A group of police officers and paramedics charged in the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who was forcibly restrained and injected with a powerful sedative, are scheduled to appear in court Friday to enter pleas to the allegations.
Police officers Randy Roedema, Nathan Woodyard and Jason Rosenblatt, and fire department paramedic Jeremy Cooper and Lt. Peter Cichuniec all pleaded not guilty during a hearing in the Denver suburb of Brighton. They didn’t say anything about the allegations.
A judge decided to schedule three separate trials, the first of which is set to begin in July for officers Roedema and Rosenblatt. Another trial for Cooper and Cichuniec is scheduled for August. Woodyard’s trial is set for September. A grand jury indicted them after Democratic Gov. Jared Polis ordered Attorney General Phil Weiser to open a criminal investigation into the case. There had been renewed national interest in McClain’s death as protesters rallied over the killing of George Floyd in 2020. In 2021,McClain, a massage therapist, was unarmed and had not been accused of committing any crime.
The amended autopsy report released in September said McClain died as the result of complications of ketamine administration after being forcibly restrained. In it, Dr. Stephen Cina, a pathologist, said he could not rule out that changes in McClain’s blood chemistry, like an increase in lactic acid, due to his exertion while being restrained by police contributed to his death but concluded there was no evidence that injuries inflicted by police caused his death.
Family and friends described McClain as a gentle and kind introvert who volunteered to play his violin to comfort cats at an animal shelter. His pleading words captured on police body camera video — “I’m just different” — painfully underscored his apparent confusion at what was happening.
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