BRIGHTON, Colo. (AP) — Two Denver-area paramedics were convicted Friday in the 2019 murder of Elijah McClain, who was injected with an overdose of the sedative ketamine after police restrained him by the neck.
It was the latest trial against police officers and paramedics charged in the death of McClain, a 23-year-old Black man whose case received little attention until protests over the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. An Aurora police officer was found guilty of third-degree murder and assault earlier this year, while two officers were acquitted. This case stands out because it was the first of several recent criminal prosecutions in the U.S. against medical first responders that went to trial, potentially setting the bar for prosecutors in future cases.
The jury found Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec guilty of criminally negligent homicide after a week-long trial in state district court. The jury also found Cichuniec guilty of one of two counts of second-degree assault. Cooper was found not guilty of assault charges. They could face years in prison at sentencing.
Paramedics Jeremy Cooper, far left, and Peter Cichuniec, far right, enter the courthouse in Brighton, Colorado. AP
The verdict was announced after two days of deliberations. When jurors told the judge Friday afternoon that they were stuck on one of the counts, the judge told them to keep trying to reach a verdict.
Police stopped McClain while walking home from a convenience store on Aug. 24, 2019, following a suspicious person report. After one officer said McClain grabbed an officer’s gun, a claim disputed by prosecutors, another officer grabbed him by the neck, rendering him temporarily unconscious. Officers also restrained McClain before Cooper injected him with an overdose of ketamine. Cichuniec was the senior officer and said it was his decision to use ketamine.
Prosecutors said paramedics failed to perform basic medical checks on McClain, such as taking his pulse, before giving him ketamine. The dose was too much for someone his size: 140 pounds (64 kilograms), experts testified. Prosecutors say they also did not monitor McClain immediately after giving him the sedative, but instead left him lying on the floor, making it difficult for him to breathe.
Police stopped Elijah McClain while he was walking home from a convenience store. Via REUTERS
McClain’s pleading words captured on police body camera video, “I’m introverted and different,” struck a chord with protesters and people across the country.
In a statement released before the verdict, McClain’s mother, Sheneen, said everyone present during her son’s police detention showed a lack of humanity.
“You cannot blame your job training for your indifference to evil or your participation in evil action,” McClain wrote. “That is completely up to them. May all their souls rot in hell when their time comes.”
Defense attorneys argued that paramedics followed their training in administering ketamine to McClain after diagnosing him with “excited delirium,” a controversial condition that some say is unscientific and has been used to justify excessive use of force.
Sheneen McClain, Elijah’s mother, leaves the courthouse in October. AP
The verdicts came after a Washington state jury on Thursday acquitted three police officers of all criminal charges in the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis, a Black man who was electrocuted, beaten and pinned face down on a sidewalk. of Tacoma as he begged to be allowed to breathe.
In the Colorado case, prosecutors said Cooper lied to investigators to try to cover up his actions, telling detectives that McClain was actively resisting when he decided to inject McClain with ketamine, even though body camera showed McClain lying down. on the ground unconscious. He also disputed Cooper’s claim that McClain tried to escape from police restraining him and that he took McClain’s pulse as he leaned over to give him the ketamine injection, which others testified they did not see.
“You are trying to cover up the recklessness of your conduct,” Deputy Attorney General Jason Slothouber told jurors in his closing statements.
A march after McClain’s death in 2020. AP
Cichuniec, who testified alongside Cooper this week, said paramedics were trained to work quickly to treat excited delirium with ketamine so patients could be taken to the hospital for treatment. He also said they were told numerous times that it was a safe and effective drug and were not warned about the possibility of it killing anyone.
“We were taught that it is a safe drug and that it will not kill you,” he testified.
The trial against the paramedics explored largely uncharted legal territory because, experts say, it is rare for medical first responders to face criminal charges. It was the first of several recent cases in which criminal charges against medical first responders went to trial, and experts said it could set the standard for prosecutors in future cases.
In 2019, local authorities decided not to file criminal charges because the coroner’s office could not determine exactly how McClain, a massage therapist, died. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis ordered state Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office to re-examine the case in 2020, and a grand jury indicted the officers and paramedics in 2021.
Fire Lt. Peter Cichuniec testified this week. AP paramedic Jeremy Cooper was found guilty on Friday. AP
The killings of McClain, Floyd and others sparked a wave of legislation that placed limits on the use of neck restraints in more than two dozen states. Colorado now tells paramedics not to administer ketamine to people suspected of having a controversial condition known as excited delirium, which has symptoms including increased strength and has been associated with racial bias against black men.
When police detained McClain, he was listening to music and was wearing a mask that covered most of his face because he had a blood circulation disorder. The police stop quickly turned physical after McClain, apparently caught off guard, asked to be left alone. He had not been accused of committing any crime.
Officers told investigators they took McClain to the ground after hearing Officer Randy Roedema say, “He grabbed your armed guy.” Roedema later said Officer Jason Rosenblatt’s gun was the target.
Cooper, right, was one of the paramedics who injected McClain with ketamine. REUTERS
The paramedic injected McClain with ketamine while Roedema, and another officer, who was not charged, held him on the ground. McClain went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and died three days later.
Roedema was found guilty earlier this month on the least serious of a series of charges he could have faced, which could lead to a sentence ranging from probation to prison.
Rosenblatt and Officer Nathan Woodyard were acquitted of all charges.
In the first two trials, the defense attempted to blame the paramedics for McClain’s death. Prosecutors refuted that McClain ever attempted to grab an officer’s gun and that it cannot be seen on body camera footage.
In 2021, the city of Aurora agreed to pay $15 million to settle a lawsuit brought by McClain’s parents.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn