A Colorado sheriff's deputy has been sentenced to three years in prison after he was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide over the 2022 fatal shooting of a man who called 911 while experiencing a mental health crisis.
Andrew Buen, a former deputy with the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office, was sentenced by a judge on Monday, April 14, to the maximum possible sentence on the criminally negligent homicide charges - three years in the Department of Corrections with a mandatory parole of two years.
Buen was also sentenced to 120 days in jail on reckless endangerment, which will run concurrent to his sentence. He has already spent 54 days in jail.
Glass was Tased, Shot Five Times by Buen After He Refused to Get Out of the Car Out of Fear
In the early hours of June 10, 2022, 22-year-old Christian Glass called 911 after his car got stuck in an embankment near Silver Plume, Colorado. Glass' family has said he was suffering a mental health crisis at the time.
At one point during the call, Glass told the dispatcher he feared "skinwalkers" and that he was afraid to get out of the car. Body-worn camera footage released months after the shooting showed Glass expressing fear and unusual behavior in the standoff.
After he refused to leave his car for more than an hour, police broke Glass' window, at which point he grabbed a knife he had inside. Glass was then tased before Buen shot him five times, the outlet reported.
Buen was first tried in 2024, and found guilty of reckless endangerment, but the jury deadlocked on a charge of second-degree murder. In a second trial that took place in February, Buen was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide, the outlets reported.
Buen: 'I Wish I Could Take it All Back'
Following Buen's initial indictment, the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office said it had terminated him. "I wish I could take it all back," Buen said in court.
Other officers were also charged for their role in Glass's death. Former Clear Creek County Sheriff's Sgt. Kyle Gould pleaded guilty to an amended charge of failure to intervene and was sentenced in November 2023 to two years of probation with no jail time. Meanwhile, duty to intervene charges were dismissed for the two officers facing charges in connection with Glass's death.
