Two Colorado paramedics are being held liable for the death of Elijah McClain, the 23-year-old Black man who died after he was deemed suspicious and confronted by police in 2019.
The jury came down with its ruling on Dec. 22, concluding that EMTs Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper are guilty of criminally negligent homicide. The two paramedics faced criminal prosecution for the fatal incident along with three officers. While the jury acquitted Cooper on the assault charges, they also found Cichuniec guilty of second-degree assault, The Guardian reported.
The fatal encounter happened on Aug. 24, 2019, after police received a call about a suspicious person who was wearing a ski mask. Bodycam footage showed the officers stopping McClain and confronting him aggressively as he was walking home. Police told the young man that he was “being suspicious.” The officers then held McClain down while he was repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe.” Paramedics later arrived at the scene and injected the 23-year-old with a high dose of ketamine.
Prosecutors said Cichuniec and Cooper saw the officers pushing McClain to the ground, but they failed to check on him.
“We’ll just leave him there until the ambulance gets here and we’ll just put him down on the gurney,” Cooper said to police, according to the indictment documents.
Paramedics didn’t check on McClain for over two minutes after they arrived on the scene, the indictment adds. When they eventually checked on McClain, paramedics concluded that he was dealing with “excited delirium,” a term that suggests that people who take certain drugs have “superhuman strength.” California has banned medics from using the term because it has often been used to justify police brutality.
According to the indictment, Cichuniec ordered ketamine for McClain. Cooper then injected the 23-year-old with 500mg of ketamine as he was being restrained by officers. Cooper estimated the amount of ketamine needed after assuming that McClain weighed around 200 pounds. However, McClain weighed around 143 pounds. As a result, the amount of ketamine Cooper administered was about 50mg over the recommended dose for McClain’s size.
The Colorado man became unconscious again after receiving the drug and never recovered. The coroner’s office later concluded that McClain died from “complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint.”
One of the officers involved in McClain’s death was found guilty in October while the other two were acquitted. Police officer Randy Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault, as Blavity reported. Officer Nathan Woodyard, who first stopped the 23-year-old and placed him in a neck hold, was acquitted. Former Aurora officer Jason Rosenblatt was also acquitted.
