A historic settlement was reached after the death of Christian Glass, the man was shot and killed in the middle of an encounter with Colorado law enforcement. It happened in June 2022 in Clear Creek County and overnight a settlement with Glass’s family was announced for $19 million. It’s the largest known payout after a police killing in state history, topping the $15 million settlement. reached in 2021 for the death of Elijah McClain.
THE two former employees of the Clear Creek sheriff’s office charged in the case, Andrew Buen, 29, and Kyle Gould, 36, are still facing separate criminal trials at this time.
Clear Creek County
Clear Creek County also agreed to dedicate a public park in Christian Glass’s name, after his parents Sally and Simon Glass were consulted. We don’t know when or where this will happen.
As part of another part of the settlement, Clear Creek County will establish a crisis response team and train law enforcement officers, including State Patrol Troopers. Colorado, will change. The county has already been working on plans for this and a recent push in late 2022 was made to have someone immediately tapped for crisis response, in light of the Glass shooting.
Finally, the company representing Glass’s family said the Colorado State Patrol would create a virtual reality training scenario based on Glass’s murder, focusing on “de-escalation in a high-stress situation.” This will include a video introduction with a presentation by Glass’ parents, explaining the importance of an officer’s duty to intervene.
It came late the night of June 10 when Glass’ car broke down in silver feather. The 22-year-old called 911 for help, and police from Georgetown and Idaho Springs arrived with Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Deputies.
Glass was going through a mental health crisis. He told the emergency dispatcher he had two knives, a hammer and a rubber mallet. His family’s lawyer says it’s because he was an amateur geologist and they were tools to examine the finds.
Within an hour, officers told him he needed to get out of his car and refused to let him put his guns out the window to get rid of them.
Glass refused to leave the car. He said he was scared. As things escalated, officers smashed a window in an attempt to get him out, and Glass grabbed one of the knives. Officers then shocked him. Body camera video then showed Glass beginning to swing the knife wildly with his arm as an officer reached for him from the back seat. That’s when the body camera shows Buen standing on the hood of the car and films Glass several times through the windshield.
Clear Creek County
Glass’ parents – Simon and Sally Glass – say none of these police actions should have happened. Their family released the video where you can hear the Colorado State Patrol asking via dispatch comms if there’s a reason law enforcement officers need to get Glass out of the car in the first place and the deputy who answered said “no”. Glass’ parents ask that the other officers on the scene who stood aside and watched what happened and did not intervene be also charged.
According to the autopsy report, Glass died of 6 gunshot wounds. The autopsy also revealed that Glass’ blood alcohol level was 0.010 with Delta-9 TCH in his system and evidence of amphetamines, whose experts told CBS News that alcohol levels are low, amphetamines follow with his ADHD drug records, and THC needs more contextno matter what any of this has to do with him being shot while asking for help.
Clear Creek County Sheriff now apologizes for what happened, this is the first time he has publicly admitted that the initial press release sent out by the Sheriff’s Office “did not give a description details of what happened.”