GEORGETOWN, Colo — The foreperson on a jury that couldn’t reach a verdict on key counts in the trial of Andrew Buen said a holdout juror appeared biased and shouldn’t have been on the jury.
Kristi Englekirk, a defense attorney, was selected foreperson on Wednesday, when the jury began deliberating the case that revolves around the 2022 shooting death of Christian Glass after he called 911 for help during an apparent mental health crisis.
The jury voted to convict Buen on one of the three counts: reckless endangerment. But the jury hung on second-degree murder and official misconduct.
“[The holdout juror] very quickly from the beginning took the position of everything that this police officer did was reasonable,” Englekirk said in her first interview since the trial. “Cops can make mistakes, was basically the wording they used. That choice of the word 'mistake' was really upsetting for me because I think a mistake is you forget to lock your door or you turn left instead of turning right. A mistake isn’t shooting a kid in crisis to death. And that became their standpoint for the rest of the deliberations.”
Englekirk said it was clear within 30 minutes of deliberations that 10 of the 12 jurors believed Buen was guilty of second-degree murder, the most serious of the three charges he faced.
"Looking at what the law says, and looking at the evidence in front of us, it was clear as day to 10 of us that this is a guilty man," she said.
She said one of the two jurors who initially voted not to convict eventually changed their vote, willing to convict Buen of a lesser charge, criminally negligent homicide.
But the holdout juror wouldn’t budge.
“It seemed like this person potentially had an agenda getting on the jury, clearly had bias that they would not admit to, and it got very, very frustrating,” Englekirk said. “It very clearly was a bias that cops can do no wrong. Cops have complete immunity and cops can make mistakes.”
Reaction to the video
Englekirk said she hadn’t heard of the Glass case and hadn’t watched the body camera video until she sat through jury selection. She said by the end of the trial, she had watched the shooting five times through the presentation of body camera video, a key piece of evidence in the case.
“It was hard to watch,” she said. “It was devastating. Especially seeing the way that Christian was acting, it was clear that he was in crisis.”
She said in her mind, Buen did not act as a reasonable police officer at all during the call.
“The second that he got on scene, he was aggressive,” Englekirk said. “He was mean. He was intimidating. He never tried to deescalate the situation. And he kept increasing the level of force that he was using for no apparent reason.”
Glass called 911 for help after he got his car stuck on a boulder in Silver Plume. Buen refused an offer from Glass to throw his rock-hunting knives out of the window. He continued to order Glass out of the car, eventually breaking his window, shooting him with bean bag rounds, tasing him and then shooting him five times in the chest after he said he saw Glass make a motion with a knife toward another officer outside his driver’s side window. Five other officers with weapons drawn that night did not shoot.
“It was clear that Christian was in crisis,” Englekirk said. “I don't care whether that was drugs, I don't care if it was alcohol. I don't care if it was a mental health crisis. He was not well. And it was evident from the second that the police got on scene that he was not well. It was evident from the 911 call that he was not well. And I think that police, when someone is in crisis like that, we need to expect them to treat people better.”
“I keep thinking if my friend or my future child or my brother or my whoever is in this situation and calls the police for help, I don’t want this to be what happens to them. And that’s what’s terrifying that if we say that this is OK, I’m not telling my kids to call the police for help, because this is terrifying.”
Inside the jury room
Englekirk said the holdout juror wanted the jury to return a hung verdict right away. But she said she tried to work with the juror, reading the law and explaining the evidence. But two and a half days of deliberation later, the juror still wouldn’t agree.
“I even posed a general hypothetical to this person saying if I’m in that officer’s position just as a regular human being, not as an officer, and I have the choice to shoot and kill this person versus the risk of maybe my friend getting slashed by a knife - every day I’m choosing for my friend to get slashed by that knife. And I posed that to this person and they said no,” she said. “The fact that this person would say that’s OK and that’s what they would do - I don’t know how to talk to someone like that. I don’t know how to continue to reason with someone like that.”
In the end, the jury returned a hung verdict. Englekirk said she watched as the juror in question made a point to shake Buen’s hand after the verdict was announced.
Englekirk, in tears in the jury box, said she wanted to seek out the DA and the Glass family.
“I am so sad for his family that they had to go through this and that we could not get a conviction for a man that seems so clearly guilty. I was sad and I was frustrated and I just… it felt almost hopeless," she said.
She said she believes another jury would have convicted Buen. And she hopes that sharing the verdict vote will make Buen think twice about another trial.
“I hope that Buen will just plead guilty because the family has been through so much and I think it would be really hard on the family to have to sit through that again,” she said. “And I’m hoping he sees this message and knows he was about to be convicted of murder and that he takes a deal and doesn’t put the family through this.”
“This isn't how police officers should be acting," she said. "I have had plenty of clients with mental health issues where I've seen police officers treat them with care, and with dignity and with respect, and where they weren't shot to death.”
Full timeline of events in this case:
SUGGESTED VIDEOS: Christian Glass shooting