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Who Are First Amendment Auditors?

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Ryan Brett would love to go on an audit. He follows the most famous California auditors and has reached out to several. He calls himself the "least intimidating guy in the world" and wonders how law enforcement or security personnel would treat someone who looks so mild-mannered. Brett's reasons for wanting to conduct an audit are the exact same as Thomas'- he wants to see how police departments respond. However, unlike Miller, Brett's work isn't simply to fulfill his curiosity but inform his professional work.

Brett also happens to be a sergeant with the Corona, California Police Department.

The ultimate irony for the auditing community is that, while members strive to perform the answer to the age-old question "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes," or "Who watches the watchmen?", the watchmen have been watching them all along. The growing auditing movement has become enough of a concern that police organizations are considering implementing specialized training for officers.

Brett first learned about the auditing community when auditors appeared in front of his police station. He said that that first experience taught him how to interact with them and that, since then, the station has been audited three to four times. He said, "I'm in one of them, and I think I did a great job." When interacting with the auditor, he "gave him nothing but complements and told him how much I loved him and his videos. He had no idea what to do, but I was being sincere." He said one auditor called the police station later just to praise him for keeping his cool. Brett now shows the audits, both passes and fails, in station training.

Brett will also lead a new course at the California Association of Labor Relations Officers' Annual Southern California seminar in June. Hundreds of officers will gather in Rancho Mirage to learn how to interact with auditors while still promoting community safety and security. According to him, his tagline will be how to "balance individual rights with public safety."

Brett isn't the only police officer who takes auditors seriously. Thomas recalls an audit in which a security guard called the police. When two officers arrived, Thomas was shocked to find out that they knew who he was - they had watched all his videos. According to Thomas, one said, "Part of the reason we took the call is because we said, 'Oh, that's Nasty Nathanial...We just wanted to meet you.'"

Thomas recounts the story of meeting his "fanboys" as a positive experience. He later even went out for a beer with one of them. He adds that, "I'm not out there trying to make cops look bad. I'm not out there to try to get anybody fired. My goal is not to go out and try to sue somebody...I just want people to be aware."

Amanda, who prefers to be called by just her first name, has had similar experiences auditing in the Twin Cities and Chicago. The auditor, who goes by the name "Pink Camera Magic" on her channel, says, "Now when I go out there to do the audits and copwatch, rather than getting a bunch of resistance, I get a lot of waves- which is cool. They're like, 'Oh, you're one of those guys. What YouTube channel are you?'"

The two auditors say they see these interactions as examples of the relationship auditors and law enforcement could enjoy if officers were only willing to listen.

This is exactly what some First Amendment auditors want - to be heard.

To one Los Angeles auditor, there's no better place to test adherence to the First Amendment than at the Church of Scientology.

However, not all auditors have hope in the modern day police force. Adam Kratt, who goes by the handle "California Guardian," is one of them. He said that he's heard about auditor training in police departments, but finds the material online to be lacking. "It's not about 'this is their right to record and just observe them and respect their rights,'" he said of the material. "It's about usually 'these guys are out here. They can make you look stupid. Just avoid them.' It's not really educating them."

Although Kratt says that the LAPD is much better than other forces in this department, he said that his auditing is partially a reaction to the increasing militarization of the police. "A lot of departments - they got tactical vests on and these tactical pants, and they're ready to go to war and who are they ready to go to war against? It's against the people."

Kratt has some practical ideas for how LAPD and other departments can better prepare for audits in the future and how auditors should prepare for their own encounters with law enforcement. He said he hoped the departments would teach their officers more about the right to film in a public place and encourage officers to take responsibility when they fail an audit. For auditors, he recommends being respectful and making sure to get identification from the police officer, whether or not they fail the audit. Kratt said that specifically in Los Angeles, auditors should ask for the LAPD officer's five-digit identification number, not just their badge number.

The Church of Scientology on Sunset Boulevard is a popular location for Los Angeles auditors.

Kratt's final caution to any would-be auditors is this: "If you do this, you have to be willing to go to jail...People have been hurt, people have been shot doing this."

He's referring to a very specific case. While First Amendment auditors often do whatever they can to strengthen their brand and reach a broader audience, few videos have sparked the public interest. Chances are that if you have heard of First Amendment audits, it's because of Furry Potato.

Zhoie Perez, aka "Furry Potato", is a Los Angeles-based auditor and YouTuber. On Feb. 14, 2019, Perez got into a charged encounter with Edduin Zeleyagrunfeld, security guard for the Etz Jacob Torah Center. In the video of the encounter, which Perez uploaded to her channel shortly after the incident, Zeleyagrunfeld aims his gun toward the ground before firing. Perez was grazed in the leg by the ricochet of the bullet and taken to the hospital; Zeleyagrunfeld was arrested. The district attorney later declined to press charges, writing that prosecutors could not prove that Zelayagrunfeld's response exceeded the limits of self-defense.

Zelayagrunfeld is "just an example of the problem," according to Carlos Miller, an auditor from Miami, Florida. He added that, "They're going to try to say all of this was an isolated incident but it's not." Miller, most known for his channel and brand "Photography is Not a Crime", aka PINAC, has had his fair share of run-ins with security personnel.

Miller was filming at a stop on the Miami Metrorail when security guards demanded they stop and banned them for life from the public transit line. Miami Metrorail became Miller's white whale, and he continually kept filming at its stops, even after two security guards physically restrained him during a charged altercation. Miller settled with Miami Metrorail out of court for the altercation.

Miller also pushed back against the common belief that Zeleyagrunfeld wasn't trained: "They do train these cops and train these security guards," Miller said. "But they do not train them to respect our constitutional rights. They train them to control our actions."

Miller said that he wanted to focus on how deadly serious this incident should be treated in the public discourse. It may be tempting, especially because Perez went by the name "Furry Potato" and because she was only grazed, to see this as just another example of Angelino weirdness. But Miller is emphatic that it's not.

"These cops are not getting it. They are not getting it, and people get killed," he said. "Maybe people have to die before people start to respect our constitutional rights."

Miller was quick to add that he always recommends auditors stay on the right side of the law, and that the best way to push for police transparency is to use that law to punish officers who obscure it: "All you have to do is train these cops to respect our rights and, if not, let's punish them. Let's fire them. Let's sue them. Let's take away their police license or security license. Let's take away their guns, their badges. Because they obviously cannot handle it."

Miller said he saw the shooting as just the latest in a long line of violent encounters spawned from "9/11 paranoia." However, he doesn't have to go that far back to address public anxieties about strangers with murky motives. Perez' shooting came less than four months after the October 27 shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Less than a month after the shooting in Los Angeles, a white supremacist killed 50 people in New Zealand mosques and live-streamed the event.

Brett said that this is one of the reasons why training is so important for both police officers and security guards. He was emphatic that "terrorists have never attacked a police station in America with a prior scouting like that, where they walked out with cameras and confronted people at gates." However, he understands why schools and churches are so guarded when it comes to safety. Brett said he wants educated police officers to serve as a bridge in the community between auditors and nervous community members. When officers are contacted by someone at a school or church who is frightened by a first amendment audit, they can educate and assure the public.

Brett shares this belief with many auditors. Patrick Roth, an auditor operating out of Oklahoma, said that it's the smaller police departments that fail the most: "They don't have enough training as big departments. Things escalate really fast. There's no funding for body cameras." All he wants out of his audits is for, "people to be held accountable. If they mess up - own it."

With names like "Police Department FAIL" and "Officer IMMEDIATELY OWNED," Roth's videos combine a millennial sensibility with a rebellious streak. According to Miller, YouTube is the biggest platform for the movement, along with Digg, Reddit, and Boingboing.

"The next generation of auditors started doing it for YouTube hits. They started acting as immature, as unprofessional as possible for YouTube clicks. So it became a commercial enterprise," Miller said. He added that, "This work was never really about making money. It was always about raising awareness and educating people, including the cops."

However, no one can deny that these videos can be immensely profitable. Miller's channel itself has 10,830,064 views, which roughly translates to $21,060. One of the most popular channels in the community, High Desert Community Watch, has netted 53,636,126 views, which could potentially bring in more than $196,178 total in revenue. Some auditors, like Kratt, say that this revenue has given them much-needed financial support, but that may also introduce a double-edged sword. Kratt's channel was brought to the attention of his supervisor, and he was fired, he claims, because of his auditing activities. Kratt said that his channel gives him around $1,000 a month in extra revenue - not enough to live on but certainly not chump change.