A Colorado grand jury indicted three Aurora police officers and two paramedics in connection to the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old black man who was placed in a chokehold and injected with a strong sedative, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced on Wednesday.
Officers Nathan Woodyard and Randy Roedema, former officer Jason Rosenblatt, and paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Lt. Peter Cichuniec were indicted on manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.
Roedema and Rosenblatt also face a count of second-degree assault and one count of a crime of violence related to the second-degree assault of bodily injury charge. Cooper and Cichuniec each face additional counts of second-degree assault, which include intent to cause bodily injury and recklessly causing bodily injury by means of a deadly weapon.
Arrest warrants for all five individuals were issued Wednesday morning, according to the Daily Camera.
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In August 2019, a 911 caller reported a man wearing a ski mask who appeared “sketchy,” according to a federal lawsuit against the city of Aurora and the police responsible for his death filed by McClain’s parents.
Body camera footage shows an officer approaching McClain on a sidewalk and saying, “I have a right to stop you because you’re being suspicious.”
The three police officers tried talking to McClain. When he refused to stop walking, the officers move to restrain him.
In the ensuing struggle, one of the officers can be heard saying McClain was reaching for one of their guns. As he was handcuffed and pinned with a chokehold, McClain can be heard saying he can’t breathe and was just traveling home.
Paramedics arrived and injected McClain with 500 milligrams of the sedative ketamine, more than 10 times the dose for his 140-pound weight, before taking him to the hospital. He was later declared brain-dead and taken off life support.
Dave Young, the district attorney of Adams County, reviewed the evidence in November 2019 of what happened the night McClain died, ultimately deciding not to prosecute.
During the summer of unrest that followed the death of George Floyd, another black man, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis appointed Weiser to reopen the investigation on June 25, 2020, which led to the prosecutor calling a state grand jury in January.
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The Aurora Police Association, a union representing Aurora police officers, released a statement on Facebook standing by the belief Officers Woodyard, Rosenblatt, and Roedema did not kill McClain and that he died from a heart condition.
“Sadly, Mr. McClain died due to a combination of exertion due to his decision to violently resist arrest and a pre-existing heart condition,” the APA’s statement read. “He was alive and talking when the officers turned him over to EMS. There is no evidence that APD officers caused his death.”
Another civil rights investigation into McClain’s death was announced by the U.S. Justice Department and FBI.
