'First Amendment auditor' convicted of interfering with cops after being forcibly arrested at investigation scene | Law Enforcement Today

FORT WORTH, TX - A Texas woman who specializes in making YouTube videos in which she engages law enforcement officers in a confrontational manner has been convicted of interfering in a law enforcement investigation.

Carolyn Rodriguez, 60, was sentenced on Thursday to 30 days in jail and ordered to pay a $750 fine after being convicted of guilty of interference with public duties in a Tarrant County trial, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Rodriguez has been body-slammed by a police officer and arrested after approaching the scene of an active investigation and questioning officers in June. Rodriguez styles herself a "First Amendment Auditor" on her YouTube channel, a term often used for content creators who specialize in aggressively questioning police officers in what they view as an assertion of their own Constitutional rights.

Prosecutors accused Rodriguez of dangerous self-promotion in the trial, with Assistant District Attorney Lloyd Whelchel alleging she "wants to be a YouTube star." Rodriguez, who was acquitted of a single count of filing a false police report during the trial, argued that she was unaware the scene she was approaching was an active investigation scene- instead believing it merely to be a case of municipal towing.

Prosecutors also dropped a charge of resisting arrest Rodriguez faced before trial.

“You can go to the other side of the street or you’re going to get arrested. I’m not warning you again,” Officer Matthew Krueger said of the altercation before arresting Rodriguez.

Surveillance camera footage released by the Fort Worth Police Department shows an officer slamming Rodriguez to the ground and placing her under arrest. The defendant was treated at an area hospital for a dislocated elbow, fractured orbital bone and lacerations of the lip after the incident.

The video of Rodriguez being forcibly arrested is still available on her YouTube channel. The defendant accuses law enforcement officers of falsely arranging for the towing of parked vehicles, seemingly unaware that police were investigating the circumstances of a pickup truck crash. Rodriguez repeatedly engages officers, rebuffing their instructions to depart from the scene of the investigation.



Detective Domingo Martinez investigated Krueger's use of force after the incident, and described the officer's conduct “was an appropriate action" under cross-examination during Rodriguez's trial.

Rodriguez previously pled guilty in a case in which she faced a charge of unauthorized computer use in 2019- stemming from another YouTube video in which she entered an unsecure Tarrant County facility and accessed her own channel on a government computer. Prosecutors also dismissed another case in which Rodriguez faced a charge of interference with public duties in June of 2023.