The retrial began with opening statements on Feb. 7. 

Over the course of eight days, the prosecution and defense attempted to decode whether Buen acted in self-defense when shooting the man five times after he felt a nearby police officer was in danger as Glass slashed at them with a knife from inside his vehicle.

Glass had turned off of I-70 eastbound to avoid cars on the highway and got stuck between two rocks. Glass then called 911 for assistance and told the dispatcher that he thought people were following him, including “skin-walkers” who might be after him.

During the call, Glass told the dispatcher that he had multiple weapons, including knives and a mallet, but he didn’t plan to use them.

“I have a weapon on me and I’ll throw it out the window as soon as the officer gets here,” Glass said in the 911 call. “I’m not dangerous. I will keep my hands completely visible.”

During body camera footage shown Wednesday, Glass asked if he could toss the weapons out of the window with officers telling him no.

While the prosecution played the call, Glass’ mother got out of the wooden benches, turned around and placed her head on the seat. 

“It was a reported crash, but did they ask him how he got into that spot or what they could do to help him?” Kirwan asked. “It was a motorist assist. All they insisted on was getting him out of the car in 17 seconds.”

Buen was one of the first two officers to arrive.

Officers attempted to get Glass out of the car and to roll his windows down for more than an hour. Buen broke a side window, fired six bean bag rounds, tased and then shot Glass five times, killing him.

The prosecution argued that Buen had the worst line of sight when at the vehicle, not being able to know if former Georgetown Marshall Randy Williams was injured when Glass began slashing at him with a knife. Instead, he just fired.

“How are you going to stab somebody with any force ever out of the back window when you’re in the driver’s seat?” Kirwan asked the jury. “I didn’t do well in high school, but the physics doesn’t add up.”

The defense claimed that all seven officers at the scene considered Glass a threat, with several asking whether or not Williams had been hurt during the incident.

“In order to convict Andrew, you’d have to ignore every one of their perspectives — the people who were actually there,” Revel said.

Revel continued to tell the jury not to fall into a trap of hindsight and begin “Monday morning quarterbacking,” but instead look through the eyes of Buen, who saw Glass stabbing toward one of his fellow officers, not the “DA’s memory of high school physics and whether there was enough force to stab the chief.”

Prosecutor Steve Potts denied the hindsight bias, claiming that the entirety of the situation needed to be weighed and not just the seconds during the shooting.

Potts noted that if officers would have just stepped back and told Glass they would wait until he was OK, things wouldn’t have escalated to the point of the shooting. He said the situation was a textbook example of officer-created jeopardy.

“He wasn’t going to die in that car,” Potts said. “He wasn’t going anywhere. His car was stuck. But then, you break the window, shoot him with the beanbags and tase him.”

Revel also attempted to solidify Buen’s character and guilty feelings over Glass’ death, claiming that Buen thinks about the shooting every day since it happened and only acted out of necessity.

During the closing argument, Buen looked down, chewing his fingernails — a black cross tattooed on his left hand.

The defense noted that Buen made sure a medical team was staged and his supervisor was involved when approaching the situation because he believed Glass was having a mental health incident.

“People who are out to hurt people and make bad choices don’t make sure their supervisor is involved,” Revel said.

Buen also spoke with Glass during the standoff, offering him food and drink and telling other officers to turn off their sirens to not frighten Glass, according to the defense.

“There is no motive. The only thing that makes sense is that he was trying to defend Chief Williams,” Revel said of Buen shooting Glass. “Is it really realistic that everyone involved was acting unreasonably that night?”

Prosecutors disagreed, saying Buen was intimidating and yelling at Glass.

Overall, the prosecution argued that not enough had been done, with common sense going by the wayside when officers told him not to throw out the weapons and then ordered him to leave the car, despite no offenses being committed.

According to Potts, Glass said he was scared that police were going to shoot him.

“And, yeah, they did,” Potts said.

“The government was supposed to help Christian Glass. They didn’t. They killed Christian Glass,” Potts said in the rebuttal. “What this case is ultimately about is a failure. The failure was perpetrated here by Andrew Buen. Christian Glass was a boy in distress.”

The jury deliberated Wednesday evening and will continue Thursday morning, attempting to avoid another deadlock like last trial. The first jury deliberated for more than two days before telling the judge they were deadlocked on the felony charges.

The Denver Gazette reporter Carol McKinley contributed to this report.