COP-WATCHERS
They pick fights with cops — for cash.
Armed with camera phones and prickly attitudes, a new generation of agitators is making big bucks by getting in the face of officers in public places — then posting their clashes for YouTube clicks, followers and dough.
They call themselves “First Amendment auditors” — but police say they’re just a pain. And money is their motive. Long Island provocateur SeanPaul Reyes, 30, said he raked in $8,000 in his first month as an “auditor,” a gig he picked up after the pandemic cost him his warehouse manager job. He says he’s making more now than he was when employed.
“I’m not politically affiliated,” the Brookhaven man told The Post.
“I have nothing personal against the police. But as I’m doing this, I find there are more police officers who don’t honor their oath to the Constitution. I’m just exercising my rights . . . I understand ‘Back the Blue’ but I’m for transparency.”
His most recent stunt came on June 12 in Danbury, Conn., where Reyes began filming at the public library, although doing so is prohibited without permission, for privacy reasons.
Reyes refused to budge, prompting a confrontation with Danbury police. He quickly posted the clip for his nearly 30,000 YouTube subscribers, snagging more than 17,000 views.
“Dude, why you gotta be such a tyrant?” Reyes asks a masked officer inside the library as the cop mocks him. “Don’t touch me!” he yells at police during the 21-second video. “I felt their anger,” he told his followers. “They wanted nothing more than to put me in cuffs and lock me away.”
The video prompted an internal-affairs investigation. The case is pending.
Reyes, who calls himself “Long Island Audit,” is going to trial later this month in Harford County, Md., on a hindering charge after he approached an officer conducting a traffic stop.
“This is a public sidewalk,” Reyes declared, refusing the officer’s request to back away, declaring himself “a constitutional activist who films police for a living.”
The cop, who was wearing a body camera as he arrested Reyes, said, “You’re going to jail. I believe in your rights but you’re not gonna walk up behind me like that. You took my whole attention from this [car] stop.”
The clip grabbed more than 64,000 views.
Jason Gutterman, an East Hampton resident who uses the moniker “Amagansett Press,” is also cashing in.
He once claimed to have netted $30,000 in a month, according to Reyes, who is friendly with the 51year-old protester-for-profit.
Gutterman has about 271,000 YouTube subscribers and has traveled through 32 states with his adult son, confronting cops and public employees “in defense of our Constitution, which has taken a whoopin’ in recent days, and I’m not happy about it,” he declares on his YouTube channel.