Ever since we first heard of Elijah McClain’s fatal encounter with the police in Aurora, Colorado, in 2019, we held out hope, like his mother, Sheneen McClain, that the officers and paramedics involved would be prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to prison for killing him.
McClain, 23, was an aspiring African-American musician and massage therapist who was arrested because he was seen walking down the street wearing a ski mask, his arms flailing, which his friends claimed were gyrations accompanying the music he was listening to.
According to the police, McClain resisted and one officer claimed he heard another shout, “He is going for your gun.”
From attorney Mari Newman, a noted civil rights activist who was then representing the family, we learned how the tragic encounter unfolded.
McClain, she said, was slammed against a wall and subsequently held on the ground for 15 minutes. This rough encounter left him in distress. Once his arms were handcuffed behind his back, one of the officers applied a “carotid artery control hold,” according to a district attorney’s report. He repeatedly cried, “I can’t breathe,” and was soon rendered unconscious. It was a repeat of what happened to Eric Garner and George Floyd.
As we reported at the time, McClain was barely responsive when paramedics arrived and injected him with 500 mg of ketamine, an allowable sedative in Colorado to calm excited delirium. While being transported to the hospital, he suffered cardiac arrest and was pronounced brain-dead three days later on August 30, 2019. An autopsy identified McClain’s history of asthma and the carotid hold, neither of which the report said contributed to his death, according to the report; it also noted the amount of ketamine in his system was at a “therapeutic level.”
The officers involved were initially placed on administrative leave but were later reinstated when prosecutors decided not to file criminal charges.
We are as outraged as Elijah’s mother that two of three officers have avoided prison after being found not guilty. A third officer was convicted in the earlier trial of the lesser charges he faced: negligent homicide and third-degree assault. Two paramedics from the Aurora fire department are awaiting trial later this month.Given the previous verdicts, we hold little hope that McClain will receive justice. We can only pray that the case is not marked “closed” with another young Black man becoming a forgotten statistic. Elijah McClain’s civil rights—no, his human rights—were brutally violated. Maybe this can be a path toward some form of justice.
