Paramedic sentencing in Elijah McClain’s death caps trials that led to 3 convictions

DENVER (AP) — Almost five years after Elijah McClain died following a police stop in which he was put in a neck hold and injected with the powerful sedative ketamine, three of the five Denver-area officers and paramedics prosecuted in the Black man’s death have been convicted.

Experts say the convictions would have been unheard of before 2020, when George Floyd’s murder sparked a nationwide reckoning over racist policing and deaths in police custody. At a sentencing hearing Friday, Jeremy Cooper, a former Aurora Fire Rescue paramedic, faces up to three years in prison after he was convicted in December of criminally negligent homicide in McClain’s 2019 death.

But McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, said justice has not yet been served. She said the two acquitted Aurora police officers, as well as other firefighters and police on the scene, were complicit in her 23-year-old son’s killing and that they escaped justice.

“I’m waiting on heaven to hand down everybody’s judgment. Because I know heaven ain’t gonna miss the mark,” she told The Associated Press.

Sheneen McClain plans to speak at Friday’s hearing.

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