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.

News of the arrest initially spread on social media via Twitter user FrontRowBrian, who indicated Diaz had fought police at the scene and at the detention center. A law enforcement source with knowledge of the case backed up that account to MMAjunkie, saying Diaz was combative with officers – 12 units had been dispatched to the scene – and was arrested as “Code 5,” or as an unruly suspect.

MMAjunkie subsequently requested bodycam video from the officers on scene at the arrest. Because the case was pending, the footage was exempt from disclosure. After the Nevada district attorney’s office dropped its case against Diaz on Aug. 30, the LVPD authorized its release.

Un-redacted footage screened by MMAjunkie contradicts the claim that Diaz was aggressive. Former LVPD public information officer Jeffrey Willis, who also screened the footage, said nothing he saw indicated Diaz had done anything to warrant a Code 5 classification. Willis speculated it could’ve come from a confrontation at the detention center, which had been a part of initial reports about Diaz fighting officers there. The detention center does maintain a video surveillance system, but the footage is not public.

A separate law enforcement source familiar with Diaz’s case said the fighter’s behavior at the scene of the alleged assault was enough to consider him potentially hostile, especially since all the officers were aware of his martial arts training.

The footage backs up that claim. Approaching the house Diaz was alleged to occupy, one officer pondered, “I wonder if his UFC skills are any match to my kung fu powers.”

Another officer replied, “Kung fu taser powers?”

Multiple officers also had guns drawn when they entered the house. After gaining entry from another woman inside the house and discovering Diaz’s location, they yelled to the fighter to come out slowly. After several moments, he emerged, appearing to have just woken up. Compliant with the officers, he was handcuffed and led outside without issue.

In a surreal scene, a man who’d taken in the alleged victim at a nearby house called out, “Hey, I’m a big fan of yours, dog! Real (expletive)!” Diaz managed a half-hearted laugh.

As moments passed, Diaz became more irritated by the situation. He cursed and complained about the woman, the arrest and being forced to wait with his hands cuffed in a police car.

“I really didn’t do anything,” Diaz said. “I swear to God.”

One of the officers replied, “That’s what court’s for.”