Two paramedics found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in Elijah McClain’s death

Two paramedics were convicted Friday in the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who was subdued by police and injected with ketamine in Aurora, Colorado, in August 2019.

Paramedics found guilty in connection to Elijah McClain’s death

Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper were found guilty by a jury of criminally negligent homicide. Cichuniec was also found guilty of assault in the second degree through the unlawful administration of drugs.

Outside of court after the verdict, McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, joined by community organizer MiDian Holmes, held a fist in the air, repeated her son’s name, and said she loved him.

“We did it, we did it, y’all,” Sheneen McClain said as she walked away from court.

Cichuniec and Cooper, who were suspended after being charged, were among five first responders who were criminally charged in connection with McClain’s death.

Prosecutors had argued the paramedics acted recklessly in administering a large amount of the powerful sedative ketamine to McClain, who had been violently subdued by police, despite not speaking with him or checking his vital signs.

The incident

* Content may be triggering

On Aug 24, 2019, while Elijah McClain was walking home after purchasing iced tea from a corner store hw was approached by Aurora police.

Officers were responding to a report of a suspicious person wearing a ski mask and waving his arms. McClain regularly wore masks because of a blood condition that made him feel cold, family members have said.

McClain told officers he was an introvert and asked them to “please respect the boundaries that I am speaking,” according to bodycam video of the confrontation.

Woodyard appeared to be the first person to talk to McClain and touch him after saying: “Stop, stop stop, stop, I have a right to stop you because you’re being suspicious.”

McClain said he was going home and asked to be left alone, the footage showed.

He was eventually tackled by officers, who said they believed he was reaching for one of their guns. Yet, there was no evidence that showed McClain tried to take a police officer’s firearm.

Woodyard put McClain in a chokehold that forced him into unconsciousness, prosecutors said.

Responding paramedics Cichuniec and Cooper injected McClain with the powerful sedative ketamine after police video showed him panting on the ground, saying, “I can’t breathe, please,” and throwing up. He then apologized for vomiting.

After being injected, McClain had no pulse in the ambulance, went into cardiac arrest and died Aug. 30, 2019.

An autopsy by Adams County coroner found that McClain died from “complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint.”

An independent investigation found that police had no justification to stop or use force to detain McClain, and responding paramedics sedated him with ketamine “without conducting anything more than a brief visual observation.”

McClain, who was 5-foot-7, 140 pounds, was given an amount of ketamine appropriate for a 190-pound man, the probe found.

That report also stated that better policies should be in place that spell out the duties of paramedics responding to a police scene and that those medics not act as an “arm” of law enforcement.

Elijah McClain’s family receives settlement

The McClain family sued paramedics, police, and the city of Aurora, and settled for $15 million in November 2021.

McClain’s death sparked widespread outrage and protests urging changed to police reform.