Colorado officer convicted in death of Elijah McClain faces sentence

• A Colorado police officer convicted of killing Elijah McClain, a young black man, is awaiting sentencing, which could include prison or probation.
• Randy Roedema was the only officer found guilty among the three charged in McClain’s 2019 death.
• Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault.

A Colorado police officer convicted of killing Elijah McClain, a young black man walking home from a store, is expected to learn Friday whether a judge will sentence him to prison or receive probation.

McClain’s mother may also speak at the sentencing hearing.

Among the three officers charged in McClain’s 2019 death, Randy Roedema was the only one found guilty and was the highest-ranking officer initially responding to the scene. A jury convicted the former Aurora officer in October of criminally negligent homicide, which is a felony, and third-degree assault, which is a misdemeanor.

COLORADO OFFICER PLEADS GUILTY TO KILLING ELIJAH MCCLAIN DURING VIOLENT ENCOUNTER WITH POLICE

McClain’s murder received little attention at the time, but gained renewed interest the following year as mass protests spread across the country following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. McClain’s death became a rallying cry for critics of racial injustice in policing.

In a separate trial, two paramedics were recently convicted of giving McClain, 23, an overdose of the sedative ketamine after police grabbed him by the neck. Sentencing will come later this year for the paramedics, who had been trained to use ketamine to treat “excited delirium,” a controversial condition that some consider unscientific, rooted in racism and used to justify excessive force.

McClain was detained by police after a 911 caller reported that he looked suspicious. Another officer put his hands on McClain within seconds, beginning a struggle and restraint that lasted about 20 minutes before paramedics injected him with ketamine. Experts say the sedative ultimately killed McClain, who was already weakened by difficulty breathing while he was restrained after inhaling vomit into his lungs.

For Roedema, criminally negligent homicide, defined as killing someone without recognizing a substantial risk to their life, carries a probation sentence of up to three years in prison. Conviction of assault is punishable by probation of up to two years in prison.

SECOND POLICE OFFICER ACQUIRED FOR THE DEATH OF ELIJAH MCCLAIN, WHO WAS HOLD BY THE NECK, GIVED KETAMINE

Judge Mark Warner, a former prosecutor who has been a judge for nearly 20 years, will have to determine a fair sentence by weighing how this homicide case compares to others he has seen in his career, said former District Attorney George Brauchler. A first conviction can lead to a sentence of probation, but the judge must also consider that Roedema was a uniformed police officer, given special authority and respect by society, and a jury convicted him of taking off. life, Brauchler said.

“I don’t know how that person makes it home that night,” said Brauchler, who prosecuted the Aurora theater shooting case in 2012. “I think it would be very difficult.”

Even if Warner decided to put Roedema on probation, he could require him to spend up to 90 days in jail first as part of that sentence, Brauchler said.

Roedema’s sentences for the assault and murder charges will likely be served concurrently, rather than consecutively during a longer sentence, since they involve the same actions. If Roedema is sent to prison, he would be eligible for parole in a year and likely sent to a halfway house before then, according to prison rules, he said.

Roedema helped restrain McClain while paramedics administered ketamine. He was often visible on body camera footage shown over and over again to jurors, and could be heard directing others how to restrain him.

The same jury that convicted Roedema acquitted former officer Jason Rosenblatt, whose attorneys emphasized that he was not close to McClain when he was injected with the ketamine.

A different jury acquitted Officer Nathan Woodyard a few weeks later after testifying that he grabbed McClain by the neck, briefly rendering him unconscious. Woodyard testified that he feared for his life after Roedema said McClain had grabbed one of his guns. Prosecutors say the gun theft never happened.

Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec were sentenced last month. Cichuniec, the senior officer, was found guilty of the most serious charge the first responders faced: felony second-degree assault. It carries a mandatory prison sentence of between five and 16 years in prison.

In a statement following those final verdicts, McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, said the fact that three of the five defendants were convicted was not justice, but simply “a very small acknowledgment of responsibility in the justice system.” .

“There were at least 20 people there the night my son was alive and talking before he was brutally murdered. The Aurora Colorado Police Department and Fire Department kept everyone else on their payroll because both departments lack humanity and “They refuse to admit their inhumane protocols,” she said.

COLORADO JURY TO HEAR CLOSING ARGUMENTS IN TRIAL OVER ELIJAH MCCLAIN’S DEATH IN 2019

The paramedics’ verdicts came a day after a jury in Washington state acquitted three police officers of all criminal charges in the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis, a Black man who was electrocuted, beaten and restrained in his mouth. down while begging to be allowed to breathe.

Candace McCoy, professor emerita at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, doesn’t see the recent acquittals there or in Colorado as a sign that the push for police reform is waning. Instead, she said it’s a reflection of how difficult it is to convict police officers of crimes because juries tend to give them the benefit of the doubt for how they act in emergencies.

While it was rare in the past to prosecute cases against law enforcement, the fact that more cases are now being pursued is not enough to create police reform, he said.

“The way to change and reform policing is to change the culture and the departments, and individual prosecutions are not going to do that,” McCoy said.