Colorado paramedic to be sentenced in Elijah McClain's death, bringing case to a close

[April 26, 2024]  By Brad Brooks

BRIGHTON, Colorado (Reuters) - A Colorado judge on Friday is expected to sentence a paramedic convicted in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, the last defendant to face jail time for the young Black man's death.

McClain, 23, died after police slammed him to the ground soon after stopping him and put him in a chokehold at least twice. Paramedics injected him with an excessive dose of ketamine, an anesthetic used for sedation, after police said he was in a state of "excited delirium." McClain was not suspected of any wrongdoing when he was walking on the street and police stopped him.

The sentencing of Jeremy Cooper, 49, who faces up to three years in prison for his conviction last December of criminally negligent homicide, closes out the three trials around McClain's death. One police officer was sentenced to 14 months in prison, two officers were found not guilty, and Cooper's fellow paramedic was sentenced to five years. Paramedics rarely face charges in such cases.

Colorado has undergone significant police reforms since the killing of McClain and the following year's racial justice protests ignited by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Politicians and experts say even more must be done.

"It should not be the way that we have to make policy, to do so based on someone being murdered, like Elijah McClain," said Colorado state Representative Leslie Herod.

"But when Elijah McClain was murdered, we were able to make a lot of progress in a lot of areas that people wanted to ignore or say did not happen here in Colorado," the Democrat said.

Herod said one of the most impactful measures of a sweeping 2020 police reform bill she co-sponsored spelled out that officers have a duty to intervene if they see a colleague committing civil rights violations.

Herod said she is now focusing on providing whistleblower protections for police officers, and said new laws are needed to ensure, for example, that independent bodies investigate allegations against police.

Protesters gather for a rally to call for justice for Elijah McClain after Governor Jared Polis amended his executive order regarding the investigation of McClain's death, which has raised concerns that charges against the police officers involved may ultimately be watered down in Denver, Colorado, U.S., November 21, 2020. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt/File Photo

Among other Colorado laws and measures taken since McClain's death that even more directly stem from the details of his case:

- The banning of chokeholds;

- Prohibitions on police officers pushing paramedics to use the ketamine on a suspect;

- Banning police trainers from instructing on "excited delirium," which some experts say is a racially charged pseudo-diagnosis.

'BATTLEGROUND' FOR REFORM

David Pyrooz, a University of Colorado criminologist, said Colorado had some of the largest racial justice protests in 2020 outside of those in Minneapolis, and that the public pressure helped turn the state "into a battleground for police reform."

While that is positive, he said, Pyrooz cautioned that more scrutiny and regulation is going to lead some people to think twice about pursuing police careers.

Alexander Landau, co-director of the Denver Justice Project, a community group pushing for police reforms, said McClain's case also puts a focus on district attorneys - the elected officials who decide if charges are even brought.

In McClain's case, the local district attorney declined to press any charges, which were only brought after the state attorney general's office stepped in.

"Influencing broader community members to pay attention to those district attorney races, and who the candidates are, is very important to helping shift the violent and racist practices in any law enforcement department," Landau said.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Brighton, Colorado; editing by Donna Bryson and Aurora Ellis)

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