A Colorado court reversed homicide convictions against two paramedics on Thursday in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a Black man who was pinned down by police and injected with a fatal dose of ketamine.
McClain’s final words – “I can’t breathe” – foreshadowed those of George Floyd a year later in Minneapolis, and the Colorado man’s name became part of the rallying cries for social justice that swept the US in 2020.
The appeals court ordered new trials for Aurora fire rescue paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec. McClain, 23, had been forcibly restrained and put in a neck hold by police, who stopped him in response to a suspicious person complaint as the massage therapist walked home from a convenience store in the Denver suburb in 2019.
Criminal charges against paramedics and emergency medical technicians involved in police custody cases are rare. As McClain’s death and others raised questions about the use of ketamine to subdue struggling suspects, this prosecution sent shock waves through the ranks of first responders across the US.
New trials in the case will return the issue to the spotlight, and that could make first responders think twice when responding to calls involving people in police custody, said Alex Piquero, a criminologist at the University of Miami.
“At 11 o’clock tonight when they’re on a call, and the circumstances are the same, is this going to influence their behavior?” Piquero asked. “It may not be the first thing that comes into their heads, but it’s going to be there.”
A jury in 2023 found Cooper and Cichuniec guilty of criminally negligent homicide after a weeks-long trial in state district court. The jurors also found Cichuniec guilty of second-degree felony assault.
Cichuniec received five years in prison, but was released early from prison in 2024 after a judge reduced his sentence to four years of probation. Cooper avoided prison and was sentenced to 14 months in jail with work release and probation.
The appeals court upheld Cichuniec’s assault conviction, but faulted the instructions given to jurors with respect to the criminally negligent homicide charges before they deliberated. Thursday’s ruling sends their cases back to a lower court for a new trial on that charge.
Phil Weiser, the Colorado attorney general, will appeal Thursday’s decision, a spokesperson said.
“Bringing these cases to trial was the right thing to do for justice, for Elijah McClain, and for healing in the Aurora community,” Weiser said in a statement. “The attorney general’s office is committed to defending these convictions through the appeals process.”
An Aurora police officer was convicted of homicide and third degree assault in McClain’s death, while two other officers were acquitted.
