to drag you out of here, put a spit mask on you, embarrass you. … So put those cuffs back under your back.”
Diaz tried to comply, but the move backward proved difficult. Martinez and another officer got in the back of the squad car and wrestled with Diaz’s cuffs. They tried for several moments to maneuver the fighter into place before giving up.
Diaz needed to be escorted to jail, immediately.
Before that happened, Martinez set his men straight. As they assembled, one said, “Shut the camera off,” presumably referring to their body cameras. Intentionally or not, Martinez left his on.
“Listen to me real quick,” Martinez said in the footage, obtained by MMAjunkie. “I need you to control your suspects. If they’re talking (expletive), if you need to fricken’ take them to jail. If you need to hobble them, if you need to whoop their (expletive) ass, you whoop their ass. You hear me? I need you to hold and take them.
“Make those decisions for me. I cannot be making them for you, OK? Good talk.”
And with that, the officers got into the car holding Diaz and drove off to the Clark County (Nev.) Detention Center.
It was the evening of May 24, 2018, and Diaz had been detained after the woman – who claimed to be his on-again, off-again girlfriend – accused him of slamming her into the concrete in the backyard of the Las Vegas house, causing her to bruise her hip.
Prosecutors charged Diaz with two counts of felony battery constituting domestic violence by strangulation, felony battery domestic violence resulting in substantial bodily harm, and misdemeanor domestic battery. Diaz claimed he had been “framed” and denied wrongdoing. The case was moved to a grand jury, which declined to indict him.
Three months later, Diaz would be cleared of wrongdoing when prosecutors reversed course and declined to move forward with the case. At a hearing, the judge on his case implied the woman wasn’t a “true victim” and called to report the alleged crime because she was “pissed off.”
At the time of the arrest, Diaz was one month removed from serving a suspension for a whereabouts failure with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. One of the more popular UFC stars despite three years away from the cage, he was expected to make a comeback before the alleged incident upended his life.
