Christian Glass Killing: Inside Quietly Announced Indictment of Two Cops

Journalists use the phrase “news dump” to describe a public agency’s release of potentially controversial material late on a Friday afternoon or just before a holiday — times when few people are paying attention to headlines.

The bulletin from the 5th Judicial District DA Heidi McCollum’s office about the November 22 indictment by a grand jury of two law enforcement officers from the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office, Deputy Andrew Buen and Sergeant Kyle Gould, in connection with the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Christian Glass certainly fits this definition. The email blast went out at 10:47 p.m. November 23, on the eve of Thanksgiving weekend, after the last local TV newscasts for the evening had already concluded. The result was extremely limited coverage on Thanksgiving, one of the lowest news-consumption days of the year.

John Bryan, spokesperson for the district attorney’s office, denies any intention of sneaking this development past most members of the public. “I sent out the press release as soon as it was ready to go,” he says. “There’s no backstory to it. That’s the truth of what happened.”

Attorney Siddhartha Rathod of Denver-based Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC, which represents Glass’s family, refrains from criticizing the unusual distribution of details. “We are not in a position to comment on the timing of the announcement of charges, as we were not privy to those decisions,” he says. But after offering appreciation of McCollum’s work “in bringing charges in this matter,” he adds: “No charges will bring Christian back to his family, and all five of the agencies and seven officers present must be held accountable.”

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