All right, this is yet another example of when injustice happens to one man anywhere, injustice happens to all men everywhere. It just so happens again that the injustice happened at the hands of the police chief, the fire chief, and every single one of the detectives and the prosecuting attorney in Arizona. I'm going to go through this. This is Dave Biscobing from ABC 15 in Arizona. And the reason I want to go through this is because this is another example of you got to always make sure that you're recording. Get yourself a body cam. You never know. I mean, it doesn't hurt just to flip that button and be recording when you go and do a convenience store, grocery store, whatever. You never know what you're going to pick up, what you're going to encounter, especially when police are around. Get yourself a dash cam, forward facing, rear facing, and cab facing, a three-channel dash cam, so that when the cop comes and conspires against your rights with his other fellow cops, you have your own documentation and you don't have to rely on police camera footage or some kind of surveillance CCTV footage from some grocery store convenience store. Listen to this right here. My husband took me to the convenience store, and this is not a joke. The guy pulled a gun on my family. These are outright lies. Not a single piece of any of that is true. I'm ABC 15 chief investigator Dave Biscobing. And you're about to see a special story we call indefensible. It's about a man in a small town where a person in power accused him of a serious crime. And what did it take to prove he acted in self-defense? Just watch. It doesn't matter what you did. If they say you did it, you did it. I think so. How can I help you? There was a black, I believe, Mazda truck that just pulled in with a truck and car, I'm sorry. Um just pulled into the Mini Mart and pulled the 9 mm gun out on my family. My husband took me to the convenience store, and this is not a joke. The guy pulled a gun on my family. Okay. I understand that. Thank you. How long ago did this happen? This was like what, 2 years ago? July 16th, 2023. What did you come here for? Candy bars. Seriously? Yeah. The alleged suspect, Matt Masci, a 25-year-old construction worker. The alleged victims, Dustin Para, a local fire chief, and his family. >> Prosecuted with extreme prejudice. Nobody did their due diligence. Nobody was interested in finding out the truth. They only wanted to go with what their uh their friends said, you know. It was just after 8:30 p.m. The chief's family just came from a funeral for the chief's brother. The chief's wife inside buying beer when most of it happened. As he was walking out, he was giving looks to my children who were in the front two seats driving their parents home, and he starts talking to my son. My son said, "What back?" My husband jumped out of the backseat, and the guy went and grabbed a freaking 9 mm gun at my husband's heart. Inside the store, this Why would you make that up? According to the victim, who was lied about by the police chief and his wife and the son, every bit of that is a lie. You're a police chief. You probably have a six-figure income. You have a really good living in this area. You probably got a lot of friends. You're making a lot of money. You're enjoying life. What are you doing, man? And if the police chief is going to lie like this on this guy right here, potentially putting putting him up the river for 60 years, you know this guy's got a rap sheet that hasn't been recorded yet. He's committed crimes that just haven't been documented yet. You know he's lied a lot on a lot of people in the course of his career. This police chief and the fire chief and all the detectives who lied to get this guy put behind bars, this innocent man, need to be investigated. But who's going to investigate them? Everybody who would investigate are corrupt. >> Security video is fine, but not outside. There's blind spots, bad angles, and missing footage. >> The guy went out, grabbed a gun from his vehicle, and then came back to your husband and pointed it at his chest. Correct. At his heart. Within a second, the guy realized that he was fired. He was freaking out, jumped in his car, and freaking sped off. And they're lying about this knowing that there are video cameras everywhere that could completely expose their lie, but they do it anyway. How much of that is true? None of it. Not a single piece of any of that is true. We'll get to that in a moment, but their word was all police needed to track down and arrest Matt a few days later. They never tried to contact him before this. Just kind of sitting there, and we noticed more and more cars started to appear, and then guys got out, and some had handguns drawn, and then eventually you started seeing some bigger artilleries, some larger rifles and such. Draw lethal, please. Lethal, yes. Keep coming. His friend ordered out first, then Matt. One false move, and every one of those guys is going to fire at you. I firmly believe that if I didn't have a passenger in my vehicle, they would have shot and killed me right there. Officers searched the car, then took Matt to the police station. The only detective came in, he opened up a folder, put it on the table. You know, I just told him I plead the fifth. He closed the file, and he said, "I got you on camera." He told me I was being charged with four felony charges. How much time are you looking at if you're convicted in all that? >> I believe it was 5 to 15 per per charge. All right. Matt says a local Prescott defense attorney told him he was going to do time. Desperate, he hired new attorneys out of Phoenix this year. >> Uh this case says that if you're in a small town and somebody who is in the in crowd decides to victimize you, uh you could have some problems. Andy Marcantel and Joey Hamby only handle self-defense cases. It's hard to say it was anything other than really bad police work. They made their >> And it's not just ruining this innocent man's life. It's his family and everything that affects. This guy is the breadwinner for his family. So, let's say he just went to jail for a year. That's 1 year without work. They can lose their house. They can lose their car. They can lose everything. They're not able to get nourishment because the breadwinner's in jail and they can't buy food. They're going to end up on food stamps. The whole system is strained because these cops decided to lie for fellow in the club fire chief. remind up when they got the One thing that immediately stood out to these The chief wasn't that night. I mean, it seems like they did him some courtesy here. I'd say so. Yeah. Police wrote he was too upset and intoxicated. Yet, that night he made a personal phone call to a to be in the club to do something like that. Another thing that stood out was the family's claims. >> These are outright lies. Allegations like Matt walked around their vehicle and said, "I'm going to kick a 15-year-old." And that he had a gun in his waistband. I theorized that the cops took a look at the surveillance cameras that night, as you can see in the police report. Once Para and his family were informed that the cameras weren't really showing any details of it, uh they went with the lie. >> The outside footage inexplicably is missing 29 seconds of video. You can see the time jump. So, it missed the beginning of what happened. But what they saw in the footage, even at this quality, was critical. >> And once we were able to enhance the video and see that there was an actual forced entry in progress with a continued threat, that changed the entire case. If these lawyers didn't analyze that video and come up with this documented evidence, this innocent man would be sitting in a prison cell right now. So now, what really happened? Well, let's break it down. The inside video shows Matt at the counter when the chief's SUV pulls up. The wife walks in. Matt walks out, and you can see him go straight to his car. Then, a few seconds later, the chief gets out. That's almost exactly when the outside video restarts. Matt is in his car with his girlfriend. The door is open. As the chief comes forward, his son tries to stop him, but the chief pushes his son, then moves towards Matt. Matt and his attorney say the chief held the door open, refusing to let Matt leave, and then came forward, threatening him. Now, let's back it up a few seconds, back to when the chief pushes his son. That's when Matt's attorney say he grabbed a gun from the center console, held it at the quote low ready, and told everyone to back off. When they did, he shut the car door and drove away. What's more likely? I became for no apparent reason verbally aggressive and then presented a handgun and threatened them, or this drunk man who was at a very emotional day of his life chose to pick a fight with somebody because he didn't like the way he looked. Chief Para ignored repeated requests to get his side. We even went to his office. Hi, I'm Dave with ABC 15. I'm hoping that Chief Para is here. He is not. He is not. Do you know where he might be? No luck there, and no word since. These slithering snakes always get away. They escape the camera. They escape the interview. They hide in the darkness under the rocks. Two years after it happened, Matt's new defense team forced prosecutors to watch their enhanced video. The result? >> What I saw with their assistance, your honor, was information that has caused me to become of the opinion that this case cannot and should not proceed. >> dropped this July. >> You were dealing with someone who in the area has a elevated position. How much do you think that played a role in how you were treated? That is the key part of why this transpired the way it did. When we met Matt back at the store, the clerks remembered him. See, Matt doesn't live in Prescott anymore. He returned only to tell his story. You told me yesterday your mom had a stroke while this was going on. Is because of the stress? Like, what do you think? Yeah. You think about, you know, your son doing 60 years in an Arizona prison for something that he didn't do. You know, that's a terrifying thought. And then going back and forth. Um Is she all right now? He first shared about his mom here on the courthouse steps. That's where he also told us he's never coming back. You know, I know I'm not welcome here. And I don't uh I don't uh want to be here any longer than I need to be. So, what about the police and how they handled this? Well, they ignored several requests to talk to, but we made a surprise visit, leading to a surprise interview. Bottom line, Prescott defense, how they handled the case, and their response deserves its own full story. And that leads us to part two. Hi, my name's Dave. I'm with ABC 15 down in Phoenix. We were in town, and I didn't know if Lieutenant Novak was available. >> We came to Prescott PD because we were done being ignored. Lieutenant Dave Biscobing. How you doing? Just hoping we could talk about this this case. Anything I can do for you? Yeah. Okay. This impromptu interview coming after a month of requests, requests about what happened in July 2023. There was a black, I believe, Mazda truck that just pulled in There was a car, I'm sorry. Um just pulled into the Mini Mart and pulled the 9 mm gun out on my family. The caller is the wife of Dustin Para, a local fire chief. The alleged suspect, Matt Masci, a local construction worker. They claimed Matt came out and for some reason threatened them. My husband jumped out of the car. We we to calm the conversation, he just pulled a gun out on my family. >> Everyone left before police got there, and acting only on the family's word, officers arrested and charged Matt with four felonies. >> Prosecuted with extreme prejudice. Nobody did their due diligence. Nobody was interested in finding out the truth. >> This grainy video would eventually show the fire chief, intoxicated, went after Matt, trapped him inside his car, and refused to let him leave. That's why Matt says he pulled a gun from his center console. It took years and a second set of defense attorneys to get the charges dropped, and cast doubt on the family's allegations. In those years, how much time did he spend in jail? How much money had to come out of his pocket? How much time did they spend thinking about this, worrying that your life is about to be flushed down the toilet based on the lie of a police chief and a fire chief and all the detectives involved? You believe that these aren't just misstatements from the Power family, these are outright lies. >> Yes, these are outright lies. Some guy went out, grabbed a gun from his vehicle, and then came back to your husband and pointed it at his chest. Correct, at his heart. Their claim is that there was really no due diligence done on the family's claims at all. And when you look at the video, a lot of what they said just doesn't appear to be true. They're even being specific about their lie against this guy. That means within this family, the fire chief's family, there is conspiracy going on between the wife and the husband fire chief and the kid, and they've all decided to lie that the guy went to his car, got his gun, and pointed a gun at the fire chief's chest. It's all a lie. What kind of psychopath do you have to be to intentionally ruin a guy's life based on a pack of lies? What kind of family is that? As far What What video? There's There's surveillance video from the the store. >> Records and interviews show the chief's family claimed Matt walked around their vehicle and said, "I'm going to kick a 15-year-old." They also said he had a gun in his waistband. They claim that he walked around their vehicle, that he came back and pointed the gun at him, that he had a gun in his waistband. None of that appears to be true at all. Is that all it takes for someone to accuse you of something, and then you're going to get to, you know, pulled out of your car at without a gun? >> not. You know, and of course, you know, based on what what they believe they saw in the video, they had probable cause to do so to make their arrest. Four days after the incident, police arrested Matt by conducting a surprise high-risk traffic stop. One false move, and every one of those guys is going to fire at you. Grab lethal, please. Grab lethal. Lethal, yes. Why was there no attempt to reach out to him ahead of essentially holding him at gunpoint and arresting him? I mean, that That part, I mean, you know, the investigation was looked into. They looked for the vehicle, they found the vehicle. You know, why they did the stop that way, I'm not sure. I don't know what transpired, you know, actually during the stop. >> This guy's a freaking liar. He doesn't even know how to lie. I can't tell you that. >> Police used special traffic cameras to spot and track Matt's car. By then, they knew They used the Flock surveillance system. They tracked him through his license plate. They knew who he was. They had all the information on him, and the lieutenant is a liar. He was. Seeing that there was, you know, potentially a gun involved, they felt it necessary to do, you know, a high-risk stop at that point for officer safety and their safety. But why not call? A high-risk stop with the rifles pointed at the guy's head for that guy's safety. Yeah, okay. Tell me another one, lieutenant. They asked him, you know, we only have one side of the story. >> And I don't know if they didn't have any information, they have his phone number. So, for that for that part, I don't I don't know why. Bull. That part had was handled that way other than they had the information of the vehicle. You know, this day and age, with the technology, the vehicle's found, and that's, you know, officers went out there, and that's how they made the stop. >> I mean, with this day and age of the technology, it seems like they could have found a phone number. You would think. >> Yeah, but sometimes it is not that easy to find a phone number. All right. But what What is it? The This day and age argument from the lieutenant actually works against him because in this day and age, we have an increasing number of Flock cameras that can actually detect what the license plate number is, and actually extract all of that information, including phone numbers off of it with ease. Lightning speed in this day and age, lieutenant. Before the stop, police had his name, license plate, social media, and driver's license photo. They even brought it to the fire chief. Chief Para has also ignored repeated interview requests. Hi, I'm Dave with ABC 15. I'm hoping that Chief Para is here. He is not. He is not. Do you know where he might be? His office claimed he wasn't there when we came to see him. >> I mean, this guy's a local fire chief. How much would you say that played a role in how this went down? This is 100% confirmation bias. You know if the department has a response to that, that it was investigated in a biased way, or Well, I don't I don't want to just, you know, come off like this, but, you know, it's Prescott, right? So, you know, people everybody grew up here together, so everyone's going to, you know, a lot of people know a lot of people. You know, the detective who who investigated this case was born and raised here, grew up here, so he knows a lot of people. The chief and his family >> words, George Carlin was right. It's a big club, and you guys aren't in it, but we are. just came from his brother's funeral, his wife inside buying beer when most of it happened, and the chief not interviewed that night, but records show he called the detective right away to request an investigation. >> apparently too drunk to be interviewed that night. Is that a courtesy we give everybody, you know, that Well, you know, No, I believe they interviewed the patrol officer, they interviewed him on scene. I mean, his wife was interviewed, he was No, he was never interviewed. It said in the report that he was too upset and intoxicated. >> interview the son, correct? >> The chief was interviewed a day later, but the defense never received a copy of that interview. Prescott PD denies special treatment. Being biased doesn't happen. The inside security video is decent, but outside, there's blind spots, poor quality, and missing footage. I theorize that the cops took a look at the surveillance cameras that night, as you can see in the police report. Once Para and his family were informed that the cameras weren't really showing any details of it, they went with the lie. The outside security footage, inexplicably, is missing 29 seconds of video. Missing Gee, I wonder why. I wonder where those missing seconds went. I wonder who tampered with the footage. The beginning of the conf >> But wait, there's another big lie that the lieutenant's going to tell. tation, Matt's attorneys also questioned if body camera footage was edited or cut. For example, when this officer interviewed the clerk, you see him activate his camera and hear a beep. But when the same officer records the family's interview, I'm a civilian, this officer is with the Prescott Police Department. >> no visible activation or beep. >> They're questioning whether that footage has been edited. We can't We can't edit the actual video. As far as you make erasing the video or cutting parts of it out? >> No, that's That's not possible. Matt was make erasing the video or cutting parts of it out? >> No, that's That's not possible. But you know it is possible that this guy is 100% a sneaky brain liar. Matt Masucci's moved out of Arizona, away from Prescott. He came back to tell his story because he says it's important people know the truth. See, when it happened, Prescott PD put out a press release about the arrest. It made headlines across the area and the state. That's why we thought it was important to go back and get police on camera now. So, now we've been reaching out for, you know, a good month at least. What's taking so long? We've been really patient. So, Dolph, I'm being all right. I mean, the the detective on the on the case has been on vacation. Okay. For a month? For that Sometimes they do take a extended period of time. He He can't stop lying. He cannot stop lying. >> So, is this all over? Who knows? Maybe. It's not clear if Matt Masucci plans to file any sort of lawsuit, but we're not done. We've already started looking into other cases of people forced to defend themselves against serious allegations from people in power. In some of those cases, right here in the valley. Good for Dave Biscobing. See, the question isn't are there other people they've done this to? The question is, how many people have they done this to? How many lies have they told? Who's involved? How many innocent people are in jail? Leave your thoughts about this for the world in the global thought police in the comment section below. If you want to support this channel, you can do it for free. Just like this video, share it with everybody you can, subscribe to the channel, hit the bell notification icon, and I will see you in the next video. [Music]