There are new developments in the case of a non-fatal shooting in downtown Denver that are causing racial tensions to simmer online.
Video surfaced showing that the white victim first chased and goaded the Black man to open fire before police shot him nine times and arrested him.
The confrontation between Luis Johnson, 24, an activist known for documenting alleged police misconduct, and an unidentified white male, 27, occurred just before 2 a.m. on May 3.
A video purportedly taken by the white man captured the moments before Johnson discharged his semi-automatic pistol.
At one point, after the man called him the n-word and smashed a bottle at his feet, Johnson told him, “Just go, bro,” and ran across the street.
“I got your face [on camera], you’re gonna do life, n-word,” the man said as he followed Johnson. He then screamed for Johnson to shoot him, “You’re a b-tch. Blow it! Blow it.”
Johnson shot the man once after attempting to de-escalate the situation and backing away.
Responding to the subsequent 911 call, officers Conor Miller and Andrew Ulum were in a police vehicle when a man stopped them as they approached the scene.
“He shot my son,” the man said, pointing to Johnson, who was running toward his apartment building, the gun still in his hand.
The officers intercepted Johnson in the building’s lobby area and opened fire, never issuing a verbal warning. Police rushed him to the hospital with serious injuries before arresting him on an attempted murder charge, though the charge’s current status remains unclear. The unidentified man also went to the hospital and survived.
On July 2, Denver District Attorney John Walsh stated that the officers would not face disciplinary action or criminal charges, as an investigation concluded their actions were “reasonable and justified.”
The statement shared by local news outlet Fox 31 (KDVR) read in part: “When Johnson turned toward them and brought his gun around to his left, the threat they reasonably perceived from him was immediate and deadly. The risk was too grave and too fast moving for them to pause before defending themselves to issue a warning.”
Johnson runs The Real Constitutional Upholders, a YouTube channel with more than 16,000 subscribers where he documents what he describes as police wrongdoing, with videos dating back to 2020.
He has accused police of harassing him on multiple occasions, telling the Englewood City Council in March 2025 that officers filed “multiple retaliatory charges” against him for open carrying and that he had filed complaints alleging police misconduct. He said this pattern of harassment is what led him to start posting the videos.
The DA’s finding addressed only whether the officers acted lawfully when they shot Johnson, not whether Johnson committed the offense that led to his arrest. But the footage has shed new light on what led up to the shooting, and many online now argue Johnson acted in self-defense.
“If he shot him in the first 15 seconds of the video it would be different—he literally ran away, and the guy followed him, then pressed him, actively telling him to shoot,” a top comment on X read.
Another user wrote, “I’ve never seen someone try to spare somebody like this.”
Others pushed back. “The person with the camera is clearly an idiot,” one reply read. “But Americans are so cavalier with the prospect of taking a life. In no way was this interaction, despite the level of confrontation, justification…”
He retreated, deascelasted and respected the mans wish pic.twitter.com/2ILATYzldH
— Vaelor💥 (@vaelor0) September 16, 2026
