A woman in a video posted to the Internet showing her cleaning up the manure for a Fort Lauderdale Police officer's horse said she volunteered to do it.
In the video, the woman is shown scooping up the manure into a plastic bag on the sidewalk on Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard as three officers sit atop their horses nearby, in the video posted to YouTube by the Broward New Times Thursday.
"I was like, 'Oh my God,' that cop is going to let this horse s---t everywhere. So, I was upset about it. So, I stormed across the street and I was like, 'Officer, what are you going to do with all this horse poop?' 'He was like, well, I was going to scoop it up and I was like, let me do it for you,'" said Shannon Marie.
The video (below) shows the woman, wearing a tank top, jean shorts and flip-flops, cleaning the poop as passersby stare and a man standing next to the horses films the woman.
At one point, the officer appears to be directing the woman, pointing at the pile as she is bent over cleaning.
But Fort Lauderdale Police said Friday that the woman volunteered to clean the manure for the officer. They said the woman was talking to the officer when the horse did its business and the woman, who said she used to have horses of her own, said she didn't mind cleaning up the mess. And a restaurant employee, who wants to remain anonymous, vouches for that.
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The employee said the woman was sitting at the bar having some drinks, and she volunteered to go over and clean it up.
"Why would you do that? Cause poop doesn't bother me to be honest. I'm a nurse and it just doesn't bother me and I live horses," she said.
Benjamin Prows the man who shot the video said the officer never forced her to clean it up.
According to the Fort Lauderdale Police website, their mounted unit was formed in 1983.
