As she was leaving the bathroom to enter the Englewood city council chambers on Wednesday, first amendment auditor Regan Benson was approached by officer Orion Watts who presented her with a 45 day ban from those very Englewood city council chambers.
Benson was in the building for a hearing on her previous ban from the Englewood Public Library in the same building for allegedly harassing an Allied Security Guard in the Spring of 2024. That ban, which had been on hold as Benson’s criminal charges from the same incident were decided, recently went into effect and Benson had asked for an independent review of Englewood’s rights to enforce bans.
The new 45-day ban prevents Benson from entering the Englewood city council chambers effective four days after issue, which would be this Friday, allowing Benson to attend her own previously scheduled hearing yesterday. Benson claimed that the service of the notice was timed so that she would be separated from her lawyer, who was in the city council chambers, when Benson was served with the notice, though her lawyer was later standing with Benson after being served when played video of the service.
Benson claimed that she was not charged with breaking a law in the notice, just that she would be excluded from that portion of the building for violation of a municipal code that governs activities at Englewood city council meetings.
The ban stems from an incident Monday night where Benson refused to give her town of origin before she began speaking during the public feedback portion of the Englewood city council meeting. All speakers are required by Englewood’s municipal code to state their cross streets, if they are residents of the city, or their town of origin before they begin to speak.
Benson refused to do so, then kept talking over Englewood mayor Othoniel Sierra, who ordered her to stop speaking. The city council meeting was suspended, and a call apparently was made to Englewood Police to document Benson’s actions. Benson refused to leave the city council chambers despite being ordered to by Sierra. Police on scene did not get involved, though Benson verbally attacked and degraded officers on her way out of the building.
Despite Benson’s claims, Mayor Sierra was acting as the chief administrative officer at the meeting and legally had the right to ask Benson to leave under Englewood’s laws. Benson mocked Sierra in statements made in two live streams following service saying he had no relevance and that she would soon prevail in the lawsuits stemming from her temporary bans from the building.
According to Benson, she will be punishing the victim in the original library incident, as the victim showed up to testify via Zoom call on Wednesday. She claimed she had removed the original video of her verbal attack on the man from her YouTube channel, but now claimed that she would put the video back up as punishment for the man testifying against her at the hearing.
Benson later did a FOIA request at the Englewood Police Department for a copy of the audio of the police call reporting her actions and officer Watts’ report on his service of the documents to Benson earlier that day.
The YouTuber and activist promised more legal action following Wednesday’s developments.
