Almost five years after Elijah McClain died after being put in a neck hold and injected with the powerful sedative ketamine, three of five Denver-area first responders prosecuted in the Black man’s death have been convicted.
FILE - Paramedic Jeremy Cooper, left, enters the Adams County, Colo., Justice Center, Dec. 22, 2023, in Brighton, Colo. The former Aurora Fire Department paramedic faces up to three years in prison when he is scheduled to be sentenced Friday, April 26, 2024, for criminally negligent homicide in Elijah McClain's death.
“Without the reckoning over criminal justice and how people of color suffer at much higher rates from police use of force and violence, it’s very unlikely that anything would have come of this, that there would have been any charges, let alone convictions,” said David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh law professor and expert on racial profiling.
Prosecutors initially declined to pursue charges related to McClain's death when an autopsy did not determine how he died. But Democratic Gov. Jared Polis ordered the investigation reopened following the 2020 protests against police brutality. Cooper injected McClain with ketamine after police stopped him as he was walking home. Officers later referenced a suspicious person report. McClain was not armed, nor accused of breaking any laws.
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