Colorado officer gets prison term over Elijah McClain death

A former Colorado police officer was sentenced to 14 months in jail for his role in the death of Elijah McClain. 

Judge Mark Warner sentenced officer Randy Roedema to 14 months in jail for the third-degree assault conviction and ordered four years probation and 90 days incarceration for criminally negligent homicide.

He was the first and most senior law enforcement member on the scene of McClain's death and the only one found guilty. 

The 23-year-old slain Black man was not suspected of any crime when police restrained him and paramedics injected him with a powerful sedative.

"The court was shocked by what appeared to be really indifference to Elijah McClain's suffering," Warner said before issuing the sentence.

Roedema told the court he took the actions because he was following his training. He expressed remorse but did not apologize for McClain's death. 

Who else was at the scene?

Aurora police officer Nathan Woodyard was also put on trial in the case, and found not guilty of manslaughter in November. Paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec were found guilty of criminally negligent homicide, and will be sentenced on March 1. 

Cichuniec was found guilty of felony second-degree assault. It carries a mandatory prison sentence of between five and 16 years in prison.

Sheneen, the mother of McClain called Roedema a "bully with a badge" who will always have blood on his hands. She said she did not find any hint of remorse through the trials of those accused of killing her son. "I have listened to the trials to see if I could hear it in their voices, but instead I only heard lies and blaming others for their trained cruelty," she said.

"Randy Roedema stole my son's life," she said, "All the belated apologies in the world can't remove my son's blood from Randy Roedema's hands," she said.

How was McClain killed

Aurora Police had received a 911 call from a bystander reporting a man dressed in a winter coat and ski mask on a warm night acting suspiciously in August 2019. The officers on call confronted McClain as he walked home from a convenience store.

Police stopped McClain and laid hands on him within seconds, putting him in a carotid chokehold at least twice. He repeatedly told officers he could not breathe and vomited into his ski mask. The struggle and restraint lasted about 20 minutes before paramedics administered ketamine.

In the body camera audio heard during the trial, Roedema could be heard saying McClain tried to grab a gun from another officer, Jason Rosenblatt, who was also on scene, but acquitted of all charges after which police action escalated. But the video footage did not show any grab for the gun, noted prosecutors.

A revised autopsy report in 2021 said McClain died from "complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint." 

Local prosecutors had initially refused to file charges, and the case received little attention at the time. However, after the May 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Colorado Governor Jared Polis in June 2020 asked the state attorney general's office to investigate McClain's case.

tg/jsi (AFP, AP, Reuters)