Body-camera footage released this week brought new details in the death of Christian Glass after a Clear Creek County sheriff’s deputy fired five rounds at him in Silver Plume, a mountain town roughly 45 miles west of Denver. Glass’s parents, Sally and Simon Glass, are calling for prosecutors to bring criminal charges against the deputy.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday after the footage was released, the family sought to clear Christian’s name after they said law enforcement’s initial statement on the incident inaccurately portrayed him. The family accused responding officers of needlessly escalating the situation.

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“Omissions are as bad as outright lies,” said Siddhartha H. Rathod, the family’s attorney. “The police release failed to convey the entire narrative [ 
] that they were the ones acting aggressive and they attacked Christian.”

The Clear Creek Sheriff’s Office contends Glass “immediately became argumentative and uncooperative with the Deputies and had armed himself with a knife,” according to a June 11 statement on the incident. The release states Glass tried to stab officers after they were unable to remove him from his car by firing beanbag rounds and a Taser at him.

Heidi McCollum, the district attorney for Colorado’s 5th Judicial District, said her office will announce what, if any, action it will take once it completes a probe of the fatal incident with the assistance of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

“While we understand that public sentiment may desire this process to move at a more rapid pace, it is not in the interest of justice and fairness to the family of the victim for this matter to be rushed to a conclusion,” McCollum said in a statement.

McCollum’s office has contacted federal prosecutors and investigators, including the FBI’s Civil Rights Division, but a spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions as to the nature of their involvement. Glass, who is White, is an American citizen who also holds British and New Zealand citizenship, according to the family’s attorneys.

The Clear Creek Sheriff’s Office did not respond to request for comment.

Glass’s death is the latest fatal police encounter to draw scrutiny to use-of-force and de-escalation tactics by law enforcement as well as the question of whether police are equipped to respond to mental health crises — or if they should be the ones to respond to them at all.

In at least 178 cases over three years, law enforcement killed the individuals they were called to assist, according to an investigation by The Washington Post.

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The Glasses tearfully described their son to reporters as a sensitive, creative person who was coming into his own as an artist. Sally Glass said her son suffered from depression and recently was diagnosed with ADHD but was wary of characterizing her son as paranoid.

The family said they were frustrated the officer who shot their son was back to work within days of the incident and decried the number of civilian killings by law enforcement in the United States, a problem they say is not matched by any other industrialized nation.

“Police talk about training, but really, training is not enough. It’s in the recruitment,” Sally Glass told reporters Tuesday. “You know an aggressive bully is always going to be an aggressive bully, and I don’t know how you train that characteristic out.” Instead, she urged that police be paid better to elevate the status of the profession and called for departments to “root out the rot, and hire people with a moral compass and a kind heart.”

Body-camera footage showed officers responding to Christian Glass’s call and spent more than an hour speaking to him — aggressively and soothingly at varying times — as he sat in the driver’s seat. They tried to coax him out of the vehicle by offering him food, soda and cigarettes.

“I see you’re doing the heart thing with your hands,” an officer said after Glass curled his fingers into a heart shape from behind his driver’s side window when police had been on the scene for more than 20 minutes. “We love you too, we just want you to be safe.”

Glass called 911 on the night of July 11 to request help after he told the dispatcher his car became stuck in what he said was a “trap.”

“I’m sorry, I’m stuck in a dangerous place and I will be killed,” he told the dispatcher, repeatedly saying he was scared.

When asked if he had weapons, he replied he had two knives, a hammer and a rubber mallet along with some stones he had gathered on a recent excursion and that he would throw them out the window when police arrived. Glass’s family said he was an amateur geologist who had typical field tools with him in the car.

“I’m not dangerous. I will keep my hands completely visible. I understand that this is a dodgy situation for you guys as well,” he told the dispatcher.

Once on the scene, Clear Creek officers spoke to Glass for several minutes before one pointed a gun at him and ordered him out of the car. Still seated, Glass put his hands out in front of him looking distressed, according to body-camera footage.

Officers from different departments continued to arrive, where they took turns speaking to Glass in an effort to get him out of the vehicle. Glass refused, saying he was scared.

After more than hour, with Glass still refusing to get out, an officer smashes the passenger side window and fires beanbag rounds and a Taser at him as he screams. Officers yell that he has a knife in his hand and order him to drop it.

Glass, increasingly distressed, yells “Lord hear me” before an officer fires five shots through the windshield.

Glass’s parents said they are especially aggrieved that officers told their son not to throw his knives and hammers out the window when he first offered to disarm.

“I wish he’d ignored him and chucked them out the window, absolutely,” Shelly Glass said.

Use-of-force experts said they were similarly confused by the officers’ decision, with one telling the Associated Press that even though knives can pose a threat, the officers had chances to move far enough away to where they weren’t at risk.

“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,” Seth Stoughton, a use-of-force expert who reviewed portions of the footage for the Associated Press.

Rathod, the Glasses’ attorney, said police are heard on body camera acknowledging that Christian Glass had not committed any crime, so there was no reason for police to continue to try to force him from his car.

An autopsy report is pending, but Rathod said the family does not believe Glass’s state at the time was a drug-related issue.

At least 1,050 people have been shot and killed by police in the past year, according to an analysis by The Post.