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Margate Officer Charged With Battery

FORT LAUDERDALE (CBS4) -- A Margate police officer has been arrested in a case of domestic violence and remains in jail on 50-thousand dollars bond.

According to the police arrest form, Margate officer Ivan Rivera, 37, struck his girlfriend across the face during an argument in Coral Springs on Monday night.

It was about 7: 40 p.m., according to the police report. Rivera's girlfriend, Sophia Garcia was in the parking lot of her apartment complex on Riverside Drive when Rivera approached her and a friend. Rivera began arguing with Garcia over her cell phone and hit her across the face, causing her to fall to the ground. She suffered a minor laceration to her lower lip.

Rivera took off as Garcia called the police. When Coral Springs police officers caught up with him, he claimed Garcia ran into him with her right shoulder and fell to the ground.

Rivera was arrested and charged with Simple Battery/Dating Violence.

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