Colorado town pays $9,500 to ‘First Amendment auditor’ following post office confrontation

On Feb. 24, 2020, a YouTube channel called Amagansett Press posted a 51-minute video of a man and his son entering the post office on a “First Amendment audit” to test their right to “take video and photographs in public and from publicly accessible places.” After police asked the man filming inside the post office to desist and leave the premises, the man threatened legal action, and the town of Silverthorne, Colorado, eventually agreed to pay a $9,500 settlement, as per Summit Daily News, a local newspaper serving Summit County, Colorado. 

Key Players

Jason Gutterman is an alleged First Amendment auditor and owner of the Amagansett Press YouTube channel. In the Youtube video in question, Gutterman is shown entering the post office and filming P.O. boxes and bulletin boards before proceeding into the main lobby. According to the Amagansett Files, a self-proclaimed database of political disruptors and unrelated to Gutterman’s channel, Gutterman is a white nationalist with ties to the Proud Boys, an all-male neo-fascist group that was present alongside Klansmen, antisemites, and other hate groups at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

Further Details

Shortly after Gutterman entered the main post office, several employees and a number of customers reportedly asked him to stop filming and leave. When he refused, Silverthorne police officers were called to intervene, leading to a “lengthy and somewhat contentious” exchange between Gutterman and the officers, according to Summit Daily News. 

In defending his actions, Gutterman referenced the United States Postal Service’s Poster 7, entitled “Rules and Regulations Governing Conduct on Postal Service Property.” With respect to photography and videography, the poster reads, “photographs for news purposes may be taken in entrances, lobbies, foyers, corridors, or auditoriums when used for public meetings except where prohibited by official signs or Security Force personnel or other authorized personnel or a federal court order or rule. Other photographs may be taken only with the permission of the local Postmaster or installation head.”

Gutterman claimed the video was for news purposes, specifically his Amagansett Press channel. Since posting its first video in December 2018, Gutterman’s channel has amassed, as of October 18, 2020, over 200,000 subscribers and 250 videos, the majority of which containing interactions with law enforcement and public officials. 

In the post office video, Gutterman debated with law enforcement officers for several minutes inside the building before moving outside to continue the conversation. Officers reportedly discussed how to proceed with the local postmaster via telephone as the exchange with Gutterman went on. “At the request of the Postal Service employees and based on the best information available to them at the time, the Silverthorne police officers asked the videographer to leave the premises,” Silverthorne Police Chief John Minor said in a statement.

Toward the end of the video, Gutterman stated his intention to pursue legal action against the Silverthorne Police Department. Summit Daily News reported that lawyers from both sides met shortly after the incident to agree on a settlement.

Outcome

Town reaches an “economic settlement” with Gutterman, stands by officers’ response

Shortly after the settlement was announced, the town of Silverthorne issued an additional statement stressing the deal was not an admission of wrongdoing, and the police department defended the actions of officers at the scene. Chief Minor noted that elevating the case to the federal level would likely have been much costlier than the $9,500 eventually paid to Gutterman in the final settlement, though Minor confessed officers would have approached the situation differently given a second chance. 

“We were following postmaster directions, Poster 7 and we believe the law as we knew it,” Minor told Summit Daily. “Our attorney affirmed the fact that we acted appropriately. But given the circumstances we’d do it differently. … Let me put it this way, we have better things to do with our time.”