PARAMEDIC WHO INJECTED ELIJAH MCCLAIN WITH KETAMINE BEFORE HIS DEATH AVOIDS PRISON

Paramedic Who Injected Elijah McClain With Ketamine Before His Death Avoids Prison

April 27th, 01AM April 27th, 01AM

BRIGHTON, Colo. (AP) — A former paramedic who injected Elijah McClain with a powerful sedative avoided prison and was sentenced to probation Friday in the Black man's killing that helped fuel the 2020 racial injustice protests.

Jeremy Cooper had faced up to three years in prison after being found guilty in a jury trial last year of criminally negligent homicide. He administered a dose of ketamine to McClain, 23, who had been forcibly restrained after

police stopped himas the massage therapist was walking home in a Denver suburb in 2019.

The sentencing caps a series of trials that stretched over seven months and resulted in the convictions of a police officer and two paramedics. Criminal charges against paramedics and emergency medical technicians involved in police custody cases are rare.

The other paramedic and the officer sentenced in McClain's death received more severe punishments than Cooper after being convicted on additional charges of assault.

Judge Mark Warner said evidence showed Cooper did not purposely give McClain a ketamine overdose, rejecting claims by prosecutors that the paramedic had acted with indifference.

McClain's mother told the judge prior to Friday's sentencing that she blamed McClain's death on everyone who was present that night, not just those who were convicted.

"Eternal shame on all of you," Sheneen McClain said.

She said Cooper "did nothing" to help her son after he'd been restrained by police — didn't check his pulse, didn't check his breathing and didn't ask him how he was doing — before injecting him with an overdose of ketamine.

Close to tears as she spoke, McClain ended by raising her right fist in the air and saying loudly, "From my heart to my hands, long live Elijah McClain, always and forever."

Experts say the convictions would have been unheard of before 2020, when

George Floyd's murdersparked a nationwide reckoning over racist policing and deaths in police custody.

At least

94 people diedafter they were given sedatives and restrained by police from 2012 through 2021, according to findings by

The Associated Pressin collaboration with FRONTLINE (PBS) and the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism.

McClain's name became a rallying cry in

protests over racial injustice in policingthat swept the U.S. in 2020.

"Without the reckoning over criminal justice and how people of color suffer at much higher rates from police use of force and violence, it's very unlikely that anything would have come of this, that there would have been any charges, let alone convictions," said David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh law professor and expert on racial profiling.

Harris added that the acquittals of the two officers following weekslong trials were unsurprising, since juries are often reluctant to second guess the actions of police and other first responders.

"It's still very hard to convict," he said.

Cooper said during the hearing that he was sorry he couldn't save McClain.

"I want you to know that I would give anything to have a different outcome, Elijah," Cooper said as if he were talking to McClain. "I never, ever meant for anyone to hurt you."

He added that he wished he knew more at the time, implying that he could have used that knowledge to help McClain.

Sheneen McClain walked out of the courtroom as Cooper was speaking but later returned.

Prosecutor Jason Slothouber had asked the judge to incarcerate Cooper and argued that the paramedic was "singularly most responsible" for McClain's death because Cooper gave him a "massive overdose" of ketamine.

Cooper's attorney and wife and fellow firefighters urged the judge to show leniency. They described him as compassionate and recalled Cooper saving people from fires, jumping into floodwaters to help an older woman and using CPR to try to save a child who died in a fire.

Cooper declined to comment as he walked out of the courthouse with his wife and supporters.

Judge Warner previously sentenced ex-paramedic Peter Cichuniec in March

to five years in prisonfor criminally negligent homicide and second-degree assault, the most serious of the charges faced by any of the responders. It was the shortest sentence allowed under the law.

Warner sentenced officer Randy Roedema to 14 months in jail for criminally negligent homicide and misdemeanor assault.

Prosecutors initially declined to pursue charges related to McClain's death when an autopsy did not determine how he died. Democratic Gov. Jared Polis ordered the investigation reopened in 2020.

The second autopsy said McClain died because he was injected with ketamine after being forcibly restrained.

Since the killings of Floyd, McClain and others put

a spotlight on police custody deaths, many departments, paramedic units and those that train them have reexamined how they treat suspects. It could take years though to collect enough evidence to show if those efforts are working, said Candace McCoy, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

Medical experts said by the time he received the sedative, McClain already was in a weakened state from forcible restraint that rendered him temporarily unconscious.

Officers later referenced a suspicious person report. McClain was not armed, nor accused of breaking any laws. He went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and died three days later.

Since McClain's death, the Colorado health department has told paramedics not to give ketamine to people suspected of having

excited delirium, which had been described in a since-withdrawn emergency physicians' report as manifesting symptoms including increased strength. A doctors group has called it an unscientific definition rooted in racism.

The protests over McClain and Floyd also ushered in a

wave of state legislationto curb the use of neck holds known as carotid restraints, which cut off circulation, and chokeholds, which cut off breathing. At least 27 states including Colorado have passed some limit on the practices. Only two had bans in place before Floyd was killed.

Sheneen McClain told the AP prior to Friday's hearing that justice had not been served. She said the two acquitted Aurora police officers, as well as other firefighters and police on the scene, were complicit in her son's killing.

"I'm waiting on heaven to hand down everybody's judgment," she said. "Because I know heaven ain't gonna miss the mark."

2024-04-26T23:02:31Z dg43tfdfdgfd