there is also such a thing as officers discretion
they may have been forced to charge Dave with the mennacing charge if the guy said he wanted to press charges but the other ones (which i can’t remember what they were) maybe they could have let slide.
i mean clearly there is more to the story then what happend on the street, no one is going to chase someone down and detain them because they left a because the detainee left a fake gold chain in your store.
its just not justice and it would be basically impossible to legislate for such nuances