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Jurors in December found emergency medical worker Peter
Cichuniec, 51, guilty of criminally negligent homicide in a rare
trial of paramedics in such a case. He faces up to 16 years in
prison.
Cichuniec's partner, Jeremy Cooper, 49, was also found guilty of
criminally negligent homicide and faces sentencing at the end of
April.
Their joint trial was the last of three stemming from the death
of McClain, who was not alleged to have committed any crime when
officers stopped him.
One police officer was found guilty of criminally negligent
homicide and sentenced to 14 months in jail. Two others were
acquitted.
Police confronted McClain in Aurora, near Denver, on the night
of Aug. 24, 2019, after a bystander called 911 to report the man
was dressed in a winter coat and ski mask on a warm night and
was acting suspiciously as he walked home from a convenience
store.
Police slammed McClain on the ground soon after stopping him and
put him in a carotid chokehold at least twice. He vomited into
his ski mask and repeatedly told officers he could not breathe.
The original autopsy conducted on McClain in 2019 found the
cause of death to be "undetermined." But a revised autopsy
report in 2021 concluded McClain died from "complications of
ketamine administration following forcible restraint."
Local prosecutors initially declined to file charges in the
McClain case. That changed following the May 2020 killing of
George Floyd, a Black man who died at the hands of Minneapolis
police.
After Floyd's death ignited global protests, Colorado Governor
Jared Polis in June 2020 asked the state attorney general's
office to investigate McClain's case. A state grand jury
indicted the officers and paramedics in 2021.
McClain's mother Sheneen McClain has said that "three out of
five convictions are not justice" and urged Judge Mark Warner to
give the maximum sentences possible to all those convicted.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Longmont, Colorado; Editing by
Donna Bryson and Cynthia Osterman)
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