Valerie Thompson

Cleveland police officer Valerie Thompson, right, pleaded not guilty to felony obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence charges in Cleveland Municipal Court Monday. Thompson, shown here next to her attorney, Henry Hilow, is accused of ordering the deletion of video that showed an April assault at a West Park bar while she was working off-duty.

(Cory Shaffer, cleveland.com)

This story was updated in March 2020 to remove an identity under cleveland.com’s Right to be Forgotten policy.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Cleveland police officer accused of ordering someone to delete video of a fight at a bar where she worked an off-duty shift and filing a false report of the incident appeared in court Monday.

Valerie Thompson, 50, pleaded not guilty to felony obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence charges stemming from the April 2 incident at West Park Station.

Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Emanuella Groves continued Thompson's bond, which was set by phone Friday afternoon after internal investigators filed the charges.

Her case was sent to a grand jury.

Thompson wrote in a police report that the bouncer was asking customers to finish up at the bar about 2 a.m. When the bouncer got to a patron, the patron turned and punched the bouncer “without provocation,” Thompson wrote.

First District detectives later obtained an arrest warrant charging the patron with felonious assault.

But video recordings would have showed that the patron was assaulted, had Thompson not deleted them, according to an affidavit filed Friday by internal investigators and obtained by cleveland.com.

Thompson concealed and ordered the destruction of a video recording of the felonious assault, the affidavit says. She then filed a false police report of the incident that left out evidence pertinent to the investigation, the affidavit says.

The affidavit does not say who Thompson ordered to delete the video.

Prosecutors withdrew the warrant charging the patron May 11.

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