Footage exhibits Democrat choose ‘hitting cop’ outdoors Atlanta nightclub

Footage has shown the moment a newly nixed probate court judge punched a local police officer following a boozy brawl, according to police. 

Christina Peterson, 38, was already under investigation for alleged misconduct in the city of Atlanta, where she had worked for years up until this past May.

She’s since been placed under arrest due to the footage, and for allegedly punching the police officer working security at the Red Martini Restaurant early Thursday. Cops say she had been engaged in a night of drinking, despite the charges leveled against her.

Donning a low-cut dress, the two-term Democrat who was just ousted by voters is seen wrapped up in a physical fight that cops say came seconds before the strike. 

The body-worn cameras show how Peterson ran up on the cop and a security guard to help a woman who she claims was ‘attacked’. 

The clip goes on to show an uncooperative Peterson conversing with cops in a squad car, telling them to ‘Google her’ while cuffed and visibly distressed.

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‘Take me where you wanna take me,’ she says in the video, shared just hours after a press conference was held to discuss the Douglas County Probate Judge’s arrest.

‘You don’t need identification. You have picked up dead bodies when you don’t know who bodies it was, but you picked them up. 

‘Take me where you need to take me.’

The judge later claimed the clip was taken out of context, saying  the altercation came after she was unfairly arrested while trying to be a Good Samaritan.

She said she had just stepped in to help a woman who was being ‘viciously attacked’ at the restaurant and lounge off Peachtree Road, by an unnamed man not seen in the footage. 

‘She was the only one that helped me,’ Alexandria Love, the woman at the center of the incident, said at the presser Friday, during which Peterson appeared unfazed by her arrest a little over a day before.

Love, meanwhile, donned a cast, as Peterson’s attorney Marvin Arrington Jr. vowed to defend his client to the bitter end.

‘This is living proof of “No good deed goes unpunished,”‘ the judge’s legal representation said. 

‘The idea that a Good Samaritan who was helping a woman that was being viciously attacked could be arrested and the man who was viciously attacking the woman did not get arrested speaks to other issues.’ 

A few hours later, the footage was made public – as both Love and another witness emphatically said they did not know Peterson beforehand.

Later footage shows the judge struggling away from an officer while being escorted into a law enforcement building, while repeating the words, ‘Don’t touch me!’

Shortly before, Peterson was handcuffed facedown on the ground, the bodycam footage shows – with police asking for her name, and her refusing to give it. 

A preliminary police report viewed by FOX 5 said the judge ‘appeared to be under the influence’ when she hit the officer – an act that is difficult to make out in the footage.  

In it, the male officer said to be punched is seen standing over Peterson and Love, as the former is seen pushing the officer in the chest, at one point swiping at his hands.

The clip then gets increasingly shaky as a physical conflict ensues, after which the filming officer is seen putting the jurist in bracelets.

But Peterson – an official tasked with impartially overseeing local laws – did not go quietly, seen struggling and writhing through the entire ordeal.

It ends with her on the floor, before being brought to the squad car and ultimately the station.

In the car, she appears increasingly unrepentant, crossing her legs defiantly. 

Meanwhile, a Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission has accused her of keeping settlement funds instead of distributing them to other plaintiffs, among other things. 

 The commission also accused Peterson of flouting courthouse security protocols, specifically during a wedding held after-hours inside her courthouse without security screening.

The charges also involve making inappropriate social media posts promoting her part-time acting career, ignoring a sheriff’s order and holding and violating the rights of a local mom by ordering her jailed for trying to amend her marriage license.

Peterson in December testified that she is the victim, while claiming she is not getting her due respect as the first black judge in Douglas County.

‘I’m the first African American female judge who was a Democrat,’ she testified through tears at the time, complaining how no news outlet ever acknowledged that fact. 

‘I was never celebrated or congratulated.’

Now, she’s facing charges of simple battery against a police officer and felony willful obstruction of law enforcement by use of threats of violence, according to jail records, after cops wrote they overheard ‘a commotion’ as a security guard escorted Love outside. 

Both investigations remain underway, and Peterson has yet to be proven guilty. 

That was not the case for one of her alleged victims, who Peterson told her to come to court, before jailing her for 48 hours and fining her $500 for contempt for writing her uncle’s name on her marriage certificate where it asked for her father because her uncle is the one who raised her.

‘I don’t have memories of my dad,’ PJ Skelton, a Thai immigrant who was married in Douglas County in 2016 before Peterson took office, explained to the hearing panel late last year. ‘I don’t know who he is.’ 

‘Did you go to this hearing thinking you might be going to jail?’ asked JQC executive director Courtney Veal.

‘No,’ answered Skelton, who came under Peterson’s radar after filing paperwork to change her marriage license in case it was an issue.   

She said Peterson also never told her she might need an attorney in court – an admission that appeared to trouble JQC hearing panel member Robert McBurney.

‘Did she let you go get one or ask if one was with you?’ asked McBurney.

‘Just asked if one was with me,’ Skelton replied.

Moreover, unlike her predecessor, Peterson chose to keep all birth and death certificate fees in addition to her salary, a practice that while legal, is viewed as unethical.

In 2022, Peterson – at this point a six-year vet – kept $140,485 in fees, pushing her yearly compensation to $265,487, records show.

The year before, she pocketed $139,447 in fees, making her total income $265,862.

By comparison, in 2022 the chief justice for the Georgia Supreme Court made $216,593.

Hyde asked Peterson how much extra she’s taken home so far since she took office before handing over their report and make a recommendation to the Georgia Supreme Court.

‘Is it over $400,000?’

‘I just I’m trying to understand,’ said Peterson who was clearly taken aback by the question. ‘I would have prepared that if I had known. Am I charged with something?’

‘I get to ask questions,’ said Hyde.

‘OK. Thank you,’ said Peterson, still not answering.

At the press conference Friday, Peterson again did not speak, with only tears welling in her eyes as Love and her attorney went up to bat.

‘She didn’t mean to hit the officer,’ Love said at a point. ‘The officer swooped in and grabbed me up. He didn’t even care to see the big man that was actually brutally hitting me in my face. 

‘So when she see him grabbing me, she didn’t know it was the officer. She thought I was still being hurt and attacked.’

She was ousted by voters on May 21, following a Democratic primary that occurred as her punishment for the 30 ethics charges against her loomed large.

Her fate will ultimately be sealed in the state’s highest court, though a trial date has not been set.