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The parents of a 22-year-old Colorado man killed by a sheriff’s deputy while suffering a mental health crisis will get $19 million from government state and local agencies and changes to how officers are trained, under a settlement announced Tuesday.
The shooting of Christian Glass after his SUV became stuck in the mountain town of Silver Plume last year drew national attention and prompted calls to reform how authorities respond to people with mental health problems.
As part of the settlement, Sally and Simon Glass also negotiated for changes they hope will prevent another family from suffering a loss like theirs. 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 their attorneys.
The state of Colorado, which had three officers on the scene of Glass’ June 11, 2022 killing, in addition to those from local agencies, will create a virtual reality training scenario for the Colorado State Patrol based on the shooting that will focus on de-escalation in stressful situations involving officers from different agencies.
A video message from Simon and Sally Glass will also be shown to state troopers and Division of Gaming officers at the beginning of their active bystander training. The program focuses on encouraging officers to intervene if they think a fellow officer is going too far or needs to step away from an incident.
There was no indication from body camera footage that officers from other agencies attempted to stop the breach of the vehicle before Christian Glass was shot.
An attorney for the Glasses’, Siddhartha H. Rathod, said they hope hearing their story will help officers have the strength to intervene if necessary.
“Any of the seven officers there could have stopped this simply by saying something.
