Recent Actions by Sergent Brian O’Neill and Detective Chelsea Novotny of the Denver Police Department against YouTuber and activist for the homeless Regan Benson may have shown that there is an actual police conspiracy against Benson.
Benson is one of the most flamboyantly aggressive individuals we cover in the First Amendment auditing related world. She no longer “audits” in the traditional sense, instead, she provokes reactions that tend to trigger herself into abusive, dismissive and outrageous behavior that often does more harm to her cause than good.
The YouTuber has no filter, her voice is shrill, her social skills are lacking and most of our audience would rather voluntarily poke their eardrums out than sit through one of her many rant filled, disjointed and abusive livestreams.
Our audience tends to either ignore our reporting about her or only view it when there are no other new stories available to read on our website or watch on our YouTube channel. As one person put it, she’s nasty, she’s mean, she’s abusive and she’s an all-around rotten human being.
But in this case, she may be right.
When we last left off with Benson, she live streamed on Friday after what she said was a disastrous day for Sergent Brian O’Neill of the DPD. His attempt to get a permanent civil protection order against Benson was denied and the Judge in the case ordered the protection order dropped along with the charges of violation of said protection order.
Earlier that day, Benson had been in another court with O’Neill in a case where Benson was charged with violating the temporary protection order that had originally prevented Benson from talking about O’Neill in his official capacity as a police officer.
O’Neill had Detective Chelsea Novotny write up an official account of a October 8 incident where Benson went to a District 3 police command advisory meeting. Benson livestreamed the event and captured herself writing negative things about Sgt. O’Neill on a display intended for praise of the police in the district.
At the meeting she said negative things about O’Neill in his official capacity. She called him a “bitch” and “bitch boy” during the livestream and questioned his credibility as an officer and as a human being.
According to O’Neill, this action was a violation of the protective order that was in place, and he had Detective Novotny write up a graphic account of what happened, with Judge Barry Schwartz write up a warrant based on the accusations by O’Neill for the arrest of Benson.
The trouble with the scenario is that the protective order that O’Neill had used expired on October 8, 2025, the day of a hearing in the protection order case that had to be postponed due to Benson being in the Emergency Room for medical issues.
Even though the hearing did not take place, the protective order had lapsed, and a new temporary order had been put in place allowing Benson to speak about O’Neill in his official capacity at the district 3 CAB meeting later in the day.
O’Neill was informed of the changes but allegedly persisted in seeking charges against Benson anyway. Neither Detective Novotny nor Judge Schwartz did their due diligence to investigate to see if O’Neill was correct in his assertations about the protective order.
Benson was charged with violating an expired protective order and was brought into court on Friday for an initial hearing on the protective order. That hearing was postponed until Monday due to the aforementioned hearing that denied a permanent protective order being scheduled later in the day.
Monday’s hearing again postponed the outcome of the hearing until November 21, 2025, with the judge handling the case stating that they did not have time to review the dismissal of any protective order for O’Neill and the order to dismiss the charges against Benson.
Benson has stated that she will be filing a lawsuit against O’Neill and the Denver Police Department for harassment based on his actions. She will likely go to trial with the case and receive an eventual settlement from the city of Denver for O’Neill’s actions.
O’Neill will more than likely face a citizen’s review board investigation for his actions, but nothing will come of it. He holds too much power within the DPD and his family ties to the police force have made him an establishment within the system. Detective Novotny will be a non-issue, as her ignorance at best, is not a crime.
Judge Schwartz is another issue. He’s already off the bench for what had been labeled as an act of kindness. He set bond for a person down on their luck at $1.00 and paid the bond out of his own pocket, which resulted in his removal from the bench during the investigation into his actions.
Schwartz issuing a warrant based on falsified information while on suspension may bring more light and further investigation into his actions in his official judicial capacity. Out of the three, Schwartz may lose his position if the investigation uncovers unlawful behavior.
In the end, in this specific instance, Benson is in the right. She should not have been charged with violating a protective order that was not in place at the time of her alleged violations.
The alleged actions by Sergeant O’Neill have cost the city of Denver hundreds of thousands of dollars and will likely cost the city hundreds of thousands more from the civil lawsuit Benson will be filing against them.
While we’ve defended O’Neill from the sheer amount of targeted abuse Benson has demonstrated towards him in the past, the allegations against him are indefensible and indicative of major problems within the Denver Police Department as a whole.
As we’ve stated, Regan Benson is an often-abusive hate filled individual who has shown to turn off more people than she helps and needlessly escalates situations for her own enjoyment. She is often the epitome of everything wrong with the First Amendment auditing community, but, as all Americans do, she has the right to express her opinions and should not be the subject of what appears to be illegal activity by one individual to silence her.
The idea of “but it’s Regan Benson so it’s okay,” dehumanizes Benson and justifies immoral and often illegal behavior by the police and… puts us in the position of defending her as it’s not only the correct position, it’s the right thing to do.
O’Neill is deserving of due process, however, his alleged actions even with the token justification of “it’s just Regan Benson,” should result in a suspension from the police force while those allegations are pursued. His behavior has shown that he is currently doing more harm than good in his role at this point.
The next hearing to handle Benson’s current warrant is scheduled for November 21.
