CLEAR CREEK COUNTY, Colo. — Clear Creek County Sheriff Rick Albers, who has been under fire over his handling of the June 2022 shooting death of 22-year-old Christian Glass, announced his retirement Wednesday evening.
Albers will leave office August 3, roughly nine months after being re-elected to a four-year term in November 2022. He has served in the Clear Creek Sheriff’s Office since 1980.
“It is with mixed emotions that I am announcing my retirement as the Sheriff of the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office as of August 3, 2023,” Albers wrote in a statement that was posted to the department's Facebook page. “To the former and current staff of the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office, I want to ‘THANK YOU’ for your tireless dedication to the Clear Creek County Community. It has been my pleasure to have had the honor to work beside you over the past 43 years.”
Albers’ office has been in the spotlight since body camera footage surfaced last year showing a Clear Creek sheriff’s deputy fatally shooting Glass during what his family called a mental-health crisis. The incident garnered national attention, sparked outrage and resulted in a record-setting $19 million settlement paid to Glass’s family. Two deputies were fired and indicted in the shooting.
Attorneys for the Glass family had previously called for Albers to resign. In a statement Thursday, the Rathoud Mohamedbhai LLC firm called Albers’ resignation a “step in the right direction.”
“Sheriff Rick Albers was responsible for the officers who murdered Christian Glass after he called 911 for help,” the statement read. “It was his responsibility to supervise, train, and discipline them and he repeatedly failed. His office also issued a false statement about Christian’s murder. A statement that he failed to correct until his officers were criminally charged. To date Sheriff Albers has yet to apologize for his actions in a meaningful way nor properly correct the record as to what happened surrounding Christian’s murder.”
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Clear Creek County is responsible for $10 million of the settlement paid to Glass’s family. Last month, county commissioners released statements publicly criticizing Albers for failing to accept responsibility in Glass’s death.
In an exclusive interview with Denver7 Investigates, Clear Creek County Commissioner Randy Wheelock said commissioners felt there had been a failure of leadership leading up to and following the shooting.
“What we said was that we considered it completely inappropriate, what he'd done, and that it was a failure of leadership,” Wheelock said.
Albers was just starting his third term in office as sheriff. A county spokesperson told Denver7 that commissioners will discuss next steps regarding appointing an interim sheriff and finding a new sheriff at its next board meeting on Tuesday.
