DENVER (KDVR) — The family of Christian Glass, a 22-year-old man who was shot and killed by a deputy last June after calling 911 for help, has reached a settlement with the sheriff’s office, county and city.
“Sally and Simon Glass announce that they have reached agreements to settle all claims relating to the death of their beloved son, Christian Glass, for the amount of $19 million with Clear Creek County, the State of Colorado, the Town of Georgetown, and the City of Idaho Springs,” a press release from Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC, the Glass family’s attorney, said.
Clear Creek County contributed the most settlement funds with $10 million “for settlement of the wrongful death claims for compensation directly relating to ‘personal physical injuries or physical sickness,'” according to a release from Clear Creek County.
“Anyone in the world can watch our son being murdered on YouTube,” Christian’s mother Sally said. “We’ve never watched the video. But I mean, it’s just the stuff of your worst nightmare.”
Sally added that the money is not the most important part of the settlement.
“It’s sad money, you know, you look at it and it’s Christian’s money, but Christian was awarded this money because he was murdered,” she said. “It’s a it’s a large economic settlement, you know, financial settlement. But more importantly, the value really for us is the non-economic terms.”
Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office also issued an apology, which stated that the initial press release “did not give an accurate description of what occurred,” and cited the conclusion of an investigation report from Douglas County Sheriff’s Office that said the deputy who killed Glass used lethal force that “was not consistent with that of a reasonable officer.”
Sally reflected on the apologies and said they were wonderful.
“I was quite blown away, actually, I thought that was really wonderful,” she said.
In addition to the $10 million from Clear Creek County, $5 million will be paid by the town of Georgetown, $3 million by the state of Colorado and $1 million by the city of Idaho Springs.
“We hope that it’s a message, a big enough message that people will look at this and say this was wrong,” Christian’s father Simon Glass said. “What can we do to stop this from happening in our police department or in our state?“
In addition to the financial settlement, there are also a number of measures aimed to honor Christian’s memory.
Those include a public park being dedicated to him in Clear Creek County, the creation of a crisis response team there, and training for all patrol deputies within the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office.
The state has also agreed to change the training that law enforcement receives. This means Colorado State Patrol will develop a virtual reality training scenario reflecting Christian’s killing, then teach how to de-escalate high-stress situations.
“The primary message that the family wants to communicate is that Christian was absolutely in no way responsible for his own death. He engaged in no behavior that would justify what happened to him,” Glass Family Attorney Qusair Mohamedbhai said.
His parents will be speaking to new patrol recruits within the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office and through a video presentation with CSP and Division of Gaming to explain their story and share the importance of an officer’s duty to properly intervene in these situations.
