Police Shootings / Possible Abuse Threads [merged]

Seven officers from a half-dozen agencies crowded around a car just after midnight on June 11, 2022 near a tiny old mining town in Colorado.

Behind the wheel was Christian Glass, a scared 22-year-old who’d called 911 after his car became stuck on rocks; he was having some type of mental health crisis, repeatedly telling officers he was afraid to get out of the car.

He’d committed no crime, but Clear Creek Sgt Kyle Gould, supervising remotely, gave his deputies permission to breach the vehicle.

They first alternated between coaxing and sternly ordering Christian out, and then, about an hour after they arrived and joined by officers from other agencies, more aggressively demanded that he exit.

Officers swarmed the car as Christian became more terrified in the driver’s seat. One jumped on the hood, and two more deployed tasers – as Christian cried, prayed and screamed, thrashing around inside the vehicle while clutching a small geological knife he’d earlier offered to toss out of the car.

The man who’d told him not to throw it, Clear Creek deputy Andy Buen, fired five shots into the vehicle, killing. Christian had never left the car.

“Oh my god,” one officer can be heard saying in the body camera footage. “What did we do?”

Within months, Buen was charged with second-degree murder, official misconduct and reckless endangerment; his next court date is days before Christmas.

Gould pleaded guilty on 16 November to duty to intervene and report excessive force – agreeing never to serve again as a security or law enforcement officer.

Now the additional six officers at the scene have been charged with the same offence – a development Christian’s family has been pushing for since his killing.

The officers are being prosecuted under legislation passed by Colorado lawmakers in 2020, in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Elijah McClain and similar incidents of violent police brutality across the country.

At least 17 other states have also mandated duty to intervene laws in the same time period, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and what happens in Colorado with these officers may indicate how the laws play out across the nation.

Successful prosecutions – and punishments that could permanently end law enforcement careers – mark a new step in increased and more proactive self-policing, but prosecutors are also faced with choosing just how wide to cast the net.

The laws enshrine the duty to intervene that many agencies already had “on the books” – but “just because that policy was there doesn’t mean that it had been followed or that there were any repercussions when it was broken,” Colorado State Rep. Leslie Herod, who helped spearhead and push through the legislation, told The Independent.

Now, it is spelled out explicitly in statutes that officers must intervene if witnessing the use of excessive force by another – and if they’re convicted of failing to do so, then their careers in law enforcement are over.……

https://www.the-independent.com/new...-duty-intervene-police-shooting-b2460509.html