YouTuber sues Colorado city over First Amendment rights

YouTuber and homeless advocate Regan Benson lashed out Monday at the Englewood City Council during its meeting for trying to prohibit people from videotaping in public buildings.

Benson said a homeless man named Josh videotaped his interaction with a security guard at the library. The guard told him he had to leave because taping with a cell phone is not allowed.

As Benson tried to make her point, Mayor Pro Tem Joe Anderson interrupted her with, “Miss Benson, are you recording? Are you recording Miss Benson?” Benson responded that recording is her right and she would hate to catch the city allowing some people to record at meetings and others not. Relatives of people receiving proclamations from the city routinely videotape the meetings. They also clap in appreciation, which the city forbids during public comment, particularly when activists who criticize the city draw applause.

When she finished speaking Monday, Anderson stated that Benson had violated the council’s videotaping rules. On Thursday, a city spokesman said Englewood does not probit videotaping city meetings. “The City of Englewood provides a table in our council chambers where recording equipment can be set up before and/or during each City Council meeting and council study session,” city spokesman Christopher Harguth stated in an email sent to the author of this article. “In addition, the city has a multi-camera audio-visual system that records and broadcasts meetings live on YouTube and makes those recordings available in perpetuity on YouTube and on the City’s website. The city does not prohibit recording during City Council meetings.”

People shooting video sent to back of the room

The table Harguth referenced is way in the back of the room and would not be an ideal spot for shooting video. What’s more, Benson videotapes the dais as she is at the podium speaking. In this manner, she exposes city officials who interrupt and argue with her, as Anderson did Monday.

In the statement emailed to the author, Harguth quoted City Council policy regarding videotaping. “To eliminate distractions, tripping hazards, and ensure unobstructed views of Council meetings, study sessions, and other meetings/presentations, except as provided below, all privately-owned cameras and video recorders used during a public meeting shall be located only at the rear of the meeting room in the City-designated camera area behind public seating areas, so that cameras do not block the view of any meeting attendee or interfere with the meeting during recording, set-up, or removal.”

Benson sues City of Englewood

Benson’s feud with Englewood has grown so intense she has been arrested, banned from meetings and was refused usage of the restroom. She has filed a lawsuit against the city in U.S. District Court naming the city manager, city attorney, City Council members, and private security guards.

In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court provided to the author of this article, Benson and her attorneys argue:

“Ms. Benson is an outspoken advocate for the homeless in Englewood. She has advocated on their behalf at Englewood City Council meetings, outside the Englewood Library, in meetings with Englewood public officials, and elsewhere. In her effort to protect the homeless, Ms. Benson frequently submits records requests to Englewood and the Englewood Police Department and records her interactions with Englewood public officials. As a result of her zealous advocacy, Ms. Benson was well known to the defendants in this case. In an effort to stifle that advocacy, the defendants excluded Ms. Benson from the library, orchestrated multiple criminal charges against her for engaging in First Amendment-protected activities, excluded her from Englewood City Council meetings, prevented her from speaking at an Englewood City Council meeting, and even passed a new policy criminalizing constitutionally protected recording activity in response to Ms. Benson’s advocacy. The Defendants’ actions repeatedly violated Ms. Benson’s First Amendment rights.”

Lying down, sitting on floor prohibited in city buildings

City officials nationwide generally do not comment on pending litigation, and Harguth does not address the lawsuit itself in his statement to the author. On her YouTube channel, Benson repeatedly references her friend Josh, a homeless man who was ejected from the library for lying for videotaping a security guard.

Englewood has a long list of rules people must follow when using city buildings or parks. Some of the rules seem squarely directed at people experiencing homelessness.

Those rules include “Sitting/lying in city buildings other than on furniture designed for that purpose.” But Harguth said their standards of behavior were culled from best practices from cities across the U.S. He said they are not directed at homeless people. He said one rule prohibiting foul odors was removed out of concern it would be construed as targeting people experiencing homelessness.