A Georgia judge was allegedly caught on camera screaming at a police officer before pushing him outside a nightclub and then refusing to reveal her identity.
Police in Atlanta have released the footage of Christina Peterson’s arrest in the early hours of Thursday morning, showing her continuing to shout at officers in the back of a patrol car.
Peterson is a probate judge in Douglas County, Georgia, who has faced previous accusations of “systemic incompetence” in her role. In April, the Judicial Qualifications Commission voted unanimously that she be ousted from office, following 30 counts of misconduct.
The three-person panel had found she ignored courthouse rules, abused personnel and made inappropriate posts on social media.
At one point, Peterson jailed a woman who was trying to amend her marriage certificate to include the real name of her recently discovered father. The woman ended up serving two of the 20 days of her sentence before her husband was able to pay her fine.
“Such a hasty and shockingly disproportionate reaction is the hallmark of [Peterson’s] intemperance,” the panel wrote about the incident.
On Thursday morning, an APD officer was working an approved extra job at the club on Peachtree Road, the department said, when he overheard a commotion nearby.
Douglas County, GA
He spotted security escorting a woman out of the venue and went to help de-escalate the situation.
“An unidentified female, later identified as 38-year-old Christina Peterson rushed toward the commotion and immediately started screaming at the security guard and the officer,” APD said in a statement.
“Ms. Peterson then forcibly pushed the officer in the chest and kept swiping his hands away as he attempted to assist the female being escorted out.”
Two hours of body-cam footage provided to Newsweek shows Peterson shouting at the officer to let the other woman go, before shoving him. She was then put onto the ground and handcuffed.
The video also shows Peterson in the back of a police car.
“Take me where you need to take me,” she can be heard saying repeatedly, while refusing to give officers her name.
“They can take a fingerprint and they can find out who I am,” Peterson is then heard telling the officer in the background.
Atlanta Police Department
“Play with your momma, play with somebody else,” she told the officer, adding that he should Google her and find out who she is.
The police footage then showed the Democrat judge being booked into custody by officers, whom she told not to touch her.
Peterson was arrested on suspicion of battery and obstruction of a law enforcement officer.
Her bond, set at $5,000, was paid and she was released the same day.
Newsweek reached out to Douglas County for further comment Thursday and Monday, but is yet to receive a response.
The woman the officer originally went to assist in the incident spoke at a press conference Friday and said Peterson was the only one who helped her as she was attacked by another man.
“She didn’t mean to hit the officer,” Alexandria Love said. “The officer swooped in and grabbed me up. So when she saw him grabbing me, she didn’t know it was the officer. She thought I was still being hurt and attacked.”
Peterson’s attorney, Marvin S. Arrington Jr., spoke at the press conference, saying that in the heat of the moment a lot happened and that APD should investigate the man who allegedly assaulted Love.
Newsweek approached the attorney Monday morning for further comment.
A spokesperson for the department told Newsweek on Monday morning that they had nothing further to add at this time.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.