Former jerk NYPD officer Patrick Pogan was instantly villainized after a video showed him shoving a rider off his bike in Times Square. But Pogan was a victim, too; the victim of a good videographer.

John Eligon points out in the NYT that a year before Pogan smashed a Critical Mass rider for fun, another cop was caught on video doing the exact same thing. But while Pogan was forced to resign and later convicted of a felony in a high profile trial, the other bike-shove cop, Sgt. Timothy Horohoe, wasn't charged with any crime, and is still on the job. The only real difference in the two cases: Pogan was caught on a crystal-clear, easy-to-see video, while Horohoe's shove was barely captured on the edges of a shaky, murkier video.

The inescapable conclusion: Make sure you capture the cop beating your ass on a well-produced video, or you're fucked. See for yourself—the Pogan video is first, followed by the Horohoe video below. [NYT]

UPDATE: Ooo, a tipster points us to this even more damning Horohoe video: