Former Colorado deputy Andrew Buen convicted on 1 of 3 charges in shooting of Christian Glass

The trial for a former Clear Creek County Sheriff's deputy who shot Christian Glass several times ended on Friday with a partially hung jury. A decision was not reached on whether Andrew Buen is guilty of second-degree murder or misconduct for his role in Glass' killing in 2022. He was convicted for reckless endangerment.

The jurors deliberated for several days before reaching their decision.

Buen was employed as a deputy with the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office in 2022 when, on June 10 of that year, he responded to a call of a disabled vehicle on the side of the road. Glass had gotten stuck while trying to turn around on a dirt road and called police for help.

Officers and deputies from several agencies, including the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office, Georgetown and Idaho Springs' police departments, Colorado State Patrol, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife, responded. 

Over the course of a chaotic hour of escalating tension, law enforcement officers ordered Christian Glass to get out of the car, but he expressed fear of being shot and didn't do so. His family says he was suffering from a mental health crisis.

In November of 2022, Buen and former Clear Creek Sheriff's Sgt. Kyle Gould were indicted by a grand jury and fired.

Closing arguments in Buen's trial took place on Wednesday, April 24.

Prosecutors said Buen gave 45 different commands to Glass in 9 minutes and wouldn't allow Glass to throw his knives out of the car for the officers' safety.

Glass was an amateur geologist and told responding officers and deputies he had two knives and other tools like mallets in his vehicle and was willing to through those out the car window before officers even arrived because he understood "the situation was a little dodgy" but was told to keep them with him in the car. That knife Christian offered to throw out the window is what prosecutors believe was the one he was holding as he lashed out after the officer smashed his windows in and tried to get to him.

In closing arguments, Fifth Judicial District Attorney Heidi McCollum said Buen ignored every attempt by Glass to comply with officers' commands.

"So he had a gun pulled on him," McCollum said. "Buen said 'We are going to have to get this guy out of the car.' And at that point, he did not have any legal right for that."

She characterized Buen's behavior that night as "unreasonable," saying other options existed -- such as talking to Glass and de-escalating the situation -- but were not employed. She says Glass had not committed any crime at that point and so deputies and officers had no reason to try to get him out of his car.

It was "unreasonable for Buen to make tactical decisions that were counterproductive and inconsistent to accepted police practices," she said. "It was for one purpose only: pure intimidation. He wasn't getting what he wanted by yelling (at Glass), so he tried to frighten him."

When the defense began closing arguments, Glass' parents and their supporters got up and left the courtroom.

Carrie Slinkard, a defense attorney for Buen, argued that every officer on the scene that night felt the shooting was justified. Those officers have all since been criminally charged.

Gould pleaded guilty to charges of duty to intervene and duty to report the use of force in November 2023. He was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and serve two years of unsupervised probation.

Slinkard says that Buen attempted to use a taser on Glass before shooting him, and fired beanbag rounds at him too, which she says shows that Buen did not set out to kill Glass since he tried using less-lethal means first: "Remember, it is only when Christian has the knife in his hand that shots are fired."

Slinkard says that because Glass was intoxicated, he was already implicated in a crime. An autopsy showed Glass had a low amount of alcohol, marijuana and amphetamines in his system at the time of his death, but outside experts told CBS News Colorado at the time that it might not have impacted the outcome of his encounter with police that night, saying the alcohol was a low amount, the amount of THC in his system, according to the report, wasn't clear if he had built up a tolerance to marijuana from previous use or was high that night, and the amphetamines tracked with medication Glass took for ADHD.

"Does Christian have the legal right to ignore a police officer? No," Slinkard said, continuing her closing arguments. "They say (Buen) was rude in the way he's ordering Christian. That's not against the law."

She says the prosecutors were trying to convince the jury that Buen orchestrated the events that night with the intention of killing Glass.

"There is not a police officer on duty who wants to do that," she said. "They never put their gun in their hip to murder a random civilian."

She said deputies and officers, including her client, took action to prevent Buen's death that night, before resting her argument.

Glass' parents Simon and Sally Glass were present at closing arguments on Wednesday. Simon and Sally Glass were visibly emotional during portions of closing arguments. On Friday, the family lawyer Siddartha Rathod released a statement to CBS Colorado:

"Based on conversations with the jury, it is our understanding that 11 of the 12 jurors found Deputy Buen guilty of Second Degree Murder within the first hours of the deliberation. This should send a message to Deputy Buen and the other criminal defendants that they will be held accountable for their actions."