A former Colorado police officer has been sentenced to 14 months in prison for his role in the 2019 killing of Elijah McClain, a young black man who was not suspected of any crime when police roughly restrained him and paramedics injected him with a powerful sedative.
Former Aurora police officer Randy Roedema, 41, who faced three years in prison, was found guilty by a jury in October of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault.
The same jury found fellow police officer Jason Rosenblatt, 35, not guilty in a joint trial.
Judge Mark Warner sentenced Roedema to 14 months in prison for the third-degree assault conviction.
He also ordered four years of probation and 90 days in jail, to be served concurrently with the assault sentence, for criminally negligent homicide.
Roedema was not immediately arrested. He has until March 22 to turn himself in to the Adams County jail.
“The court was appalled by what appeared to be a complete indifference to the suffering of Elijah McClain,” Warner said before handing down the sentence.
Roedema wiped away tears during his sentencing hearing Friday, in Adams County Court in Brighton, Colorado. AP
Sheneen McClain, the 23-year-old’s mother, spoke to the judge before the sentence was announced, saying she was looking for any sign of remorse during the trial of those who killed her son.
“I didn’t find anything,” he said. “I have listened to tests to see if I can hear it in their voices, but instead I only hear lies and blame others for their trained cruelty.”
Roedema offered his condolences to McClain’s family in court on Friday. He made no apologies for Elijah McClain’s death and said he took the actions he did because he followed his training.
“I can’t help but think of all the different scenarios that could have happened that evening that could have resulted in a different outcome,” Roedema told the court. “For example, I hope that bystanders will not make that (911) call.”
Elijah McClain was killed after paramedics injected him with the ketamine they used as a sedative in the 23-year-old in 2019. via REUTERS
Prosecutor Jason Slothouber told the judge that Roedema’s statement showed “no admission of his intent to injure Mr. McClain through pain, no admission of his gross deviation from his training — in fact, quite the opposite.”
There were three trials in total involving McClain’s death.
In a second trial, Aurora police officer Nathan Woodyard, 34, was found not guilty of murder in November.
A third trial saw paramedics Jeremy Cooper, 49, and Peter Cichuniec, 51, found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in a trial last month. They will be sentenced on March 1.
Elijah McClain lies in a hospital bed in Aurora Colorado in August, 2019. via REUTERS
CRUEL CONFRONTATION
Police confronted McClain as he walked home from a convenience store after a member of the public called 911 to report a man dressed in a winter coat and ski mask on a warm night acting suspiciously.
Police arrested the young man within seconds of arresting him and placed him in a carotid chokehold at least twice. He vomited into his ski mask and repeatedly told officers he couldn’t breathe.
During Roedema and Rosenblatt’s trial, defense attorneys played body camera audio in which Roedema can be heard yelling that McClain was trying to grab Rosenblatt’s gun. Police action increased sharply after that.
Prosecutors noted that no video showed any seizure of the weapon and suggested during the trial that Roedema was lying or mistaken.
The original autopsy conducted in 2019 found the cause of death “undetermined.” A revised autopsy report in 2021 concluded McClain died of “complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint.”
During Roedema and Rosenblatt’s trial, defense attorneys played body camera audio in which Roedema can be heard yelling that McClain was trying to grab Rosenblatt’s gun. AP
Local prosecutors initially declined to file charges. That changed following the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, a black man who died at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis in June 2020 asked the attorney general’s office to investigate McClain’s case. A state grand jury indicted the officer and paramedic in 2021.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
