Three police officers and two paramedics will face murder charges in the death of a "gentle and kind" Colorado man.
Aurora police officers Randy Roedema, Nathan Woodyard, and Jason Rosenblatt, as well as fire department paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec, were charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide by a grand jury on Wednesday.
Officers physically held Elijah McClain to the ground during an incident in Aurora, Colorado in August 2019 after a 911 caller said he "looked sketchy" because he was wearing an open-face ski mask. McClain was unarmed and had committed no crime.
Because he had anemia that led him to get cold easily, the 23-year-old massage therapist, who was on his way home from picking up an iced tea for his brother, wore the mask frequently.
Paramedics delivered a high dosage of ketamine to sedate McClain while officers used a chokehold to restrain him. He went into cardiac arrest shortly after and died six days later in the hospital.
In the aftermath of McClain's death, stories about him, a vegetarian and pacifist characterized by family and friends as a kind and compassionate introvert, flooded social media, with friends recalling how he volunteered to play his violin to calm kittens at an animal shelter.
Even as the officers were holding him down, McClain could be heard apologizing to them, saying, "I'm just different." That is all there is to it. Please accept my heartfelt apologies. I don't have a weapon. That's not something I do. I don't engage in any combat. Why are you attempting to harm me? I'm not even a fly killer! I'm not a meat-eater! But I don't pass judgment on others, including those who eat meat. Please accept my apologies. All I wanted to do was get better... You're all great. You are stunning, and I adore you. Please try to overlook my mistakes. My zodiac sign is Gemini, and I'm a moody person. Sorry for the inconvenience. “Please accept my heartfelt apologies.”
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser stated during a press conference on Wednesday that the purpose was to seek justice for McClain and his family.
Weiser described him as a son, nephew, brother, and friend. “He had his entire life in front of him.”
“(Ms. McClain) is overwhelmed emotionally by this news and appreciates the hard work of Phil Weiser and the rest of his team,” a lawyer representing McClain's mother, Sheneen McClain, said in a statement. There isn't a day that goes by when she isn't thinking about her son Elijah.”
According to Alex Piquero, a criminologist at the University of Miami, police seldom face criminal charges in on-duty killings, and paramedics are practically never penalized.
He stated, "It's a pretty big deal." The fact that a grand jury looked at the evidence and chose what charges to file shows that the case is strong, according to Piquero.
Following the murder of George Floyd, police departments and some jurisdictions, including Colorado, have prohibited the chokehold employed on McClain.
