A former Colorado sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot a 22-year-old man who was experiencing a mental health crisis on a dark mountain road in 2022 was convicted Thursday of criminally negligent homicide.
The former deputy, Andrew Buen, could face up to three years in prison when he is sentenced on April 14, according to the Clear Creek County District Attorney’s Office. The jury declined to convict him on the more serious charge of second-degree murder in the killing of Christian Glass, whose death prompted scrutiny of how the police handle crisis intervention, prompted changes to how officers train for similar situations and resulted in a $19 million settlement for Mr. Glass’s parents.
Last year, Mr. Buen was found guilty of reckless endangerment in connection with the shooting, but the jury could not reach a verdict on the second-degree murder charge, which carries a maximum penalty of 48 years in prison. That set up this month’s trial, which lasted two weeks.
Mr. Glass’s father, Simon Glass, said Thursday that conviction of Mr. Buen had brought him significant relief.
“We don’t have to be constantly worrying, ‘Will he get away with it?’” Simon Glass, 56, said by phone after attending the trial. “The jury probably showed him a little more mercy than he showed our son, but it’s a conviction.”
A lawyer for Mr. Buen, Mallory Revel, said in a statement that a murder count “was never the appropriate charge in this case, and we are grateful to all of the jurors for recognizing that.”
“This case will have far-reaching implications for law enforcement throughout Colorado, but we respect the judicial system,” Ms. Revel added.
In an interview, the Clear Creek County district attorney, Heidi McCollum, said, “I stand by the action that my office took.”
“Hopefully this brings about more closure, if that is possible, to the Glass family,” Ms. McCollum added.
Eight law enforcement officers were charged in the case, according to the district attorney’s office, and four of the cases are still pending. Six officers who were at the scene were charged in November 2023 with one count each of failure to intervene, a misdemeanor.
Mr. Buen was the lone officer who shot Christian Glass, and he was the only one who faced a murder charge, according to the district attorney’s office. Another deputy, Kyle Gould, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors: reckless endangerment and failure to intervene. He was not sentenced to prison time.
Mr. Glass called 911 on the night of June 10, 2022, when his Honda Pilot became stuck on an embankment near Silver Plume, Colo., a former mining camp about 45 miles west of Denver.
He had become stuck while attempting a three-point turn and had panicked, his father said in the interview. During a call with a dispatcher, Mr. Glass said that his S.U.V. was stuck in a “trap” and that he was coming out of a depression.
Officers from five law enforcement agencies responded.
Over the course of an hour, they tried to get Mr. Glass, who had a knife, to leave his vehicle and drop the knife. They used a stun gun and fired beanbag rounds when he did not follow their orders to leave the vehicle, according to body camera footage.
Mr. Buen broke the front passenger-side window with a baton, according to the district attorney’s office. Video showed Mr. Glass twisting in his seat and swinging an arm at the broken window.
Mr. Buen then shot Mr. Glass five times with his service pistol. Mr. Glass was pronounced dead at the scene.
Mr. Glass’s legal team has said the officers needlessly escalated the situation and used unnecessarily aggressive tactics during the encounter, which lasted about 70 minutes.
Mr. Buen returned to work with Clear County Sheriff’s Office after the shooting but was fired in November 2022 after an indictment against him was made public.
Since 2005, nine law enforcement officers in the United States have been convicted of murder over actions they took on duty, according to a tally by Philip M. Stinson, a criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.
Sixty-nine officers charged with homicide offenses have been convicted of any crimes in connection with on-duty shootings since 2005, Mr. Stinson said.
“This is unusual,” he said. “It takes such an extraordinary fact pattern for an officer to be charged in one of these cases.”
Siddhartha H. Rathod, a lawyer for the Glass family, said the conviction of Mr. Buen on Thursday sent a “clear message to law enforcement that they are not above the law.”
