{"id":12462,"date":"2023-10-13T05:33:19","date_gmt":"2023-10-13T05:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.funminews.com\/?p=12462"},"modified":"2023-10-13T05:33:21","modified_gmt":"2023-10-13T05:33:21","slug":"colorado-officer-found-guilty-in-elijah-mcclain-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/13\/colorado-officer-found-guilty-in-elijah-mcclain-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado officer found guilty in Elijah McClain death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Colorado officer has been found guilty in the death of Elijah McClain, who was pinned down before a medic injected him with ketamine and he died.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A jury unanimously convicted officer Randy Roedema of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another officer, Jason Rosenblatt, facing the same charges was acquitted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Both men were accused of using excessive force and ignoring the unarmed black man’s repeated cries of “I can’t breathe”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Colorado law, Roedema now faces possible prison time and a fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was suspended without pay from the Aurora Police Department, while Mr Rosenblatt was fired in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 12-person jury reached a verdict on Thursday after deliberating for 16 hours in over two days. The trial is the first of three in relation to Mr McClain’s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 24 August 2019, Mr McClain, a 23-year-old autistic massage therapist, was walking home from a corner shop when three white police officers confronted him after an emergency caller reported a “sketchy” person in the Denver suburb of Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was wearing a balaclava, which his family has said protected him from chronic chills due to his anaemia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listening to music on his headphones, he had initially ignored officers’ calls for him to stop walking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Body camera footage of the incident showed him pleading with officers that he did nothing wrong, before they wrestled him to the ground and placed him in a chokehold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seven times, Mr McClain was heard telling the officers: “I can’t breathe” – the same refrain uttered by George Floyd as he was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After officers called for assistance, a medic injected Mr McClain with ketamine to sedate him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr McClain went limp, stopped breathing and never regained consciousness. He was declared brain-dead three days later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A key focus of the two officers’ weekslong trial was how Mr McClain died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their closing arguments, prosecutors said Roedema and Mr Rosenblatt “chose force at every opportunity” instead of de-escalating the situation, counter to their training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, lawyers for the officers argued they had no choice but to forcefully subdue him after he resisted them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also argued that it was the ketamine that killed Mr McClain, and that the paramedics were responsible for his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An autopsy report in September 2022 concluded that he had died from “complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement on social media after Thursday’s verdict, Aurora Police Department Chief Art Acevedo said: “We respect the verdict handed by the jury.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr McClain was declared dead on 27 August 2019, but his death faced renewed scrutiny after Mr Floyd’s murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several others have also been charged with his death, including a third officer, Nathan Woodyard, and medics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All three have pleaded not guilty. They will be tried in two separate cases later this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roedema is scheduled to be sentenced in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Colorado officer has been found guilty in the death of Elijah McClain, who was pinned down before a medic injected him with ketamine and he died. A jury unanimously convicted officer Randy Roedema of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault. Another officer, Jason Rosenblatt, facing the same charges was acquitted. Both men were accused […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-international"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Elijah-McClain-Photo-copy-1.webp?fit=538%2C800&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12465,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12462\/revisions\/12465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}