A jury on Friday found two Colorado paramedics guilty of criminally negligent homicide for their role in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a black man who died after police detained him, put him in a choke hold and the medics injected him with a powerful sedative.
The trial of paramedics Jeremy Cooper, 49, and Peter Cichuniec, 51, was the last of three involving the death of McClain, 23, who was stopped by police after a bystander reported he looked suspicious. He was not alleged to have committed any crime.
In addition to finding both men guilty of criminally negligent homicide — punishable by up to three years in prison — the jury also found Cichuniec guilty of assault in the second degree for administering the sedative.
Photo: AP
Judge Mark Warner ordered that Cichuniec be taken into custody immediately, while Cooper remained free on bond pending a March 1 sentencing.
McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, wept outside the courthouse as a supporter of the McClain family, MiDian Holmes, spoke with reporters on her behalf.
“We do not know justice until we see sentencing,” Holmes said. “So Judge Warner you now have a responsibility. We are still seeking justice.”
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said much more work needs to be done to prevent the deaths of innocents at the hands of police and other first responders.
“Elijah did nothing wrong. His life mattered. He should be with us here today,” Weiser said.
The first trial ended with one police officer being found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and another acquitted. The second ended with a third officer being acquitted.
Cooper and Cichuniec both took the stand during their trial in Adams County District Court near Denver.
They told the jury they believed the sedative ketamine was required to calm Elijah McClain, and that police officers who were roughly detaining him interfered in their ability to quickly treat him.
However, prosecutors said throughout the trial that the paramedics contravened their training protocols by failing to examine Elijah McClain before injecting him with the maximum allowed dose of ketamine.
Prosecutors said the paramedics incorrectly decided that Elijah McClain was in a state of “excited delirium,” a condition said to consist of agitation, aggression, acute distress and sudden death.
Many medical experts, including the American Medical Association, say the condition does not exist and have opposed using the diagnosis for law enforcement purposes.
The paramedics injected him with 500mg of the sedative, wrongly estimating his weight to be 91kg, prosecutors said.
Elijah McClain weighed 65kg.
“These defendants didn’t even try. When Elijah McClain pleaded ‘Please help me,’ they left him there, they overdosed him on ketamine ... they killed him,” prosecutor Jason Slothouber said during closing arguments on Wednesday.
The defense rejected that, saying that, based on the training available in 2019, the paramedics acted appropriately.
Colorado’s Peace Officers Standards and Training board ruled on Dec. 1 that “excited delirium” could no longer be taught as a diagnosis to new officers in training.
A bill is pending before Colorado lawmakers that would ban excited delirium from all police and emergency medical service training, and would not allow coroners to list it as a cause of death.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS