Well, it's not that simple. The thief could simply sue under private law (private law = anything that's not criminal law). Privacy violation, for example, is private law. Damage to property, is both criminal and private law. There's certainly options.
Granted, the author of the video cannot be sent to jail in such a case, but it is a near-certainty that he'll have to pay.
Second, I don't think the odds of the police pursuing this are quite as small as you perceive them to be. For one, the thief may BE a police officer. What do you propose happens then ? Do you think criminal police officers just arrest themselves ?
I mean, I sort of understand the "the law is just under all circumstances and the law sees all" train of thought, all nice, safe and secure. In reality, law is an imperfect and sometimes outright malicious system implemented by imperfect and sometimes outright malicious people. So I'd be interested in your opinion of what happens if the thief is an ill-tempered police officer, with the predisposition of Joe Arpaio towards you. You might note that this person was not just any police officer, but a 24-year sheriff (chief) of the police of a 4 million people county, including a large city. Those people are part of the police too, and can be very high up in the police force.
> judge and jury
Jury is only in criminal law. In other words, only if you're sued by the public prosecutor. Otherwise, no jury trial. And good luck convincing the jury if a police officer is testifying against you. I will say, it's not impossible. However, ...
> Stories, narratives, and being perceived to be "in the right" go a long way in the criminal justice system
Can I just say, I pity your lawyer if you ever apply this way of thinking in an actual case. In short: it does not. Police and public prosecutors are evaluated on their conviction rate (just ask a police officer. You should be very surprised that he knows that figure in the first place). There's even bonuses for achieving certain conviction rates (and of course you get fired below ...). Secondly there's a sort of constant "contest" between officers for the highest conviction rate. In the criminal justice system, therefore, the primary driver of who the police pursue is whether they believe they'll get a conviction. Nothing, and I do mean absolutely nothing, else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
(That doesn't mean they don't apply sanity, but realistically, if that happens, it's the officer on the ground and they are under VERY high pressure to do "something", like arrest someone. "This guy is not innocent, let's arrest him" definitely happens regularly. If the officer on site doesn't just let you go, it is utter folly to count on anyone else in the criminal justice system to take stories or narratives into account)