Ryan Thoresen Carson’s ‘con’ friends are branded ‘disgusting’ for setting up $70,000 GoFundMe to take time off work following his brutal murder
- Carson was murdered in cold blood on Monday, allegedly by Brian Dowling
- A ‘collective’ of his friends set up the GoFundMe asking for help to ‘offset the costs of working-class people taking time off work to grieve’
- They’ve raised $70,000 so far and are removing negative comments from the fundraising page questioning why they need the money
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The friends of slain Brooklyn activist Ryan Thoresen Carson have been eviscerated as “creepy con artists” after setting up a GoFundMe page for themselves so they could “take time off work” to mourn his death.
The fundraiser, initially set up with his girlfriend as the beneficiary, will benefit a “collective” of Carson’s friends.
Their goal was $20,000, money they said was needed to “offset the costs of working-class people taking time off work to grieve appropriately.”
The fundraiser, initially set up with his girlfriend named as the beneficiary, is on behalf of a “collective” of Carson’s friends.
As of Friday afternoon, it had raised $71,000 from well-wishers.
When critics began speaking out against it, the organizer, Tammie David Smith, removed negative comments questioning the effort from the page.
She has now deleted her social media accounts. David Smith did not respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com.
One of the complaints is that there is no mention of Carson’s family in Massachusetts anywhere on the page. His parents have not yet publicly commented on their grief.
Response: Critics questioned the fundraising on the GoFundMe page, but their comments were removed
Carson with his girlfriend Claudia Morales, who was named as the beneficiary of the fundraising page
Carson and his girlfriend were waiting for a bus in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, at 3:50 a.m. Monday when he was attacked.
Eighteen-year-old Brian Dowling has been arrested on charges of first-degree murder.
Police have yet to reveal a motive for the attack, but neighbors say they believe Dowling may have been under the influence of drugs.
He cried as he was led out of the 81st Precinct yesterday, and said nothing today when he appeared before a judge.
Carson was an ardent social justice activist who fought for openly supervised drug injection sites in New York City.
His girlfriend, according to now-deleted social media accounts, was a BLM protester.
The teen’s lawyer, Kenneth Montgomery, told the court it was the first time his client had been arrested.
Dowling, 18, was in court Thursday evening after being charged with first-degree murder
“This is a difficult case for several reasons that go beyond the tragedy of loss of life,” Montgomery told Judge Joshua Glick. “You have an 18-year-old man, a young man who has no criminal history.”
He asked the court to impose ‘serious bail’ because there was no risk of the teenager fleeing. He said: ‘His parents are here and I assure you there is no flight risk, he was arrested at his home.’
However, the lawyer’s pleas for leniency failed to convince the court as Judge Glick Dowling hit back “given the nature of the allegations and the narrative given by the people.”
When police served a search warrant on his home, a sweatshirt was also seized, along with the suspected murder weapon that matched the kind the suspect wore in the video of Carson’s murder.
Dowling’s home is a five-minute walk from where Carson, 32, was stabbed to death.