23-year-old arrested for hit-and-run crash that killed cyclist Sunday in Boulder County
Dante Johnson was arrested Monday at about 9 a.m. by the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, which arrested the man on an unrelated warrant. He is alleged to have been the driver of a blue Toyota Highlander that hit and killed a bicyclist at the intersection of 95th Street and Avocet Lane at about noon on Sunday.
'Sometimes getting into high-speed chases with y'all is fun:' Teen's eluding investigated weeks after similar incident
The cyclist was transported to a local hospital after the crash, where he was pronounced dead. He has not yet been identified.
'It was a beautiful day for a cyclist and his friends. It ended in tragedy,' Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty told FOX31's Greg Nieto. 'The penalty's actually higher for leaving the scene than it is for the crash that took the person's life.'
The Colorado State Patrol said the Highlander fled the scene of the crash, and later on Sunday, the vehicle was found abandoned in Clement Park in Littleton.
On Wednesday, the Boulder County District Attorney's Office filed charges against Johnson. He now faces charges of failing to remain at the scene/give information, failing to provide aid after an accident involving death, and failure to notify police of a road accident.
'Statewide, we have too many hit-and-run incidents. It's a Class 3 felony in Colorado. It carries a very serious penalty of 4 to 12 years in state prison,' Doughtery told Nieto.
In a press release, Doughtery said that crashes involving cyclists and pedestrians are a priority in his jurisdiction.
'So, I deeply appreciate the rapid response and thorough investigation by the members of the Colorado State Patrol,' Doughtery said. 'Also, the Colorado State Patrol immediately notified our DA Vehicular Response Team, which is very helpful. Today's arrest is a direct result of the immediate actions taken by the Colorado State Patrol and other law enforcement partners in response to this heartbreaking loss of life. As the criminal prosecution now moves forward, our office is committed to fighting for justice for the victim and his family.'
CSP said that additional charges will be filed for Johnson's conduct and actions that led to the victim's death. He is currently being held at the Arapahoe County Jail, and according to court records, he faces a $100,000 cash or surety bond.
Johnson is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday morning.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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New York Post
2 days ago
- New York Post
Pro-fighter goes ballistic on a Southwest flight — then gets escorted out on a stretcher: ‘This is bulls—t!'
He went from blackbelt to blacklist. So much for martial arts instilling discipline and self-control: Mixed martial arts fighter and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu expert Aaron 'Tex' Johnson was ejected from a Southwest Airlines flight after getting into a verbal grappling match with passengers and crew — calling them 'losers' and 'pieces of s–t.' Footage of his expletive-laden outburst is currently amassing millions of views TikTok, X and Instagram. It's yet unclear what kicked off the mile-high mayhem, but footage shows the heavily-tattooed Johnson, 39 — who is a blackbelt in BJJ — getting into it with a flight attendant over an apparent bag issue shortly after boarding. 4 Johnson gets into it with a flight attendant. TikTok/mrskk0404 The Post reached out to Southwest for comment. 'I didn't do anything wrong,' the disruptive flyer, who is seated, tells the crew member. 'My bags are in storage. If you call the cops, I'm gonna call the cops on you and hire a lawyer [and] you're f–ed. Don't touch me!' When a male passenger behind Johnson criticizes his actions, the martial artist turns around and confronts him. 'Hit me, you lying-a– f–k,' he yells as his fellow flyers tell him to sit down. 4 Johnson is an accomplished BJJ competitor. Instagram/tex_bjj The increasingly agitated Johnson then proceeds to repeatedly call his neighbor a 'loser,' at one point even standing on his seat in his flip-flops so he can get in his critic's face. Things come to a head after a female blonde flight attendant grabs him by the arms and pulls him away with the help of another crew member, prompting the grappler to accuse her of 'assault' and 'abuse.' 'Shut your mouth,' she yells at him. Eventually, she tells Johnson to depart the flight. 'Not on my flight,' the air hostess declares, before instructing him to 'get off my plane.' At long last, the incensed traveler grabs his bag from the overhead and walks off the plane with the blonde crewmember right behind as passengers applaud and cheer 'bye.' 4 Johnson has reportedly been blacklisted from Southwest. Instagram/ Johnson makes it to the main door, but then turns around and continues to berate the blonde flight attendant, accusing her of 'assault' and yelling at her not to touch him. Fed up with the tirade, a trio of flight attendants confront the hellion and yell at him to 'get off' the aircraft, but he continues to stand at the door. At one point, he labels another passenger a 'piece of f–king s–t.' The clip concludes with the crew members and Johnson continuing to go at it as another male passenger approaches the exit and asks if he can provide assistance. In a follow-up clip taken at the airport, Johnson can be seen in a stretcher getting escorted by police as he yells, 'This is bull-s–t.' 4 Police officers escort Johnson through the airport. TikTok/realbjjnews 'I'm getting treated like a black person right now,' the retired cage fighter declared. Southwest Airlines has reportedly since banned the miscreant from all its future flights, a View From the Wing reported. After footage of the incident blew up on social media, Johnson posted a somewhat cryptic message on his Instagram stories, writing, 'For anyone trying to drag me down, it doesn't matter to me, I have the best friends.' 'STOP WORRYING ABOUT WHAT MAY BE PERCEIVED AS RIGHT OR WRONG,' he added, per 'IF GOD WANTED US TO LIVE A CERTAIN WAY, HE WOULD HAVE GIVEN US BETTER INSTRUCTIONS. DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY.' Johnson is an accomplished figure in the BJJ world. According to BJJ Heroes, he is an international Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Federation (IBJJF) 3x Pan American No-Gi Champion, although his overall record stands at 87 wins, 70 losses and one draw. 'Johnson is known for his aggressive and submission-oriented style with which he submitted some of the sport's biggest stars, names such as Davi Ramos and Jackson Sousa,' BJJ Heroes writes. He is also a former mixed martial arts star who competed for various organizations, including Bellator, according to Johnson amassed a record of 13 wins and 10 losses before retiring following a unanimous decision loss to Eric Spicely in 2015. Johnson has been embroiled in several controversies over his career, including getting axed from his BJJ gym in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2018 for teaching at a different gym and being 'too aggressive during rolling,' he said.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Donald Trump Is in a Tailspin
When House Speaker Mike Johnson addressed the press on Tuesday, you would have had no idea that, two weeks earlier, he had notched the biggest legislative accomplishment of his career. There was little talk of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a mammoth tax cut for the rich that will eliminate health care for millions of Americans. Instead, a visibly beleaguered Johnson said he was shutting down Congress for the summer, all but admitting that it was because Democrats kept calling votes to release files related to the late pedophilic financier Jeffrey Epstein—files that mention Donald Trump among many others, according to a Wednesday report from The Wall Street Journal. 'We want maximum transparency,' Johnson claimed. But then, in a lengthy, mealy-mouthed statement, he instead insisted he was delaying the release of the Epstein files to 'protect victims' and pledged that he would not 'play politics' over the issue, as his Democratic colleagues were. This is more than a bit rich. For years, Johnson's Republican colleagues have been ignoring the humanity of those victims as they have spun elaborate, fanciful conspiracy theories about Epstein and his clients—many of whom were rumored to be powerful Democrats, including Bill Clinton, and Democrat-aligned figures. Now that the leader of the GOP was implicated, Johnson himself was playing politics by trying to shut down a story that in two short weeks has upended the ruling party. The Epstein story is now bigger than the files—at least until we know everything that's in them. It's grinding Republican governance on Capitol Hill to a halt, and it's dragging down the Trump administration. His approval rating is tanking, which is due to a combination of factors—including the backlash to the big budget bill, ICE's immigration crackdown, and Trump's tariff chaos—but the Epstein affair is playing a key role. There are signs, in opinion polls but also in the MAGA swamps online, that Trump's hold on his base is slipping, which could have disastrous consequences for the GOP in the midterm elections. Trump could well be in a moment analogous to the one Joe Biden faced after the disastrous military withdrawal from Afghanistan—the start of a tailspin that he may never recover from. The fault for Trump's precipitous decline is his alone. It is Trump who ordered masked thugs into American cities and towns to hunt for any undocumented immigrant they could lay their hands on. It was Trump who forced Johnson to push through a flawed, deeply damaging bill that will have a catastrophic impact on health care and the economy. It was Trump whose moronic belief in the power of tariffs is currently causing the dollar to collapse and prices to skyrocket. And it was Trump who forced Johnson to shut down Congress so that Republicans wouldn't have to vote on any more Democratic amendments that put them on the spot about releasing the Epstein files. As I argued last week, there's no way out for Trump now that he has declared the story a 'hoax' and a witch hunt on par with 'Russiagate.' He can continue to stonewall the release of the files, making himself look guiltier by the second—which is the approach that he has taken. Or he can release the files and cross his fingers. Even if the files reveal the bare minimum—i.e., what we already know, which is that Trump had a decade-plus friendship with Epstein, which included the period of time that Epstein was allegedly trafficking and raping dozens of young girls—there would be questions that Trump has refused to answer. Most importantly: What did he know about his good friend's activities? The result is a cancer of a scandal, one that will continue to metastasize throughout his administration, the Republican Congress, and even his MAGA base. It is also a gift to the Democrats, who are powerless in the minority and abject at messaging. They have thus far struggled to harness popular anger over the administration's immigration policies, ruinous legislation, gutting of the federal government, and more. But the party has effectively weaponized Epstein, aided by popular interest and the fact that, well, the president certainly seems to be up to something shady. House Democrats' push to release the files was so successful that it caused Johnson to literally run away. He will presumably spend the summer recess thinking about how to respond to Democratic efforts to divide his caucus and push for the full release of the files, but it's not clear that there is anything short of 'full transparency' that can do that. He's caught in a bind. At the same time, investigative efforts—particularly the House's plan to subpoena the Department of Justice for its Epstein documents, and perhaps Senator Ron Wyden's suggestion that the DOJ 'follow the money' with Epstein—may very well be fruitful. The House Oversight Committee's subpoena of Epstein's former girlfriend and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell may or may not be as fruitful, depending on what deals she makes before her testimony. (Regardless, it will continue to fuel interest in the story, even if it's a dud—because if she doesn't reveal anything it will be assumed that Trump's allies at the DOJ got to her.) In any case, this is a huge story that will likely ensnare several powerful people and hold the public's attention—and, in doing so, will serve as a continual reminder that the president of the United States was close friends with the twenty-first century's most notorious pedophile. For Democrats, the Epstein story does pose risks, as well, many of which should be familiar to anyone who remembers the long investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Here, as was true then, the most likely result is something that is damning but far less salacious than what is rumored. In 2016, it turned out that Trump was openly encouraging and attempting to benefit from Russian efforts to interfere in the election—but not that he was a compromised, blackmailed puppet of Vladimir Putin (or, for that matter, that he had paid Russian sex workers to pee on a bed Barack Obama had slept in). What we know about Trump is damning enough—being friends with Epstein is bad, and reporting suggests that he and others in Epstein's orbit had a good enough understanding of what he was up to—even if no evidence emerges that he was one of his 'clients,' which is not a revelation that Democrats should hold their breath for. This story may resemble Russiagate in another way: It likely won't end Trump's presidency, and Democrats would be foolish to suggest that it will. But a precious gift has fallen in their lap: a scandal that's very easy for voters to understand and extremely hard for Trump and the Republicans to make go away. May it undermine this fascist administration for years to come.


Politico
2 days ago
- Politico
Dems ready more Epstein attacks
IN TODAY'S EDITION:— How Epstein could permeate recess town halls — Senate negotiates next week's spending bills — Senate Republicans call for probe into Obama The Jeffrey Epstein controversy could be hitting town halls across the country as House lawmakers head home over August recess. Democratic leaders have brushed aside misgivings about dabbling in conspiracy theories to broadly paint the GOP as a party intent on protecting the powerful rather than standing up for the vulnerable. 'It's all connected,' House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters this week. 'This administration refuses to share the truth and be transparent ... while they are simultaneously working to shut down hospitals and urgent cares and Planned Parenthoods,' said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, previewing how Democrats would combine Epstein talking points and economic messaging in the coming weeks. Some Democrats plan to leave Epstein to the wayside during recess, with especially those in purple districts more interested in using their town halls and other events to hammer Republicans over President Donald Trump's tariff and trade agenda, as well as the Medicaid cuts and other provisions in the GOP domestic policy package. 'I don't plan to bring [Epstein] up,' said swing district-Rep. Dave Min. 'It's not something that is top of mind.' This could be welcome news for Speaker Mike Johnson and House GOP leaders, who took pains to avoid Epstein-related votes in the House this week in an effort to give the administration time over August recess to release any new information on the convicted sex offender. GOP leaders are also telling rank and file members to use their recess time at home to promote the megabill, hoping their sales pitch for it will counteract the Democratic narrative against it: 'I'm encouraging our people to just talk about it,' NRCC chair Richard Hudson told reporters. Still, Democrats are making clear the Epstein issue isn't going away, especially after Democrats succeeded in getting enough Republicans to join them in a vote to subpoena the DOJ's entire Epstein file during an Oversight subcommittee markup Thursday. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise in an interview this week said that Republicans are trying to 'expedite' the process of releasing information on Epstein, but acknowledged it depends how quickly the courts respond to Trump administration efforts to unseal grand jury information. 'I don't think anybody can predict what the court's going to do, but we hope that they move quickly,' Scalise said. Expect House lawmakers to return in September to confront GOP Rep. Thomas Massie's continued push to force a vote on his bipartisan bill to make Epstein materials public. Lawmakers involved also tell Meredith that Rules Committee Republicans are dead set against helping Johnson kill off Massie's bill — for now. Another post-recess headache that could hit Johnson? Any Rules member will be able to call up a vote on the House floor on a separate, non-binding resolution expressing support for releasing the Epstein files, which the GOP-led panel briefly considered advancing last week. If this happens, it will require Republicans to move to table, or kill, the resolution in the Rules Committee or on the House floor. TGIF. Email us at nwu@ meredithlee@ crazor@ mmccarthy@ and bguggenheim@ Follow our live coverage at MORNING MONEY: CAPITAL RISK — POLITICO's flagship financial newsletter has a new Friday edition built for the economic era we're living in: one shaped by political volatility, disruption and a wave of policy decisions with sector-wide consequences. Each week, Morning Money: Capital Risk brings sharp reporting and analysis on how political risk is moving markets and how investors are adapting. Want to know how health care regulation, tariffs, or court rulings could ripple through the economy? Start here. WHAT WE'RE WATCHINGWith help from Jordan Williams The House is out for August recess. The Senate is out and will return Monday. — House Ways and Means will hold field hearings today and Saturday in Las Vegas and Simi Valley, Calif. to sell the GOP's recently-passed 'big, beautiful bill.' Next week: The Senate will continue to work through appropriations bills and Trump's nominees. Pro subscribers receive this newsletter with a full congressional schedule and can browse our comprehensive calendar of markups, hearings and other notable events around Washington. Sign up for a demo. THE LEADERSHIP SUITE GOP leaders await Bondi's move on Epstein Johnson, in a CBS interview aired Thursday, claimed House Republicans are united in wanting maximum disclosure on the Epstein files and said there are 'good questions' about how Pam Bondi's Justice Department has handled the matter. The ongoing saga — now in its third week — is mounting pressure on Trump and his attorney general to produce the Epstein evidence that Bondi said the DOJ had in February. And the president's allies are increasingly voicing concerns that Bondi, who has not yet addressed the controversy in a public setting, has a blind spot for the damage she has caused, Kyle Cheney, Meredith and Erica Orden report. 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But Senate Majority Leader John Thune is expected to wait to take these up until the fall, already having his hands full with the funding measures that had previously been under consideration for inclusion in the so-called minibus. 'It's a question of, right now can, we get any of these bills into the package,' Thune told Jordain on Thursday. POLICY RUNDOWN BOOZMAN CRITICIZES USDA REORG ROLLOUT — Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman said Thursday that he was 'disappointed' USDA officials didn't consult Congress on a new sweeping reorganization plan, Marcia Brown reports. Boozman's comments come as Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Thursday that her agency will move most Washington-area staff to Salt Lake City; Fort Collins, Colo.; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Mo.; and Raleigh, N.C. 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