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.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS