A Clear Creek County judge denied the prosecution’s motion to simultaneously try six officers who were on scene the night Christian Glass was shot and killed by a sheriff deputy.

Clear Creek County Judge Cynthia Jones explained Monday that the jurisdiction’s courtrooms are too small and the six cases are too complex to try them at once.

“Every defendant has a different strategy, witnesses and experts,” said Jones, adding that the separate defenses may turn antagonistic and “may point fingers at each other.”

The six officers have been charged with failing to step in during the hour-long negotiation negotiation with Glass June 11 and 12, 2022, which ended with Glass being shot several times and killed. 

The charge, referred to as “duty to intervene,” is a Class 1 misdemeanor. Former Georgetown Marshall Randy Williams has an extra charge of third-degree assault for allegedly tasing Glass seconds before he was shot. 

The six counts filed by 5th Judicial District Attorney Heidi McCollum in November was the largest number of officers to be charged at one time under Colorado Senate Bill 217, the sweeping police accountability law which went into effect in June 2021, after the murder of George Floyd — a Minnesota man who died beneath the knee of a police officer as other officers stood by and did nothing to stop it.

Glass’ death happened a year after Colorado’s police reform bill was signed into law.

Glass, 22, was shot five times by former Clear Creek County Sheriff’s deputy Andrew Buen during an intense nighttime standoff on a mountain road near Silver Plume in June 2022. Glass had called 911 for help when his car got stuck between two rocks as he was attempting a U-turn to head home to Boulder that night. 

He was returning from a three-day art trip to Moab, Utah and, according to one 911 operator, was acting paranoid and “not making sense.” 

After more than an hour of failed negotiations to get a frightened Glass out of his SUV, Buen bean-bagged him, tased him and then shot him through the windshield.

In all, seven officers surrounded Glass’ SUV that night.

One — former Clear Creek County Sheriff’s deputy Timothy Collins — was standing on the hood of the vehicle, four were on the driver’s side and when Glass was shot, two, including Buen, were on the passenger’s side. Some of them had their guns drawn and others were trying to convince Glass to get out of his car. 

Fall-out from the incident

Each officer was in court with their respective attorneys Monday. The are: former Georgetown Marshall Randy Williams; Colorado State Patrol Trooper Ryan Bennie; Idaho Springs Police officer Brittany Morrow; Timothy Collins, originally a Clear Creek County Sheriff’s deputy, and two officers with the Colorado Limited Gaming Control Commission: Mary Harris and Christa Lloyd.

Collins was fired from the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s office when he was indicted, along with Buen, in November 2022, and briefly worked on the Georgetown force with Williams as his boss. Williams and Collins voluntarily stepped down from the Georgetown Police Department in February. 

Williams resigned Feb. 5 as Georgetown Marshall after 22 years with the force.

Collins resigned from the Georgetown police force a week later.

Buen was the first officer to stand trial on charges in connection with Glass’ killing, and his charge were the most serious. His first trial ended in a hung jury last month. After two-and-a-half days of deliberation, the jury could not agree on a count of second degree murder, nor on a count of professional misconduct.

All of the six officers may wind up taking a plea deal instead of going through a trial. Their trials were postponed until after Buen’s second trial.

Buen, 30, still faces those counts in Glass’ June 2022 death. He was convicted of one count of reckless endangerment in that first trial, a class 3 misdemeanor.

His second trial is scheduled for Aug. 12-30. 

One officer who was involved in the incident already took a plea deal. Kyle Gould, 37, was the supervisor who gave an order to “breach” the window of Christian Glass’ car. In November, he pleaded guilty to charges of duty to report use of force and duty to intervene in Glass’ killing. He was given a $1,000 fine and two years of unsupervised probation.

Glass’ parents received a $19 million settlement from Clear Creek County last year — the largest known police settlement in Colorado history.

The next court dates for Williams, Bennie, Morrow, Collins, Harris and Lloyd are in September.