Man arrested for shooting strangers in Aurora found incompetent to stand trial for similar crimes in 2018

Austin Benson finds himself in a familiar situation: accused of randomly firing shots at strangers.

Benson was arrested last week after Aurora police said he fired shots from his car at three people he didn't know, sending one of them to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

This isn’t the first time Benson, 34, has been found incompetent to stand trial after a string of similar cases in 2018 in Douglas County. But the case has raised new concerns about Colorado’s troubled system for restoring defendants’ mental competency, and how Benson was able to acquire guns despite his medical and behavioral history.

“District attorneys across the state have been sounding the alarm about the state’s broken competency system for years,” read a statement to CPR News from 18th Judicial District Attorney John Kellner. “The law requires a judge to dismiss a case — it is not optional — if a defendant is found incompetent and not fixable in the reasonably foreseeable future. After that, there is little to no safety net to deal with people with potentially dangerous mental illnesses.”

Benson faced similar charges in 2018

According to arrest records, Benson’s trouble with the law began six years ago. He was arrested on July 2, 2018, on a charge of attempted murder. Douglas County sheriff’s deputies alleged Benson carjacked a car in El Paso County and shot at other vehicles as he headed toward Douglas County.

Benson was seen with a handgun and possibly an AR-15 rifle. He fired shots and hit several cars, but no one was injured. Benson was eventually subdued when a retired Alabama police officer at a campground shot Benson multiple times, in the face and arm. Benson survived and posted bail three weeks later, and was released from jail pending trial.

According to court documents, Benson's defense raised the issue of his competency to stand trial a year later, on July 19, 2019.

Before that assessment was completed, on December 5, 2019, Benson was arrested on charges of assault, harassment and bail jumping for a separate incident. Benson was reportedly in the intensive care unit at Parker Adventist Hospital when he spat on a hospital security guard and punched a nurse. Security was able to subdue Benson, but he “verbally threatened to kill them and their families,” according to the arrest affidavit.

While in custody, Benson said he “wished he had his Nerf gun” and when an officer asked him what he meant, Benson responded that he wished he could point it at the officers so they would shoot him.

Benson was again able to post bail and was released from jail on Dec. 11, 2019, according to court records.

A long road to determining competence

Three months later, in March 2020, the court received a report from the Colorado Department of Human Services — Dr. Emily Stebner found Benson fit to prosecute the 2018 charges.

This assessment did not last. Less than six months later, the defense again asked the court to determine the complainant's capacity.

The new assessment was conducted by doctors at the University of Denver's Denver Forensic Institute for Research, Service, and Training (Denver FIRST). They deemed him unfit to continue in their December 2020 report.

“They also assessed that the defendant suffered from head trauma and seizures, believing that the stress associated with the court proceedings could contribute to the seizures. An addendum to that assessment further contained the qualified opinion that there was no substantial likelihood of recovery in the foreseeable future and that he could recover within the statutory time frame,” according to a court filing by 18th Judicial District Attorney Corrie Caler.

In a follow-up report in August 2021, Denver FIRST doctors said Benson’s condition had deteriorated and he remained unfit to stand trial. From October 2021 through March 2022, Benson underwent “outpatient restorative training” but was still unfit to stand trial, according to court records.

His attorneys filed to have the charges against Benson dismissed in April 2022, following an evaluation by a CDHS physician who found Benson incompetent. But an addendum to the report said a nurse reported that “the defendant exhibited logical, linear, and goal-oriented thinking. The nurse also reported that the defendant indicated that his legal problems were a source of anxiety and that he anticipated that they would soon end.”

In that follow-up report, doctors “expressed concern that the defendant had underestimated his abilities during his previous interview,” according to a court filing.

In late 2022, officials at the Colorado Psychiatric Hospital in Pueblo, which is run by CDHS, submitted a letter “informing the court that due to the defendant’s frequent seizures during sessions, it was determined that it was clinically unethical to continue outpatient restorative services.”

A CDHS spokesperson said he could not comment on any specific case or patient.

An independent neuropsychological evaluator “informed the court on August 16, 2023, that he was unable to complete the evaluation because the defendant was too medically compromised and debilitated.”

“In this case, the state Office of Behavioral Health found the defendant unfit to stand trial and not restorable during two separate outpatient evaluations,” Kellner said in a statement to CPR News. “They also determined the defendant did not meet the criteria for civil commitment. However, we did not agree with the dismissal and instead asked the court to send the defendant to CMHHIP (Colorado Mental Health Hospital in Pueblo) for an inpatient evaluation.”

Despite the crime and the jurisdiction decision, the prosecutor chose not to pursue the “Red Flag” order

The state of Colorado has long struggled to manage competency evaluations and restoration for criminal defendants. The state was sued in 2011 and entered into a consent decree in 2019 that requires fast-track restoration or face fines. Colorado pays the maximum fine of $12 million a year for failure to meet deadlines, money that is to be used to reduce the backlog.

The court ordered on October 26, 2023, that charges be dropped in the 2018 shooting and 2019 assault cases.

When police arrested Benson last week on attempted murder charges in Aurora, after shooting three people, he was found with several guns.

Kellner’s office said it did not seek an extreme risk protection order, known as a “red flag” law, to remove the firearms for a number of reasons, pointing to a 2023 social worker’s report that said Benson had “established medical care, including with a neurologist and psychiatrist, and is adhering to prescribed medications with the support of his family…has stable housing, income and adequate support at home.”

“Given all the circumstances, we believe we would not have been able to meet the required standard of proof,” a spokesperson for the office said.

Benson is currently being held in the Arapahoe County Jail on $2 million bail on a charge of attempted first-degree murder. His next court date is scheduled for Friday.