Polis döms för våldsamma insatsen mot Elijah McClain

Elijah Jovan McClain (February 25, 1996 – August 30, 2019) was a 23-year-old Black man from Aurora, Colorado, who died six days after a violent police encounter, during which he was injected with ketamine by paramedics to sedate him. On August 24, 2019, three Aurora Police officers confronted McClain after responding to a call by an Aurora civilian about an unarmed person wearing a ski mask that looked "sketchy". The three police officers who were involved in the incident, Nathan Woodyard, Jason Rosenblatt and Randy Roedema, all said that their body cameras were knocked off during a struggle with McClain. McClain was forcibly held to the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back, after which Woodyard twice applied a choke hold. Upon arrival paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec administered ketamine, later determined to be in excess of a therapeutic dosage, to McClain to sedate him. While on scene McClain went into cardiac arrest. Three days after arriving at the hospital, he was declared brain dead, and was removed from life support on August 30.McClain's initial autopsy was inconclusive and the cause of death was listed as undetermined. Aurora Police officers met with the coroner before his announcement, and police investigators were also present during the autopsy. As a result of a lawsuit by several news agencies, an amended autopsy report was released in September 2022 that listed the cause of death as "complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint".On June 24, 2020, after a social media outcry and Aurora lawmakers' requests for a new, third-party investigation into McClain's death, Colorado Governor Jared Polis announced his administration would reexamine the case. Five days later, photos were discovered that were taken in October 2019 and showed officers Erica Marrero, Kyle Dittrich and Jason Rosenblatt posing inappropriately and reenacting the carotid restraint used on McClain, taken at the site he was detained and ultimately, assaulted. One officer resigned and three were fired.In February 2021, an investigative report ordered by the City Council was released. The report said that the police officers involved in McClain's death did not have the legal basis to stop, restrain, or frisk him. The report questioned the police officers' statements, criticized the medical responders' decision to inject McClain with a sedative, and admonished the police department for failing to do a serious questioning of the officers following McClain's death. In September 2021, the three police officers (Woodyard, Rosenblatt and Roedema) and two paramedics (Cooper and Cichuniec) were arrested and charged through a Colorado grand jury with manslaughter and other lesser charges for the death of Elijah McClain. As of October 2022, all five of them were free on bond awaiting trial. As of January 2023, three trials are scheduled, the first is set to begin in July 2023 for officers Roedema and Rosenblatt, another for Cooper and Cichuniec is scheduled in August, and the third for Woodyard is in September.On October 12, 2023, Roedema, a resident from Thornton, was found guilty on charges of criminally negligent homicide and assault, while Rosenblatt was acquitted of all charges against him, including reckless manslaughter and assault.