From “The Free Thought Project”
In yet another example of systemic corruption, the former EMTs responsible for administering a fatal dose of ketamine to Elijah McClain face no real accountability.
Aurora, CO — In August of 2019, 23 year old Elijah McClain was walking home in his neighborhood after just purchasing a bottle of iced tea. He had committed no crime. Despite this, one of his neighbors called the police due to the fact that he was wearing a mask, which he reportedly regularly did due to being anemic. Shortly thereafter, Aurora police arrived on the scene and initiated contact with McClain, claiming that he “matched the description” of a suspect.
Within moments the officers unjustly initiated force against McClain, later attempting to justify their actions by claiming he attempted to reach for one of their guns although this is disputed by body camera evidence. As the scuffle ensued officers took McClain to the ground, placing him in an illegal chokehold maneuver restricting his air flow. As McClain struggled under the strangulation of his assailants, violently vomiting, he attempted multiple times to inform them that he couldn’t breathe, yet still they persisted. Eventually, officers called the Aurora Fire Department to the scene, where upon arrival two paramedics, Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec, injected McClain with 500mg of ketamine, a strong sedative.
After being choked out and forcibly drugged for committing no crime, McClain went into cardiac arrest twice while on the way to the hospital, leading to his death.
By all accounts Elijah McClain was an upstanding member of his community, a massage therapist and self taught violinist who volunteered at animal shelters playing music for adoptive dogs and cats. He had never even received a speeding ticket in his life.
In his last few words on this planet, McClain could be heard saying, “I’m an introvert. I’m just different. That’s all. I’m so sorry. I have no gun. I don’t do that stuff. I don’t do any fighting. Why are you attacking me? I don’t even kill flies! I don’t eat meat! But I don’t judge people, I don’t judge people who do eat meat. Forgive me … I’m so sorry.”
In 2021, nearly a year and a half after his murder, an independent investigation commissioned by the city of Aurora found that police had no legal basis to stop McClain, much less choke and drug him to death. Furthermore, the investigation found police deliberately defrauded initial inquiries in an attempt to exonerate the officers.
Now, it has been reported that Cooper and Cichuniec, the two paramedics responsible for giving McClain the lethal injection, have had their convictions overturned.
According to the Atlanta Black Star, the two former paramedics had their homicide convictions overturned last week over a legal technicality.
The report states:
The technicality that led to the reversal may seem minor on the surface. It centered on the judge’s instructions to the jury, which directed them to evaluate the paramedics’ actions based on what a “reasonable person” would have done.
The appellate court ruled the jury should instead have been instructed to consider what a “reasonable paramedic” would have done in the same situation.
The paramedics injected McClain with 500 milligrams of ketamine without checking his pulse or vital signs, relying on police claims that he was experiencing “excited delirium.”
That raises a key question: Would a reasonable paramedic have been more cautious than an average person with no medical training?
Would a reasonable paramedic have conducted a more thorough evaluation, especially considering police officers are not medically trained to diagnose conditions like excited delirium — a term that several medical associations have since rejected as pseudoscience?
Cooper and Cichuniec were initially sentenced for criminally negligent homicide in 2023, with Cooper being sentenced to a mere 14 months under a work release program that allowed him to leave during the day, and Cichuniec, who administered the fatal dose receiving a five year prison sentence only to have it reduced to 10 months by a lower court judge in 2024. Cichuniec’s conviction of second-degree assault remains in place.
In a statement on Instagram McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, wrote of the decision:
“The Colorado Court of Appeals has made a decision concerning the former paramedics who injected my son Elijah McClain with a tranquilizer and who also helped the Aurora Police Department kill my son on August 24, 2019.
I am not surprised by the overwhelming lack of accountability in the court systems. I am not surprised by the disregard for human rights in the American States. I am not surprised by the denial of true justice for American citizens at the hands of government institutions that allow criminal behavior in their police agencies. They are corrupt and cowardly.
Unfortunately the murder of Elijah McClain serves as one of the prime examples of the systemic abuse of present day policing led by racial profiling, the disproportionate targeting and treatment that African Americans face in the American police state, and the lack of accountability for police violence enabled by a corrupt justice system that is so frequently the arbiter of injustice.
This is further exemplified by the sadistic behavior of the Aurora police. Shortly after McClain’s murder, officers would return to the scene of his death, taking photos of themselves reenacting the incident for their own sick entertainment.
In June of 2020, Aurora riot police violently attacked a peaceful protest held in the memory of Elijah McClain.
The three officers who murdered Elijah McClain faced hardly no accountability for their actions. Officers Nathan Woodyard and Jason Rosenblatt were acquitted on all charges, while officer Randy Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault, sentenced to only 14 months in jail with work release eligibility and four years probation.
As the officers who murdered McClain walked free, the activists who organized protests seeking accountability would face decades in prison for daring to challenge the institutional corruption of the American police state.