First Amendment Audit
YouTube star Zhoie Perez who goes by the name, “Furry Potato” was shot outside a Los Angeles synagogue on Thursday. Perez is part of an online community that purposely films law enforcement officials to get their reaction and test constitutional rights. The online community is called “First Amendment audit.”
Perez was walking around the synagogue before security started questioning her and warned her not “to do anything crazy”. The Jewish community has recently heightened their security for the synagogue because of the rise of anti-Semitism.
Perez starts filming the guard. When an official approach them filming in the public space, they just remain silent and refuse to identify. They cite their constitutional rights and that they are not breaking any laws.
After filming the guard and not saying anything, the guard fired a shot and Perez ran away saying she was shot in the leg. The guarded then shouted, “that was a warning shot.”
Police came right away to the shooting scene and they said Perez was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and the guard who shot her was identified as 44-year-old Edduin Zelayagrunfled. He was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.
Perez said “I saw the synagogues, and I said I’m going to go check it out. It’s got a lot of neat stuff on it…it turned into an impromptu First Amendment audit because the security guard almost immediately was getting really aggressive with the filming and putting the hand on the gun.”
Some people are wondering if the auditing practiced is provoking officers for views but, Perez says “you put yourself in places where you know chances are the cops are going to be called. Are they uphold the Constitution, upload the law… or break the law?
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