A former Colorado police officer was sentenced on Friday to 14 months for his role in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, who was filmed being put in a chokehold and injected with ketamine during an arrest.
Ex-Aurora cop Randy Roedema was also ordered to complete work release and four years of probation. During the deadly arrest, Roedema put his full weight on McClain — who was not suspected of committing any crimes — and pulled his arms back until his shoulder popped, according to Colorado Public Radio.
READ: City To Pay $15 Million to Family of Elijah Mcclain, Man Injected With Ketamine During Deadly Arrest
Roedema also told a superior officer that McClain, 23, could breathe despite a vomiting McClain claiming otherwise. Roedema also insisted McClain remain in handcuffs after being administered ketamine, despite paramedics recommending he be placed in soft restraints or on a gurney, Colorado Public Radio reported.
Former officer Jason Rosenblatt was tried with Roedema in September and acquitted. Roedema was convicted of criminally negligent homicide, though the pair also faced charges of reckless manslaughter and assault.
The defense claimed Roedema believed he saw McClain reach for another officer’s gun during the deadly encounter — a claim prosecutors disputed at trial.
Adams County District Judge Mark Warner said he considered Roedema’s “good character” and likelihood of being rehabilitated when determining his sentence. The judge also said the sentence was influenced by the indifference he showed during the deadly arrest, NBC reported.
In August 2019, Aurora police officers responding to a suspicious person call detained McClain as he walked home from a corner store. During the 20-minute ordeal, officers allegedly put McClain in a carotid hold and violently restrained him with an armbar and their knees, a federal lawsuit alleged.
“Let go of me. I am an introvert. Please respect the boundaries that I am speaking,” McClain said in the bodycam footage.
While handcuffed, a paramedic injected McClain with 500mg of ketamine.
McClain, who went into cardiac arrest during the encounter, died days after being declared brain dead. McClain’s autopsy was inconclusive, but a federal lawsuit stated that “intense physical exertion and a narrow left coronary artery contributed to [his] death.”
In 2021, the city of Aurora agreed to pay McClain’s family $15 million. The multimillion-dollar settlement came months after a city’s independent report found wrongdoing in police officers’ stop and arrest of McClain.
The panel’s 157-page report stated that the paramedic failed to adequately assess McClain before administering ketamine, which is typically used before and during surgery or a medical procedure. As a result, the dosage administered to McClain was based on the “grossly inaccurate” assumption that he was 50 pounds heavier, the report detailed.
The report also concluded that responding officers had no basis to detain, frisk, or use a chokehold on McClain. In their report, the three-person panel called the stop “questionable,” and asserted that the officers never stated what crime McClain had committed or what crime they thought he was about to commit.
In 2020, Rosenblatt was fired for allegedly responding “haha” to a photo message that showed his colleagues reenacting a chokehold used on McClain at his memorial site.
Last month, paramedics Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper were convicted of criminally negligent homicide. Their sentencing is scheduled for March.
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[Featured image: Elijah McClain/GoFundMe]
