Two police officers say they arrested a wheelchair-bound man Jan. 2 in downtown Seattle after collecting crumbs of crack cocaine from his lap. But in a surveillance video released of the incident, the officers never examine or collect anything in the suspect’s lap.

In the 22-minute video, taken by a Walgreen’s drugstore camera at Third Avenue and Pike Street, Officer Gregory Neubert pulls off the suspect’s sock cap, examines it, then bends Troy Patterson flat in his wheelchair with a hand to his throat. The attempt to force any drugs out of Patterson’s mouth lasts four minutes without result — a tactic that, along with the presence of a handcuffed witness standing three feet away, is not mentioned in either officer’s incident report.

Video is a worth a thousand words: A recent showing of an arrest caught on video reveals a different story than the one offered by Seattle police officers. Here, a photo captures an unrelated arrest on Capitol Hill.

The discrepancies between the video and the police reports put the reliability of Neubert and partner Michael Tietjen front and center Monday in a King County Superior Court hearing in which a judge said she sees no reason not to order the release of internal police investigation reports on the incident — a move that could raise doubts in 17 other criminal cases that hinge on the testimony of the two downtown bicycle officers.

Judge Catherine Shaffer ordered a second hearing for prosecutors and defense lawyers to continue arguing the matter this Friday, with no final ruling expected before then. But the discrepancies, she said, “make a sufficient showing of materiality” that could affect the other cases.

Defense attorneys in at least seven cases demanded the internal reports in late March after receiving letters from prosecutors informing them that police were investigating Neubert and Tietjen’s conduct in the arrest. The investigation stemmed from a Jan. 5 complaint that Patterson filed with the police department’s Office of Professional Accountability, claiming that the officers roughed him up and planted the drugs on him.

In his police report, Officer Neubert notes that he retrieved a rock of crack from Patterson’s waist area — an event not captured by the camera, which Neubert’s body blocks during the chokehold. Neubert proceeds to search Patterson’s pockets, putting a wallet and other effects in the hood of Patterson’s jacket with no indication of when or where he finds any drugs.

After the search, Neubert gets on his bike and briefly rides away from the scene. When he returns, he stands behind Patterson, pokes him between the shoulders, then digs around in the hood of Patterson’s jacket for no apparent reason.

After the video’s recovery, King County dropped the charges against Patterson, a 26-year-old with a felony record involving firearms and drug possession. Neubert’s 14 years on the force includes a 2001 internal investigation that cleared him and another officer in the controversial Central District shooting death of Aaron Roberts.

In early April, James Bible, president of the Seattle-King County NAACP, called for a special investigation into Neubert and Tietjen’s conduct after receiving reports from African Americans about the officers. One of them, Claudette Thomas, says she had been trying to collect similar reports from community members in 2004 when Neubert arrested her son, James Pulliam. Like Patterson, Pulliam claims Neubert planted the drugs that put him in prison.

In a press conference April 9, police Chief Gil Kerlikowske refuted Patterson’s claim, saying that an extensive internal review showed the officers had done nothing wrong — except for failing to report that they had detained a second man at the scene. But that, say Lisa Daugaard and other public defenders seeking the internal investigation file, is no small omission. In failing to identify the other man, Kareem Thomas, she says the officers denied Patterson’s access to a vital witness.

Daugaard represents Toby Christian, who was charged last September with attacking police officers after a game at Memorial Stadium — an incident that civilian witnesses recall differently than Tietjen and his fellow officers. Daugaard argued Monday that Tietjen’s omissions in the Patterson case could force open a critical door in Christian’s defense.

City attorney Ted Buck countered, however, that the defense attorneys are asking the court to “take a humongous leap into a bottomless cavern” of reopening cases. If that happens, Buck told Judge Shaffer, “You’ve thrown not just a monkey wrench but an entire petrified forest in the wheels” of justice.

Ramona Brandes, the public defender who represented Patterson, says that’s something the police will have to work out. After seeing the video, she says, she finds it disturbing how little it matches Neubert’s and Tietjen’s reports.

“The inconsistencies in the police report and that video are clearly the reason why the prosecutor dismissed the case, and these are not insignificant differences,” Brandes says. “I believe it directly impacts the believability of these officers.”