Footage has captured the last moments of a terrified New Zealand man making heart shapes with his hands and pleading with police before he was shot dead in the US.
Christchurch local Christian Glass, 22, was shot five times after calling police for help to move his car that had become stuck in bush in Denver, Colorado, on June 11.
Officers claim he became ‘argumentative and uncooperative’ and had tried to stab an officer while his parents slammed police and demanded an investigation.
Newly released bodycam footage shows the moment officers approached Glass.
Footage has captured the last moments of a terrified New Zealand man making heart shapes with his hands and pleading with police before he was shot dead in the US
Christchurch local Christian Glass, 22 (right, with his father Simon), was shot five times after calling police for help to move his car that had become stuck in bush in Denver, Colorado, on June 11
When police arrived, Glass refused to get out of his car, saying he was scared as officers yelled at him to exit the vehicle.
‘Please, push me out, drag me out, I’ll follow you to a police station,’ Glass told the officers. ‘I’m so scared.’
At one point he can be seen praying with folded hands and saying, ‘Dear Lord, please, don’t let them break the window.’
He refused to get out of his car for more than an hour, before pulling out a knife, leading police to fire bean bag rounds and tase Glass before firing into the car.
Glass had initially called 911 asking them to help him move his car with the audio of the exchange made public.
He admitted he had weapons on him but explained he would dispose of them when police arrived.
‘I have a weapon on me, I will throw them out the window as soon as an officer gets here,’ he said.
‘I have two knives, and a hammer, and a rubber mallet, I guess that’s a weapon. I’m not dangerous. I will keep my hands completely visible.’
His parents, Simon and Sally Glass, are now demanding the officers be held accountable as state authorities investigate the shooting.
‘Christian was experiencing a crisis, and he called 911 for help,’ said the parents’ attorney, Siddhartha Rathod.
‘And yet these officers busted out Christian’s window, shot him six times with bean bag rounds, tased him multiple times from two Tasers, and then shot him five times.’
Clear Creek County Sheriff’s deputies shot and killed Christian Glass, 22, (pictured) after a one-hour stand off where he refused to get out of his car while holding a knife
Glass said he was scared to get out of his car as police surrounded him, with one officer standing on the hood of his car (pictured) as others tried to get him to exit the vehicle
Once Glass grabbed a knife, the officers fired bean bag rounds and tased him. After stabbing himself and swinging wildly, officers fired five shots into the car
The officers then broke through the window and pulled a dying Glass from the vehicle
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation handles police shootings, including the Glass case, but the family wants prosecutors to file criminal charges, Rathod said.
Heidi McCollum, district attorney for the Fifth Judicial District that includes Clear Creek County, released a statement Tuesday saying her office is investigating the case along with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Her office plans to eventually issue a report on the shooting or present the case to a grand jury, which would decide if indictments should be issued, McCollum said.
The Clear Creek County Sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
As officers broke the window in the car, Glass grabbed a knife and injured himself
Officers repeatedly yelled at him to drop the knife, and pleaded with the 22-year-old to get out of the car after he stabbed himself
Officers pulled Glass from the car as he was unresponsive following the shooting
Mr Glass condemned the action police took when responding to his son’s call and their failure to calm him down and de-escalate the situation.
‘Christian’s killing is a stain on Clear Creek County and on Colorado,’ Mr Glass said during a news conference on Tuesday. ‘It was a murder by a Colorado official that cannot stand. It is not right.’
Mother Sally described the police as bullies and called on the county to weed them out and replace them with kinder officers.
‘You know, an aggressive bully is always going to be an aggressive bully, and I don’t know how you can train that characteristic out,’ she said.
‘Pay more, elevate the stages of the profession by getting rid of [them] and hire people with kind hearts and a moral compass.’
Simon and Sally Glass comforted each other during an emotional news conference in Denver on Tuesday, where they demanded accountability for their son’s death
Rathod said Glass had no history of mental illness. When asked about Glass’s abnormal behavior, he said ‘unfortunately we are not ever going to know’.
Rathod released an autopsy report that found that Glass died of gunshot wounds. It said he had THC, a .01 percent blood alcohol concentration, and amphetamine in his system, the last of which Rathod said is likely from an ADHD prescription for Glass.
‘These officers took a gentle, peaceful soul and extinguished it simply because it was ‘time to move the night on,’ Rathod said in a statement, quoting an officer who told Glass to end the incident because it was going on for too long.
‘From beginning to end, the officers on scene acted unconscionably and inhumanely. The Glass family agrees with Colorado State Patrol’s on-scene assessment that Christian had committed no crime, posed no threat to himself or others, and there was no reason for continued contact.’
The shooting comes amid a national outcry for police reforms focused on crisis intervention, de-escalation and alternative policing programs.
Sally called the police bullies, with both parents describing the incident as murder
Attorneys Qusair Mohamedbhai, (left) and Siddhartha Rathod (right) released an autopsy report that found that Glass died of gunshot wounds
Sally Glass displayed a pendant of Jesus recovered from her son´s car that is engraved with the words, ‘Pray for us.’
‘We have to pray for us in America to make this a less violent country,’ Sally Glass said. ‘I think a lot of people now would agree that there is a systemic problem with policing: It´s too aggressive.
‘They escalate at every opportunity, and it looks like they are spoiling for a fight. … They should be protecting us, not attacking us.’
Glass said her son was ‘petrified’ and ‘paralyzed’ by fear the night he was killed.
‘I have a hole in my heart, and it will be there until the day I die,’ Glass said.
Glass’ autopsy shows five gunshots struck his chest, lungs, liver, spine and kidneys
In Denver and New York, behavioral health specialists are sent to 911 callers facing crises that police may not be trained to address or could even exacerbate.
Police haven’t said if any behavioral health specialists were called for Glass.
Use-of-force and de-escalation experts who reviewed the footage for The Associated Press said this case is an example of when a behavioral health specialist or crisis response team – programs becoming increasingly popular across the country – may have helped de-escalate the situation and avert Glass´ death.
‘There are some real red flags that suggest potential problems,’ said Seth Stoughton, a former police officer and leading use-of-force expert who reviewed portions of the footage. Stoughton testified in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who murdered George Floyd.
While police officers may be justified in using force once a situation has intensified, ‘it’s everything that we do before that in terms of de-escalation that can make those situations go a completely different direction,’ said Tamara Lynn, the executive council president for the National De-Escalation Training Center, who reviewed the footage.
In particular, both Lynn and Stoughton questioned why officers didn’t take Glass up on his offer, recorded by body camera footage, to disarm himself by throwing his knives out of his car window.
While a thrown knife can pose a threat, ‘officers have plenty of opportunity to maneuver themselves and put themselves in a position that´s not risky,’ said Stoughton. ‘I am kind of astonished that they did not take advantage of what looked like a very clear opportunity to have him separate himself from the weapons.’
Similarly, Stoughton wondered why they needed to break the car window. He said police don’t have all day to spend on one call, but questioned if they needed to.
‘It’s not clear to me that it should have gone that far,’ he said.