Three cops, two paramedics charged in Elijah McClain’s death

Three cops and two paramedics have been charged in the 2019 death of 23-year-old Elijah McClain.

Police officers Jason Rosenblatt, Randy Roedema and Nathan Woodyard and fire department paramedics Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper were all indicted by a grand jury Wednesday on charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

Rosenblatt and Roedema were also charged with intent to cause bodily injury and one count of crime of violence related to the assault. Cichuniec and Cooper face three counts of second-degree assault.

McClain was stopped by police as he was walking to his home from a convenience store on August 24, 2019. He was put in a chokehold and injected with Ketamine after someone called 911 and said he looked “suspicious”.

The caller reported seeing a man with a ski mask and waving his arms.

Paramedics injected McClain with 500 milligrams of Ketamine to subdue him, but that was 1.5 times more than the average dose for his body weight.

McClain went into cardiac arrest and was place on life support after he was declared brain dead.

Dave Young, who was the Adams County District Attorney in 2019, had declined to file charges, despite him calling McClain’s death preventable. Young said an autopsy report listed McClain’s death as “undetermined”.

Attorney General Phil Weise began a criminal probe after protests and outcry from the public.