Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters is angry at times, and crying at other times during her arrest by Grand Junction police officers on Tuesday, according to body-camera footage of the event.
The 12-minute video taken from a body camera worn by police Officer Vaughn Soderquist starts from the moment he arrives at Main Street Bagels on Tuesday in downtown Grand Junction, where Peters was arrested, to her being released on her own.
In it, Peters can be seen being handcuffed, police removing her car keys from her hand, and her struggling with police the entire time, yelling such things as, “Let go of me,” “You are hurting me,” and “Give me my keys to my car.”
Peters was later charged with two counts of obstruction. At the time, police were aiding investigators with the Mesa County District Attorney’s Office in executing a search warrant to obtain an iPad.
Police repeatedly told Peters to stop resisting or she would face obstruction charges, according to the footage.
“Stand up like an adult,” Soderquist tells her at one point.
“What an (expletive) thing to say to me,” Peters responded. “What an ass thing to say to me.”
Peters continues to struggle as police attempted to search her and place her in the back seat of a patrol vehicle.
“This is like arrest without cause,” Peters said. “You know what, TSA isn’t this rough.”
“Well, I’m not TSA, ma’am,” replied Officer Rosario Tafoya, who also assisted in the arrest.
“You are under arrest for obstruction,” Soderquist said.
“I didn’t obstruct anything,” Peters yells while continuing to struggle with police.
Although Soderquist tells Peters she is under arrest, saying she tried to kick officers when she was escorted out of the bagel shop, at no time can he be heard reading Peters her Miranda rights to remain silent. Those rights may have been read to her the next day when she turned herself in for formal arrest.
Peters claims that police had no legal right to take her car keys because they were not part of the search warrant, but police said they meant to return them to her and have made arrangements to do so.
They said removing items from the hands of anyone who is being handcuffed is routine procedure.
According to the search warrant, Peters allegedly used a computer tablet to video record a court hearing for Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley, which would be a violation of standing court rules not to record, video or take pictures. Knisley is facing unrelated charges of felony burglary and misdemeanor cybercrime.
Peters claimed that the iPad they seized wasn’t hers, saying it belonged to someone named Tammy Bailey.
As a result, Peters told DA investigator Michael Struwe that she did not know the passcode to the device. Struwe told Peters it would take longer to download information from the iPad without that code.
Peters also could be heard pleading with police to investigate election security matters rather than her, and accused them of working for U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Peters faces two misdemeanor charges of obstructing a peace office and government operations, which together carry a maximum penalty of up to 18 months in jail and a $1,750 fine.
She also could face contempt of court charges from District Judge Matthew Barrett, whom Peters told during the Knisley hearing she wasn’t recording in his courtroom.
Her first court appearance is set for March 2.
After Peters turned herself in for formal arrest Thursday morning, she traveled to Denver to attend a voter-fraud conspiracy theory event hosted by FEC United, where she appeared on stage — to a standing ovation— with several others involved in trying to prove the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.
That event featured numerous speakers, including Shawn Smith, a retired Air Force colonel and military cyber expert who called for “hanging” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold.
Smith has been working closely with Peters and her supporters over their election fraud allegations, but his full involvement is unknown.
The next morning, she appeared on an online podcast hosted by Joe Oltmann, a conspiracy theorist who was one of the first to claim, without evidence, that the Dominion Voting Systems machines that most Colorado counties use were somehow behind it all.
On that podcast, Peters claims to have received numerous threats over her arrest.
“I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist,” Peters said. “If anything happens to me, I want people to know it was not an accident.”
Peters also said that, all along, she’s only been trying to reveal possible improprieties in the state’s election system.
“We’re living in a day I never thought I’d live to see where a cancer survivor, a Gold Star mom that lost my son ... I never believed that the FBI ... would raid mostly older women, who would follow me around to take my belongings when you haven’t done anything wrong,” she said. “What I’m most concerned about for our country is if these election irregularities continue.”
Peters and several others are the subjects of state and federal criminal investigations — including a local grand jury— into election tampering, wire fraud and other possible crimes.
She also faces several ethics and campaign finance probes, and permanent removal as the county’s main election official.
