WHY DID IT TAKE TWO YEARS TO CHARGE THE THREE COPS AND TWO MEDICS?

Three cops, two paramedics charged in Elijah McClain’s 2019 death 

 

By Emily Crane

 

New York Post

September 1, 2021

 

 

Demonstrators carry a giant placard during a rally about the death of Elijah McClain outside the police department in Aurora, Colo., on June 27, 2020

 

Three Colorado cops and two paramedics have been charged in the 2019 death of 23-year-old black man Elijah McClain after he was put in a chokehold and injected with ketamine.

Aurora Police officers Randy Roedema, Nathan Woodyard and Jason Rosenblatt and fire department paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec were indicted by a grand jury Wednesday on charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

 

Aurora Police Department officers Nathan Woodyard (L-R), Jason Rosenblatt and Randy Roedema

 

Roedema and Rosenblatt also each were charged with second-degree assault with intent to cause bodily injury and one count of a crime of violence related to the assault charge. Cooper and Cichuniec also each face three counts of second-degree assault.

McClain, who worked as a massage therapist, was stopped by police and put in a chokehold while walking home from a convenience store on Aug. 24, 2019 after someone reported him as being suspicious.

 

Elijah McClain’s mother Sheneen McClain at her attorney’s office on March 3, 2021

 

The 911 caller reported a man wearing a ski mask and waving his arms around. In the aftermath, McClain’s family said he wore a face mask because he had anemia and got cold easily.

Body camera video captured him telling police: “I can’t breathe.”

 

Elijah McClain was an unarmed black man who died days after he was subdued by three policemen and injected with a powerful sedative in August 2019

Elijah McClain went into cardiac arrest after being given 500 milligrams of ketamine. He was in a Colorado hospital for four days, during which time he was put on life support and declared brain dead 

 

 

Paramedics injected him with 500 milligrams of the tranquilizer ketamine to subdue him, which is more than 1.5 times the dose for his weight.

McClain went into cardiac arrest and was declared brain dead. He was taken off life support days later.

Then-Adams County District Attorney Dave Young declined to file charges in 2019 despite calling McClain’s death preventable. He said, at the time, there wasn’t enough evidence to prove the officers intentionally killed McClain.

Young, who was replaced as DA in January and now works as a prosecutor in a different county, cited an autopsy report that listed McClain’s death as “undetermined.”

After McClain’s death gained widespread attention last year amid the nationwide protests against racism and police brutality, multiple investigations were ordered – including a criminal probe by Attorney General Phil Weiser.

In announcing the indictments Wednesday, Weiser said “our goal is to seek justice for Elijah McClain, for his family and his friends.”

“He was a son, a nephew, a brother, a friend. When he died, he was only 23 years old,” Weiser said. “He had his whole life ahead of him.”

Colorado AG Phil Weiser discusses the grand jury investigation into McClain’s death on Sept. 1, 2021

 

McClain’s father, LaWayne Mosley, issued a statement saying: “Nothing will bring back my son, but I am thankful that his killers will finally be held accountable.”