CLEAR CREEK COUNTY, Colo —
The prosecution rested their case Friday in the trial for the former Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office deputy who shot and killed 22-year-old Christian Glass.
Judge Catherine Cheroutes denied the defense’s motion to dismiss the entire case against former Deputy Andrew Buen, who might take the stand to defend himself. The judge gave Buen more time to make his ultimate decision.
Buen is charged with second-degree murder, official misconduct and reckless endangerment.
Prosecutors say Glass called 911 for help after he got his car stuck on a boulder in Silver Plume in June 2022. He appeared to be experiencing a mental health crisis when several officers engaged with him for more than an hour. Buen then broke Glass' car window, shot him with bean bag rounds, and used a Taser on him before shooting him five times in the chest.
Defense attorneys for Buen argue that Glass was not experiencing a mental health crisis and that he was instead under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The question of whether Buen’s use of lethal force was excessive and unreasonable is up to the jury to decide.
Defense attorney Carrie Slinkard called her first witness Friday. Michael Albin, chief of police for the Michigan City Police Department in Indiana, took the stand as an expert witness in video forensics and human factors.
Albin testified that lenses of body-worn cameras are domed, creating a wide-angle lens distortion. Albin said he used a computer program to fix the distortion in Buen's body-worn camera video to more accurately depict what the human eye would see at the time the video was taken. The side-by-side video comparison of Buen's body camera video, corrected and uncorrected, was shown to the jury.
Albin testified that an officer takes in about 80.5% of available information from available stimuli on scene. He said a body-worn camera takes him less than that, approximately 60%, and concluded an officer should be able to see more of what is going on than a body-worn camera shows.
Albin also testified that it is "impossible" for him to determine how far away from Glass' car Buen was standing when he fired five lethal shots from his handgun.
The defense is set to call more witnesses when the trial continues Monday.
WARNING: The following video contains content that may be disturbing to some viewers, including gunshots, violence and graphic language:
In November 2022, a Clear Creek County grand jury indicted Buen alongside his supervisor, former Clear Creek County Deputy Kyle Gould, who wasn’t at the scene that night. According to court documents, Gould was watching the encounter with Glass via a livestreamed body-worn camera. He then gave the order for Glass' driver's side window to be broken out.
The 5th Judicial District Attorney's Office offered plea deals to both former Clear Creek County deputies in September 2023.
Gould pleaded guilty that November to duty to report use of force by peace officers - duty to intervene.
He was sentenced to two years' unsupervised probation and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine. As part of the plea agreement, Gould withdrew his POST certification and cannot work as a police officer or security guard in Colorado ever again.
Later that November, the DA’s office charged all six other officers on scene the night of Glass’ death for failing to intervene.
In May 2023, the Glass family was awarded $19 million in a settlement agreement with Clear Creek County, the Colorado State Patrol, the Georgetown Police Department and the Idaho Springs Police Department – all departments with officers on scene that night. Among the many non-economic terms of the settlement, Clear Creek County has implemented a crisis response team to respond to calls. It is the largest police misconduct settlement in Colorado history.
View a full timeline of events in this case here:
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