VIDEO: How this frauditor landed himself in jail

You could say Peter J. Rodriguez did anything but make a good first impression on Maricopa police officers the night of July 4.

But that’s what First Amendment auditors like Rodriguez do: provoke, argue, curse, scream, get arrested and video record the whole scene.

All this and upload the video to YouTube, where the entire arrest has now been posted.

Approaching a police officer’s car to shoot phone video, Rodriguez zoomed into the laptop computer on the dashboard of a Maricopa officer’s squad car when the officer demanded he “back away from my car, man.”

“Yeah, you can go f*ck yourself,” Rodriguez, who is 6-foot-4, screamed at the much smaller cop. “This is plain-view doctrine, midget. We had problems yesterday. There is no law on Earth that says I need to be away from your vehicle. You need to protect your f*cking sensitive information.”

“Get away from my car,” the officer repeated.

“Or what?” Rodriguez defiantly asked.

Rodriguez then asked Officer Wetherell of that was “a lawful order?”

“Get away from my car, man. You’re causing a disturbance.”

Rodriguez continued to curse and scream at the officer asking, “What other dumb-f*ck bullsh*t are you going to come up with?”

He said the officer was “pulling sh*t out of your ass,” trying to get Rodriguez out of the road.

“F*ck you,” Rodriguez blurted, giving the officer the middle finger for emphasis. He later called the cop “a p*ssy.”

Rodriguez, 32, was arrested and charged with the aggravated assault of a Maricopa police officer and faces several other related charges after the tense Fourth of July confrontation.

A Maricopa Police Department document states officers were responding shortly after 9 p.m. to a traffic hazard at John Wayne Parkway and West Ferrell Road. Rodriguez, who was watching the fireworks show at Copper Sky, video recorded and yelled at police officers when they arrived. He had nothing to do with the traffic hazard and a group of people arguing about a stuck all-terrain vehicle.

Rodriguez is part of the fringe anti-government sovereign citizen movement . He was performing a “First Amendment audit,” defined by the Washington, D.C., nonprofit Freedom Forum as “when people film public officials or employees to hold them accountable or ‘test’ their right to film in public spaces.”

First Amendment audits frequently end in arrest.

Additional units were called to the scene when Rodriguez refused to leave, but he continued to video record and yell at officers.

“Go do your business, you dumb-f*ck, piece-of-sh*t midget, or f*ck off,” Rodriguez further taunted the officer.

Another officer responded to the scene, and Rodriguez continued to scream until the officer “impact pushed” Rodriguez away, then arrested Rodriguez after he threw his phone to the ground.

Rodriguez allegedly approached the officer “as if he was going to fight him” and said, “Touch me the f*ck again motherf*cker.”

The frauditor said he was “prepared to defend myself.”

Officers on the scene assisted the fellow officer with grabbing ahold of Rodriguez to handcuff him. Rodriguez, who resisted arrest, was taken to the ground and handcuffed, police said, all the while urging others still with phones at the scene to record his arrest.

“Your only protection is the camera,” Rodriguez hollered to others at the scene, all while fireworks were blasting overhead.

Officers then transported Rodriguez to the Maricopa Police Department after he refused to identify himself, another hallmark of the First Amendment auditor. Cops finally found his driver’s license in his pocket.

Rodriguez was treated for a laceration he sustained during the arrest.

Besides assault on the officer, Rodriguez faces charges of resisting arrest, refusal to identify himself, obstructing a thoroughfare, criminal nuisance and obstructing governmental operations.

Rodriguez was being held today on $2,500 secured bond in Pinal County Jail.

His preliminary hearing was to take place Friday in Pinal County Superior Court.

He faces up to three years for the felony assault on an officer charge, and up to two more years on the additional charges.

Watch the video:

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