One Colorado police officer convicted, another acquitted in death of Elijah McClain

One of two officers involved in the death of Elijah McClain has been convicted of homicide.

McClain, a 23-year-old Black man from Aurora, Colo., died in 2019 after police held him to the ground in a chokehold before paramedics injected him with an overdose of ketamine. 

A 12-person jury found Aurora police officer Randy Roedema guilty of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault. He now faces up to three years in prison. Officer Jason Rosenblatt was found not guilty.

The two were originally charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and second-degree assault. But as they headed into deliberation, the jury was asked to consider a lesser charge for Roedema. 

Aurora officers stopped McClain on Aug. 24, 2019, as he was walking with headphones and a mask on. He asked to be left alone and was not accused of any crime, but the encounter quickly escalated. Roedema and Rosenblatt, along with officer Nathan Woodyard, wrestled McClain to the ground. 

Woodyard applied a chokehold that pressed against McClain’s carotid artery and rendered him momentarily unconscious. 

While attorneys for both the prosecution and defense said the ketamine was the cause of McClain’s death, Roedema was the most senior officer on the scene and held McClain’s shoulder and back as the sedative was administered. 

Roedema’s attorney alleged McClain resisted and reached for the gun of one of the officers. 

But officer Alicia Ward, who was not charged, testified that she held her knuckles to the back of McClain’s head and was prepared to apply pressure but felt it was unneeded because she didn’t consider McClain a threat at that point. 

After McClain was injected with ketamine, he went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital. He was pronounced dead three days later. McClain’s death made national news, and his name became a rallying cry similar to that of George Floyd’s.

Woodyard, the officer who applied the neck hold, and two paramedics were indicted on similar charges to Roedema and Rosenblatt. 

Woodyard’s trial begins Friday with jury selection, and the paramedics are scheduled for trial later this year.

Judge Mark Warner set sentencing for Jan. 5, 2024.