Free range grandmother Regan Benson dramatically stormed out of a town hall meeting in the Denver Business Partnership Building Wednesday night before confronting RTD Board of Directors member Chris Nicholson outside of the building over his comments on RTD’s role in providing assistance to the homeless.
The meeting itself was called to address the recent police shooting of Luis Johnson in a building near the 16th street mall that resulted in Johnson’s arrest.
Representatives of the police were at the meeting and basically stuck to the same story that we’ve heard before: Johnson was involved in a shooting in the area, fled the scene, shot spotter monitoring devices detected the shot, police responded quickly and Johnson was shot in his building after refusing to drop his weapon.
Johnson has gun charges pending for the incident. A representative of the district attorney’s office said that they charged Johnson with what they currently had probable cause for and a chance of proving beyond a reasonable doubt.
When asked why he was not charged with the shooting that led to his own shooting by police, the represented said that it usually takes about four weeks for the district attorney’s office to complete charges. Johnson will be charged with what they feel they can prove.
No other details were shared other than Johnson was in a verbal altercation that led to the initial shooting. It is of note that Benson’s story that Johnson was attacked by six “thugs” who were larger than him has not been confirmed by the evidence we have at this time.
Benson’s own previous reading of the probable cause affidavit indicated that two men besides Johnson were involved in the incident: the victim and the victim’s father.
Johnson is currently out on bond following his arraignment on Monday and posting $200 in bond. He is wearing an ankle monitor and has been banned from returning to his home due to an active protective order as witnesses to the original incident live in the area.
Benson sat and quietly observed most of Wednesday’s meeting before the topic turned to what the Regional Transportation District (RTD) board was doing to assist homeless people using their services.
At this point, the free-range Grandmother and sometime homeless outreach specialist interjected, stating that Denver Mayor Mike Johnston had proclaimed homelessness was at a near end in Denver as there were a little over 500 homeless people left on the streets of Denver.
Benson then dramatically left the meeting, walking outside of the building and began insulting and degrading those who attended the meeting. Her rage covered the attendees of the meeting before apparently turning to the supporters of James “James Freeman” Springer and Springer’s infamous GoFundMe campaign.
Benson complained in both the side chat of the livestream and verbally on the stream itself that people were too busy giving their money to someone who can’t get his home life in order rather than helping Luis Johson.
She said that she was tired of no one showing up and of the online cheerleader mentality that results in encouraging words in chat but no actual results when she needs people to show up and support her.
Her complaints were interrupted by the meeting breaking up and attendees started to walk by her position down the street from where the meeting was held. When Nicholson walked by, Benson immediately confronted him, insulting him directly and accusing him of changing his position based on who he was talking to.
Benson would yell that Nicholson was “dismissed” as he was already walking away from her and threatened that he had not heard the end of the issue.
A dejected Benson returned to complaining about how she and Johnson were getting little to no support from the community while Springer has taken in over $67,000.00 to his GoFundMe in the past week before ending the stream.
Benson was not wrong about overall GoFundMe results for Thursday. Roy Trippoloni’s Support James Freeman’s Pretrial Release Fund took in $417.00 in new donations for the day, despite Springer being released on bond earlier in the day.
This was followed by Angel “Kansas City Accountability” Moses and his Justice for Unlawful Arrest in Ohio fund, which took in $330 for the day.
The fund devoted to Johnson took in $25.00 in new donations for the day.
No other campaigns that we follow saw donations for Thursday.
Benson has been livestreaming daily for nearly the past week and is expected to go live again later on Thursday.
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