DENVER — Thursday, a former Colorado sheriff’s deputy was found guilty of criminally negligent murder in the shooting death of a 22-year-old man who called 911 for help because his car got stuck in a small mountain town.
Andrew Buen, a former deputy in Clear Creek County, was not found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Christian Glass in June 2022. The case got national attention and led to changes in how officers are trained to help people in mental health crises as part of a $19 million settlement with Glass’s family.
The jury could have found Buen guilty of the less serious charge of murder, which is punishable by up to three years in jail.
As the decision was read, Buen stood with his lawyers on either side, his head bowed. He was then taken to jail, where he will stay until April 14, when he is given his term.
Police officers are rarely found guilty of murder, and the ruling in Buen’s case is part of a long trend of officers not getting harsh punishments for things they did while they were on duty. Philip Stinson, a criminal justice expert at Bowling Green University, says that cops have only been found guilty of murder nine times in the U.S. over the last twenty years.
The verdict on Thursday “is a typical result that we see.” “It happens a lot that an officer will only be found guilty of a lesser crime in these situations,” Stinson said.
Still, Glass’s mother said she hoped it would keep a similar tragedy from happening again.
In a statement, Sally Glass said, “Our son was murdered, and we pray that today’s verdict keeps another family from going through the pain we have.”
Prosecutors said that Buen made the situation worse than it needed to be with Glass, who was having a mental health crisis and refused to get out of his SUV near Silver Plume, a small former mine town in the Rocky Mountains west of Denver.
The defense said that Buen had the right to shoot Glass, who had a knife, to protect another cop.
Carrie Slinkard, the defense attorney, said, “Murder was never the right charge in this case, and we are grateful to all of the jurors for recognizing that.” She also said that the case would have effects on police across the state.
He was put to the test for the second time. A juror almost a year ago found him guilty of misdemeanor reckless endangerment for shooting at other police officers, putting them in danger. However, they could not agree on a murder charge or a charge of official misconduct. The prosecutors chose to try Glass again for second-degree murder only with the help of his family.
Police did not fully agree with the new verdict, but Heidi McCollum, the fifth Judicial District Attorney, said it makes Buen responsible for killing Glass.
“This could not be left out there for the community to see.” They needed an answer to what Andrew Buen did. “This trial was the answer,” she said.
A second cop who was charged with Glass’ death had already pleaded guilty to a lesser crime.
Glass told 911 that someone was following him after his SUV got stuck. According to Buen’s charge, he also said other things that made it sound like he was crazy, hallucinating, or paranoid and having a mental health crisis.
Glass wouldn’t get out when Buen and the other cops showed up. Body cameras on the police officers caught him making heart shapes with his hands to the police.
The police used bean bag shots and a Taser to shock Glass, but that didn’t get him out of the car. According to the indictment, he then took the knife he had offered to give up at the start of the fight and threw it at an officer through a broken back window. After that, Buen shot him five times.
Glass was heard saying, “Lord hear me, Lord hear me,” just before he was shot.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and sadness were both things that Sally Glass said about her son. She said that when he talked to the cops, he was “having a mental health episode.”
The $19 million payment for a police death in 2023 was the biggest in the history of the state. The county where Glass was shot decided to make a crisis response team and train and certify all of its deputies in how to help people in a crisis.
Three officers from the state were at the scene of the killing and decided to use it as the basis for a virtual reality training scenario for the Colorado State Patrol. The training scenario would focus on how to calm down officers from different agencies who are in a stressful situation. The main goal of the program is to get other officers to step in if they think another cop is going too far or needs to leave an incident.
A database put together by Stinson and other experts shows that since 2005, 205 non-federal police officers have been arrested for murder or manslaughter after shooting someone while on duty.
68 of them were found guilty of a crime. The punishments for the nine people who were found guilty of murder ranged from 81 months to life in prison, with an average of 18 years. There are still several dozen cases to be heard.
Stinson said that juries don’t often find people guilty of major crimes because they don’t want to question the split-second decisions that police officers make in potentially violent situations. In spite of more police body cameras and more public attention in the last few years, that hasn’t changed.
“A ten years ago, I thought we’d see more convictions,” Stinson said. “But what we’re seeing is normalcy in the police force.” Police work doesn’t change very often.
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