Two Colorado paramedics were convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, an unarmed young black man whose case attracted national attention and forced public safety reforms in the town where he lived and died.
But the mostly white jury split on two assault charges against paramedics Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper after two days of deliberations. They found Mr. Cichuniec guilty of one of the assault charges, second degree assault for unlawful administration of drugs, but cleared Mr. Cooper of both assault charges.
The men injected Mr. McClain with the powerful sedative ketamine while he was in police custody in Aurora, Colorado, which doctors said left him near death. He died a few days later in hospital.
The trial, which lasted nearly four weeks, was a rare prosecution of paramedics and raised the question of the role medical personnel play in clashes with police and whether they can be held criminally responsible for their actions.
“The truth is now real and available,” said MiDian Holmes, an Aurora activist and friend of Mr. McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain. She spoke for Ms. McClain, who sobbed on the shoulder of Omar Montgomery, president of the city’s NAACP chapter. “We love you Elijah McClain.”
This was also the third and final trial involving Mr. McClain’s death; three police officers were prosecuted in two previous trials. A police officer was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault and will be sentenced on January 5. Two other officers were acquitted and one was referred to the Aurora Police Department.
Mr. McClain’s family and supporters, as well as activists who insisted that the police be held accountable for his death, said the verdict brought some measure of justice.
Firefighters and families of the accused filled the courtroom in support of the paramedics. There were gasps and screams as Mr Cichuniec, who was convicted on two counts, was taken into custody. Mr. Cooper was allowed to stay out of jail on bail.
The paramedics’ trial marks the latest chapter in a four-year saga that has rocked the city of Aurora and its embattled police force. Mr. McClain’s name and face became among the most recognizable during the social justice protests of 2020. Local and state investigations followed, and eventually police and fire policy changes followed.
The result is a partial victory for prosecutors, who have now won convictions against three of the five men on trial for Mr. McClain’s death.
“We knew these cases were going to be difficult to prosecute. We are pleased with today’s verdict and remain confident that bringing these cases forward was the right thing to do,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said after the verdict.
But the affair shook the rescuers who followed her.
“It seems like they put the blame on the paramedics,” said Douglas M. Wolfberg, a former emergency medical technician and founding partner of a Pennsylvania law firm that represents emergency medical services organizations .
Mr. Wolfberg said this case was the only one he was aware of in which paramedics faced such serious charges related to patient care. The verdict, he said, “would have repercussions within the EMS community.” This is a new calculation.
Aurora Fire Chief Alec Oughton said he was “deeply concerned and disappointed” by the convictions and disheartened that the paramedics had “received criminal sanctions for following their training and protocols in place at time and for making discretionary decisions while taking separation measures. second action in a dynamic environment.
Throughout the trials, Mr. McClain’s mother insisted that the five police officers and paramedics be held accountable. “None of them did their job that night the way they were supposed to,” she told the New York Times before the first police trial ended in a split verdict, adding: “They worked as a team to murder my son.”
On Friday, his supporters and activists found some comfort in the changes in policing.
“Unfortunately, the death of Elijah McClain is the reason why major reform is underway within the police department,” said Mr. Montgomery of the Aurora NAACP. “Hopefully his legacy is that other black people, other people of color, will have a public right.” security system they can believe in.
Mr. McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist, was returning home from a convenience store on August 24, 2019, when he was confronted by police officers responding to a 911 call who described Mr. McClain as “sketchy.”
Minutes after the stop, police forcibly arrested Mr. McClain and placed him in a carotid chokehold, a neck restraint that has since been banned in Aurora and other police departments. Paramedics then administered a dose of ketamine intended for a person weighing nearly 200 pounds; Mr. McClain weighed 143 pounds, the indictment states. He suffered a cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital.
During the paramedics’ trial, prosecutors argued that medical staff violated their own protocols and training as Mr. McClain’s condition rapidly deteriorated. In their testimony, the paramedics said they deferred to the police at the scene and took steps they believed could help Mr McClain.
Prosecutors argued that paramedics did not speak to Mr. McClain, touch him or take his vital signs before diagnosing him with excited delirium, a controversial condition characterized by physical force and exceptional agitation.
“It would have been better if they had never come,” State’s Attorney Shannon Stevenson said during the trial, referring to the paramedics.
Lawyers for Mr. Cichuniec and Mr. Cooper said the police were ultimately responsible for Mr. McClain’s death. They said paramedics followed protocols and were trained to use ketamine as a safe treatment for excited delirium.
The defendants said they tried to do their job but were hindered by police officers who they said refused to relinquish control of the scene or treat Mr. McClain humanely. Mr. Cooper said he saw a police officer throw the handcuffed Mr. McClain to the ground.
“I decided to back off,” Mr. Cooper said during his testimony, adding that the withdrawal was his way of trying to defuse the situation, and not an indication of patient neglect.
Mr. Cichuniec, the senior paramedic that evening, described a chaotic scene in which police struggled with Mr. McClain more than he had seen in the “thousands of combative calls” he had received. answered.
Jason Slothouber, the state’s attorney, spent much of the cross-examination highlighting inconsistencies in the paramedics’ accounts, using body camera footage and their prior statements to Aurora police investigators .
Mr. Cooper told investigators that after the injection, Mr. McClain continued to fight the officers.
But a video clip showed Mr McClain unconscious moments after the sedative was administered.
A few months after Mr. McClain’s death, a local prosecutor declined to file charges against the five police officers and paramedics. But after the 2020 death of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and the massive protests that followed, Colorado’s attorney general opened an investigation that ultimately resulted in a 32-count indictment.