They pick fights with cops — for cash.
Armed with camera phones and prickly attitudes, a new generation of agitators is making big bucks by getting in the face of officers in public places — then posting their clashes for YouTube clicks, followers and dough.
They call themselves “First Amendment auditors” — but police say they’re just a pain.
And money is their motive.
Long Island provoker Sean-Paul Reyes, 30, said he raked in $8,000 in his first month as an “auditor,” a gig he picked up after the pandemic cost him his warehouse manager job.
“I’m not politically affiliated,” the Brookhaven man told The Post.
“I have nothing personal against the police. But as I’m doing this, I find there are more police officers who don’t honor their oath to the Constitution. I’m just exercising my rights … I understand ‘Back the Blue’ but I’m for transparency.”
His most recent stunt came on June 12 in Danbury, Conn., where Reyes began filming at the public library, though doing so is prohibited without permission, for privacy reasons.
Reyes refused to budge, prompting a confrontation with Danbury police. He quickly posted the clip for his nearly 30,000 YouTube subscribers, snagging more than 17,000 views.
“Dude, why you gotta be such a tyrant?” Reyes asks a masked officer inside the library as the cop mocks him. “Don’t touch me!” he yells at police during the 21-second video.
“I felt their anger,” he told his followers. “They wanted nothing more than to put me in cuffs and lock me away.”
The video prompted an internal affairs investigation. The case is pending.
Reyes, who calls himself “Long Island Audit,” is going to trial later this month in Harford County, Md., on a hindering charge after he approached an officer conducting a traffic stop.
“This is a public sidewalk,” Reyes declared, refusing the officer’s request to back away, declaring himself “a constitutional activist who films police for a living.”
The cop, who was wearing a body camera as he arrested Reyes, said, “You’re going to jail. I believe in your rights but you’re not gonna walk up behind me like that. You took my whole attention from this [car] stop.”
The clip grabbed more than 64,000 views.
Jason Gutterman, an East Hampton resident who uses the moniker “Amagansett Press,” is also cashing in.
He once claimed to have netted $30,000 in a month, according to Reyes, who is friendly with the 51-year-old protestor-for-profit.
Gutterman has 271,000 YouTube subscribers and has traveled through 32 states with his adult son, confronting cops and public employees “in defense of our Constitution which has taken a whoopin’ in recent days, and I’m not happy about it,” he declared on his YouTube channel.
YouTube clicks aren’t the only way auditors make money.
Gutterman, who couldn’t be reached for comment, netted a $9,500 legal settlement from the town of Silverthorne, Colo., after he refused a cop’s directive to leave the U.S. Post Office where he was filming, and threatened to sue.
The auditors can be abrasive, but they have a valid point, a top Washington D.C. First Amendment lawyer who asked to remain anonymous, told The Post.
“They have the right to film in public spaces,” she said.
Reyes, who wouldn’t say what he typically earns but noted he’s “making better money from YouTube than I did at the warehouse job,” said his new career frightens his wife.
“She’s scared because it seems every other week, there’s somebody dying at the hands of the police, justified or not. But, I’m not scared. I’m not trying to be the bad guy.”