A Colorado jury on Thursday reached a split verdict in the trial of two Aurora police officers charged in the death of Elijah McClain during a 2019 arrest.
The jury convicted Randy Roedema of criminally negligent homicide, after rejecting a more serious charge of reckless manslaughter, and third-degree assault, KUSA reported. The jury found Jason Rosenblatt not guilty of reckless manslaughter and second-degree assault.
Roedema faces a maximum of 364 days in jail on the assault charge and one to three years on the negligent homicide charge.
McClain’s mother, Shereen McClain, was not satisfied with the jury’s results.
“It’s not enough cause Roedema wasn’t alone in what he did to my son. He had buddies with badges who are all bullies. This is not a victory for me at all,” she said.
But, she said, her son told her not to worry before he died.
“Because this is not the final destination. This is just human judgment,” she said. “It helped that he told me not to worry because they have an eternal judgment that they have yet to see. And no matter how they try to clean their slate. They still have my son’s blood on their hands.”
In August 2019, Aurora police officers responding to a suspicious person call detained McClain, 23, as he walked home from a corner store, as CrimeOnline reported. During the 20-minute ordeal, officers allegedly put McClain in a carotid hold and violently restrained him with an armbar and their knees, a federal lawsuit alleged.
“Let go of me. I am an introvert. Please respect the boundaries that I am speaking,” McClain was heard saying in police’s bodycam footage.
While handcuffed, a paramedic allegedly injected McClain with 500mg of ketamine.
McClain, who went into cardiac arrest during the encounter, died days after being declared brain dead. McClain’s autopsy was inconclusive, but a federal lawsuit stated that “intense physical exertion and a narrow left coronary artery contributed to [his] death.”
In 2021, the city of Aurora agreed to pay McClain’s family $15 million. The multimillion-dollar settlement came months after a city’s independent report found wrongdoing in police officers’ stop and arrest of McClain.
Nathan Woodyard, who was the lead officer responding to the suspicious person call is scheduled to go on trial on Friday. In late September, the Colorado Supreme Court denied a bid to dismiss charges against the two paramedics involved in McClain’s arrest, Jeremy Cooper and Lieutenant Peter Cichuniec. Their trial is scheduled to begin in late November.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.
[Featured image: Elijah McClain/GoFundMe]
