Randy Roedema handed 14-month sentence for 2019 killing of McClain, who was put in a chokehold, injected with ketamine.
A former police officer within the western US state of Colorado has been sentenced to 14 months in jail for his function within the 2019 killing of Elijah McClain, a Black man who was not suspected of any crime when police roughly restrained him and paramedics injected him with a strong sedative.
Earlier than the choose handed down the sentence on Friday, McClain’s mom, Sheneen McClain, condemned Randy Roedema, the one legislation enforcement official to be discovered responsible.
“Randy Roedema stole my son’s life,” she stated. “All of the belated apologies on the earth can’t take away my son’s blood from Randy Roedema’s fingers.”
She additionally known as the sentence “a slap on the wrist”.
Roedema was discovered responsible in October of criminally negligent murder and third-degree assault. The identical jury discovered fellow police officer Jason Rosenblatt not responsible in a joint trial.
Police confronted McClain, 23, on the evening of August 24, 2019, after a bystander known as 911 to report {that a} man was wearing a winter coat and ski masks on a heat evening, and was performing suspiciously as he walked house from a comfort retailer.
Police laid fingers on McClain inside seconds of stopping him and put him in a carotid chokehold no less than twice. He vomited into his ski masks and repeatedly informed officers he couldn’t breathe.
The unique post-mortem performed on McClain in 2019 discovered the reason for demise to be “undetermined”. Nevertheless, a revised post-mortem report in 2021 concluded McClain died from “issues of ketamine administration following forcible restraint”.
In a separate trial, two paramedics have been convicted final month of criminally negligent murder for injecting McClain with an overdose of the sedative ketamine. They’re as a consequence of be sentenced in March.
Native prosecutors initially declined to file prices and McClain’s killing obtained little consideration. That modified following the Might 2020 killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died by the hands of Minneapolis police.
After Floyd’s demise triggered international protests, Colorado Governor Jared Polis in 2020 requested the state lawyer common’s workplace to analyze McClain’s case. A state grand jury indicted the officers and paramedics in 2021.