A grand jury has returned an indictment of 32 charges against agents and paramedics involved in the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old black man who was put in a closet by Aurora police and injected with a sedative during an August 2019 arrest, Colorado Attorney General announced Wednesday. Charges include homicide and homicide for criminal negligence.
McClain’s death gained much attention last year amid a national streak based on police brutality and racial injustice that followed the assassination of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Mary Newman
In June 2020, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser began an independent investigation into McClain’s death, and in January announced that a grand jury would determine whether the officers and paramedics involved should be charged. A local district attorney in 2019 had refused to file charges, citing inconclusive evidence about how McClain died.
Weiser said Wednesday that two Aurora police officers, Nathan Woodyard and Randy Roedema, former police officer Jason Rosenblatt and Aurora Fire and Rescue paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Lt. Peter Cichuniec have been charged with crime of homicide and another of homicide by criminal negligence. . Two of the officers face additional assaults and violence offenses, and the two paramedics also face assault offenses, in addition to offenses of causing reckless bodily injury with a deadly weapon: the sedative ketamine.
In addition, paramedics face assaults related to “intentionally causing stupor, unconsciousness, or other deficiencies or physical or mental injury” by administering ketamine to McClain without consent, for a purpose other than legal medical treatment.
“Nothing will get my son back, but I’m grateful his killers are finally held accountable,” McClain’s father, LaWayne Mosely, said in a statement to the Denver Post through his attorney, Mari Newman.
McClain had been walking home from a convenience store wearing a ski mask when someone called 911 to report a suspicious person. Three officers who arrived tried to arrest the unarmed man, using a carotid cellar – a technique that puts pressure on both sides of the neck – and facing him on the ground. Later, Aurora Fire Department staff injected her with the sedative ketamine. He suffered a heart attack and was later removed from life support.
Another independent research to the death of McClain, who was headed by a consulting firm
and was not responsible for determining whether a criminal offense occurred, it was found in February that officers used force or the threat of force “almost constantly” against McClain in the 18 minutes since he first approached time to the police until he was placed in a shack to be transported to the hospital. Officers justified the use of force by saying McClain resisted and showed extraordinary strength, but the body camera audio represented a completely different scenario, according to the report.
“The audio captured by the camera worn on the body contains two very contrasting narratives: on the one hand, Mr. McClain begged, apologized, and expressed pain, and on the other, officers continued to perceive resistance,” he found. the report.
The report found that officers took McClain into custody a few seconds after his interaction with him, did not assess whether there were reasonable suspicions that a crime had occurred, and continued to use force against McClain afterwards. to be justified. It was found that the paramedics who responded did not immediately attend to McClain, accepting the agents ’suggestion that he was experiencing an“ excited delirium ”without evaluating him. Paramedics also overestimated McClain’s weight before administering ketamine, affecting the calculation based on dose weight, according to the report.
“Our department has a solemn duty to pursue this case. We are not wrong, we recognize that this case will be difficult to process; such cases are always difficult,” Weiser said. “Our goal is to seek justice for Elijah McClain, his family and friends, and our state. In doing so, we advance the rule of law and the commitment that everyone is accountable and equal under the law. “.
Weiser said McClain “was a son, a nephew, a brother and a friend” who was only 23 when he died.
“He had his whole life ahead of him, and his family and friends now have to go on and live without him,” Weiser said. “His death is a loss to all of us.”
In a statement released on CBS Denver, the Aurora Police Association said “our officers did nothing wrong.”
“McClain died due to a combination of exertion due to his decision to violently resist arrest and pre-existing heart disease,” the statement said. “He was alive and talking when officers handed him over to EMS. There is no evidence that our officers caused his death.”
The three officers involved in McClain’s death were removed from patrol service in June 2020. One, Rosenblatt, was later fired when he sent a “haha” text message in response to a photo of other officers imitating suffocation used in McClain. The agents who took the photo were also fired.
Weiser’s office continues to investigate whether the Aurora Police Department has a pattern or practice of violating citizens ’civil rights.