by Two Colorado paramedics were convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a young, unarmed Black man whose case drew national attention and forced public safety reforms in the city where he lived and died.
But the mostly white jury split on two counts of assault against the paramedics, Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper, after two days of deliberations. They convicted Mr. Cichuniec of one of the assault charges, second-degree assault by illegal administration of drugs, but acquitted Mr. Cooper of both assault charges.
The men had injected Mr. McClain with the powerful sedative ketamine while in police custody in Aurora, Colorado, which doctors said left him near death. He died days later in the hospital.
The nearly four-week trial was a rare trial against paramedics and raised the question of the role medical personnel play in police encounters and whether they could be held criminally responsible for their actions.
“The truth is now real and available,” said MiDian Holmes, an Aurora activist and friend of Mr. McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain. She spoke on behalf of Mrs. McClain, who sobbed on the shoulder of Omar Montgomery, president of the city’s NAACP chapter. “We love you, Elijah McClain.”
It was also the third and final trial for Mr. McClain’s death; three police officers were prosecuted in two previous trials. An officer was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault and will be sentenced on January 5. Two other officers were cleared and one returned to the Aurora Police Department.
McClain’s family and supporters, as well as activists who pushed to hold the Police Department accountable for his death, said the verdict provided some measure of justice.
Firefighters and the defendants’ families filled the courtroom in a show of support for the paramedics. There was gasping and crying as Mr. Cichuniec, convicted on two charges, was taken into custody. Mr. Cooper was allowed to remain out of jail on bond.
The paramedics’ trial marks the latest chapter in a four-year saga that has rocked the city of Aurora and its troubled police force. Mr. McClain’s name and face became some of the most recognizable during the social justice protests of 2020. Local and state investigations followed and, eventually, policy changes in the police and fire departments as well.
The result is a partial victory for prosecutors, who have now obtained convictions against three of five of the men who stood trial for McClain’s death.
“We knew these cases were going to be difficult to prosecute. “We are pleased with today’s verdict and remain confident that bringing these cases was the right thing to do,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said after the verdict.
But the case shook emergency medical workers who had been following him.
“It seems like they put the onus on the paramedics,” said Douglas M. Wolfberg, a former EMT and founding partner of a Pennsylvania law firm that represents emergency medical services organizations.
Wolfberg said the case was the only one he knew of in which paramedics faced such serious charges related to patient care. The verdict, he said, “would send shockwaves through the EMS community. “This is a new calculation.”
Aurora Fire Chief Alec Oughton said he was “deeply concerned and disappointed” by the convictions and was discouraged that the paramedics had “received a felony punishment for following their training and protocols in place at the time and for making decisions discretionary measures while taking divided measures.” Second action in a dynamic environment.”
Throughout the trials, Mr. McClain’s mother insisted that the five officers and paramedics should be held accountable. “None of them did their job that night like they were supposed to,” she told The New York Times before the first police trial ended in a split verdict, adding: “They worked as a team to murder my son.” .
On Friday, his supporters and activists took comfort in the changes in policing.
“Unfortunately, Elijah McClain’s death is the reason there is major reform in the Police Department,” said Mr. Montgomery of the Aurora NAACP. “We hope that his legacy is that other black people, other people of color, have a public participation.” security system they can believe in.”
McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist, was returning home from a convenience store on August 24, 2019, when he was confronted by police officers responding to a 911 call who described Mr. McClain as “sketchy.”
Within minutes of the arrest, police forcibly arrested Mr. McClain and placed him in a carotid chokehold, a neck restraint that has since been banned in Aurora and other police departments. Paramedics then administered a dose of ketamine intended for a person weighing about 200 pounds; McClain weighed 143 pounds, according to the indictment. He suffered a cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital.
During the paramedics’ trial, prosecutors argued that medical staff violated their own protocols and training as Mr. McClain’s condition rapidly deteriorated. In testimony, the paramedics said they had turned to the police who were in charge of the scene and that they had taken steps that they believed would help Mr. McClain.
Prosecutors argued that paramedics did not speak to Mr. McClain, touch him or take his vital signs before diagnosing him with excited delirium, a controversial condition characterized by exceptional physical strength and agitation.
“I would have been better off if they had never come,” State Attorney Shannon Stevenson said during the trial, referring to the paramedics.
Lawyers for Cichuniec and Cooper said the police were ultimately to blame for McClain’s death. They said paramedics followed protocols and were trained to use ketamine as a safe treatment for excited delirium.
The defendants testified that they had attempted to do their jobs but were hindered by police officers who, they said, refused to relinquish control of the scene or treat Mr. McClain humanely. Cooper said he saw an officer throw a handcuffed McClain to the ground.
“I decided to back down,” Cooper said during his testimony, adding that backing down was his way of trying to de-escalate the situation, not an indication of patient neglect.
Cichuniec, the top paramedic that night, described a chaotic scene in which police struggled with McClain more than he had seen in the “thousands of combative calls” he had been on.
State’s Attorney Jason Slothouber spent much of the cross-examination highlighting inconsistencies in the paramedics’ stories, using body camera footage and their previous statements to Aurora police investigators.
Cooper told investigators that after the injection, McClain continued to fight with officers.
But a video clip showed Mr. McClain unconscious moments after he was administered the sedative.
Months after Mr. McClain’s death, a local prosecutor declined to press charges against the five police officers and paramedics. But after the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer and the mass protests that followed, Colorado’s attorney general opened an investigation that ultimately resulted in a 32-count indictment.
