Police Release bodycam footage of Douglas County judge arrested at Buckhead Nightclub

 ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Atlanta police have released an incident report and bodycam footage from a controversial Douglas County judge’s arrest at a Buckhead nightclub.

Christina Peterson, a probate court judge, was taken into custody at the Red Martini Restaurant and Lounge off Peachtree Road NE on Thursday. She faces 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.

An Atlanta police officer working a job at the club overheard “a commotion” and saw a security guard escorting a woman out of the building, the police report said. That’s when Peterson ran toward the security guard and officer, allegedly pushing the officer in the chest and swiping his hands away as he tried to help the woman, according to police.

Peterson was handcuffed facedown on the ground, the bodycam footage shows. Police asked for her name, but she refused to give it.

“Take me where you wanna take me,” she said in a police vehicle. “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.”

But others insist Peterson is innocent. In a press conference, attorney and Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. said Peterson was trying to help the other woman, who had allegedly been “viciously attacked” by a man she didn’t know inside the club. He called for her charges to be dropped.

Alexandria Love, the woman who said she was attacked, and other witnesses were also at the conference. They said Peterson was trying to stand up for a stranger and commended her character.

“She didn’t mean to hit the officer,” Love said. “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.”

Tears filled Peterson’s eyes as the witnesses spoke, but she did not offer any words herself.

The judge is also the subject of a Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission investigation. In 2021, the commission filed several misconduct charges against Peterson, accusing her of keeping settlement funds instead of distributing them to other plaintiffs, violating the courthouse’s security protocols during a wedding and making inappropriate social media posts, among other allegations.

Watch the video: