Denver The parents of a 22-year-old boy A Colorado man is murdered by a sheriff’s deputy while having a mental health crisis He will get $19 million from Colorado and local governments as well as changes to how officers are trained under a settlement announced Tuesday.
The shooting of Christian Glass after his car became stuck in the mountain town of Silver Bloom last year has sparked national attention and prompted calls for reform of how authorities respond to people with mental health issues.
As part of the settlement, Sally and Simone Glass obtain changes designed to prevent similar incidents. Clear Creek County will establish a Crisis Response Team and its sheriff’s office will train and certify all deputies in crisis intervention, according to documents released by Glass’ attorneys.
The State of Colorado, which had three officers at the scene of Glass’ murder on June 11, 2022 as well as law enforcement from local agencies, will create a virtual reality training scenario for the Colorado State Patrol based on the shooting that will focus on escalating stressful situations involving officers from various hardware.
Thomas Peppert / AP
A video message from Simon and Sally Glass to state troopers and Game Division officers at the start of their active training will also be shown to spectators. The program focuses on encouraging officers to step in if they think a fellow officer is going too far or needs to get away from an accident.
There was no indication from the body camera footage that officers from other agencies had tried to stop the officers from opening the vehicle before Christian Glass was shot.
Eyewear advocate Siddhartha H. Rathod, they hope hearing their story will help officers have the strength to intervene if necessary.
“Any of the seven officers could have stopped this by just saying something,” Rathod said of the shooting. “They want to enable law enforcement to be so brave.”
The settlement, which was also joined by the communities of Georgetown and Idaho Springs, is the largest in terms of police killings in Colorado, surpassing the $15 million settlement reached in 2021 for Death of Elijah McClain It is among the largest in the United States, Rathod said.
Clear Creek Sheriff’s Office
His law firm, Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC, said in a statement: “The size of the settlement reflects the grave wrongdoing and injustice committed by the officers who killed Christian, whose death shattered his family and left an immeasurable void.
Christian Glass should be alive today.
“This settlement sends a message that such injustice will not be tolerated, and that those responsible will be held accountable – including officers who stood by and failed to intervene to protect Christians.”
Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC also represented the mother of McClain, a 23-year-old black man who died in 2019 after police in the suburb of Aurora forcibly restrained him and a paramedic injected him with the powerful tranquilizer ketamine.
Former Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Deputy Andrew Bowen, who shot Glass, and his supervisor, former Sgt. Kyle Gold, both of whom stand trial in Glass’ death. Found a grand jury They unnecessarily escalated the confrontation after he called 911 for help. Gold was not at the scene but watched events unfold on body cam footage and authorized officers to remove the windows from his car, according to court documents.
Lawyers for the two officers tried unsuccessfully to have the charges against them dropped. While Bowen’s attorney objected to how the information was presented to the grand jury, Gould’s attorney argued that Glass needed an evaluation for drug, alcohol, and mental health issues and could not be allowed to leave.
In response to police killings of people with mental disorders, reformers have pushed for crisis intervention, police training in de-escalation, and even alternative policing programs in which mental health responders are sent to some emergency calls rather than law enforcement.
Some cities, including Denver, have programs in which emergency medical teams and mental health doctors can be dispatched instead of the police. But the area where Glass was killed, about an hour’s drive from Denver, didn’t have that option at the time.
Glass, whose car got stuck on a dirt road, initially told the dispatcher he was being followed, and made other statements the indictment said showed he was paranoid, hallucinating or delusional, and experiencing a mental health crisis.
Footage from the officers’ body camera showed Glass refusing to get out of his car as he made heart shapes with his hands for the officers and prayed: “Dear Lord, please, don’t let them break the window.”
After nearly an hour of negotiation, the officers decided to break into the vehicle even though there was no indication Glass posed a danger or suspected of committing a crime, according to the grand jury.
Once the window was smashed, body camera footage showed the officers slashing glass with a beanbag wound, then caressing it. According to the grand jury, Glass brandished a knife in “complete panic and self-defense” before curling up in his seat to thrust the knife toward the officer. Bowen then fired his revolver five times into the glass.
The grand jury found that at no time was the other officer “in imminent danger of being stabbed by Mr. Glass”.
“But as for Gould’s decision to remove Mr. Glass from the vehicle, there is no reason to believe that Mr. Glass would have posed a danger to any law enforcement personnel, himself, or any member of the public,” he said.
The body cam footage does not show officers from other agencies — including the Colorado State Patrol, Department of Games and police from the nearby towns of Idaho Springs and Georgetown — trying to stop the car intrusion.
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