Jury foreman speaks out on ‘frustrating’ Christian Glass verdict

When juror Kristi Englekirk watched the final violent moments in the life of Christian Glass, she cried. It was the first time she had ever seen the 70 minute body-worn camera footage that showed Glass in terror as a Clear Creek County sheriff’s deputy shot him five times that night.

“It is as clear as day this was a guilty man,” she said of the deputy.

But one juror out of 12 thought otherwise.

Englekirk was the foreperson of the jury in the murder trial of former Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Deputy Andrew Buen, 30, who was convicted Friday of reckless endangerment in Glass’ death, a misdemeanor. It was just one of three counts he was facing.

The panel could not come up with a verdict on the most serious charge against Buen, second-degree murder, or on a third count, professional misconduct.

Englekirk said that it was clear from the first hours of deliberation that one juror was not going to budge on her opinion that Buen should not go to jail for Glass’ murder.

“From the beginning, that person thought that everything the officer did was reasonable. ‘Cops can make mistakes,’ was basically the wording that the person used,” said Englekirk. This was upsetting to Englekirk, she said, because a mistake is “you forgetting to lock your door. A mistake is not shooting a kid in crisis to death.”

Finally, Friday afternoon, after 24.hours of intense deliberation over two-and-a-half days, a weary 10-woman, two-man jury told 5th Judicial District Judge Catherine Cheroutes that they were deadlocked on the two charges.

It was over. Buen walked out of the courthouse a free man, and drove away with his mother in the front seat. He told reporters that he would have no comment “at this time.”

“It was the most frustrating thing I’ve ever experienced,” said Englekirk. “We could not reason with this person.” She watched the lone hold-out go to Buen and shake his hand, something that floored her even more.

Englekirk and a handful of the panel gathered Sunday afternoon to speak out about what they called their “collective trauma.”

They said that they watched the police body-worn camera video of Glass’ death five times during deliberations to make sure of their decision. The experience was not like it is in the movies. There was no shouting and no one came to blows as they tried to convince the lone holdout that they thought Buen was guilty of all three charges.

The second day, Thursday, Englekirk said that the lone juror appeared overwhelmed and emotional and thus called a meeting with the judge asking to leave the case, but then she changed her mind and came back to the deliberation room.

For the next day and a half, the vote was 11-to-one and would not change. “This person should not have been on the jury,” said Englekirk, who is a criminal defense attorney.

Englekirk said she was surprised that she was not only chosen from a pool of 1,500 Clear Creek County residents, but was also named foreperson.

Despite the fact that Glass’ death has been in the national news, none of the jurors knew much about it.

The final 12 were whittled down from an original pool of 1,500 jury summonses that were sent out to one-in-six people who live in the county.

On the panel was a veterinarian, a nurse, a commerce banker, a consultant and two attorneys, including Englekirk and Hannah Robinson.

One mom brought her young daughter to the interview. All had partners who stood by for two weeks as their loved ones came home at night, sometimes crying but unable to talk about what they were hearing and experiencing. Jurors are not allowed to read anything about the case nor to discuss the case with anyone during the trial so they stay non-biased.

During closing arguments in the trial Wednesday, opposing attorneys agreed on one thing: Glass’ death was a tragic event that could have been avoided.

The fatal shooting occurred on a remote mountain road near Silver Plume just before midnight.

Glass had turned off of I-70 eastbound to avoid cars on the highway which he told the 911 dispatcher he thought were following him. He did a U-turn navigating the dark and got stuck in between two rocks. During the 10-minute phone call, Glass apologized, rambled about skinwalkers and said that he had recently experienced a “spiritual awakening.”

He also told the operator that he loved her.

When Clear Creek County deputies Buen and Tim Collins responded to what was classified as a “motorist assist,” 911 dispatcher Paige Kincade told the jury that Glass sounded paranoid and was making no sense.

A second 911 dispatch operator, Katie Culp, testified that she thought Glass was on drugs.

A little more than an hour of tedious negotiation later, Buen received the order from his shift supervisor Kyle Gould to break Glass’ passenger side window, which he did, setting in motion the final confusing and violent moments of Glass’ life.

In an attempt to force Glass to leave his car, Buen then shot six bean bag rounds at him and tased him. When Buen’s taser didn’t work, former Georgetown Marshall Randy Williams also tased Glass, who panicked and screamed, body camera video shows. When Glass waved his switchblade knife toward Williams through a broken back driver’s side window, Buen shot him five times with his service pistol.

The five shots took three seconds.

Defense attorney Carrie Slinkard said that Glass was suspected to have been driving either drunk or high, disobeyed Buen’s order to leave his car and eventually endangered Williams, which gave Buen reason to eliminate Glass as a threat.

On the other hand, 5th Judicial District Attorney Heidi McCollum said Buen did just about everything wrong during the encounter, starting with yelling aggressive commands to a frightened young man who was experiencing a mental health crisis.

Buen took notes and watched quietly as his attorney Slinkard explained that his aggression was “not a criminal issue. He didn’t know this kid. He had no motive or reason to kill him.”

She added that Glass presented a threat to the seven officers who responded to his 911 call. Throughout the nine-day trial, Slinkard noted that Glass had many potential weapons within reach, including several large, jagged rocks, a couple of knives, and a rock hammer.

Gould, who gave the order to breach Glass’ SUV window as he watched the event unfold over a live body-worn camera feed from his home, received two years of probation for pleading guilty to failing to intervene in excessive force by a peace officer.

The other six officers, from five different jurisdictions, have been charged with failure to stop the situation while it was happening.

Glass’ mother, Sally, testified that her son was on his way home from a three-day art retreat in Moab during which he was collecting rocks. Two of those were on the console of his 2007 Honda Pilot.

Sally Glass and her husband, Simon, sat in the center of the front row for the entire trial. During Wednesday’s closings, Simon Glass often leaned forward, his head in his hands. Although she knows what happened when her son died, Sally Glass sobbed as attorneys described what happened.

Buen’s mother has also been in the courtroom, sitting quietly in front of him with little emotion. She said that she wasn’t nervous about the outcome of the trial because it’s in God’s hands.

Defense attorney Carrie Slinkard implied to the jury that Glass was intoxicated that night, but the autopsy report showed that his blood alcohol level was .01. In Colorado, the lowest threshold for alcohol consumption a person can be arrested for is .08 or higher.

The autopsy also showed that Glass had some Delta-9 THC — the intoxicating element in cannabis — in his system and evidence of amphetamines, which could have been his ADHD medication.

Englekirk and the jurors who gathered Sunday afternoon said that whatever Glass may have put in his body that night did not make any difference. They discerned from the body-cam video that the 22-year-old was experiencing a mental health crisis.

“Christian was not well. He was asking for help,” said Englekirk.

On Monday afternoon, the 5th Judicial District Attorney and her team will be back in court to discuss sentencing and whether or not they will retry the case. If they decide to start over, they have 90 days to select a jury and try again.

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