BRIGHTON, Colo. (AP) — Jurors convicted a Denver-area police officer Thursday and acquitted another of charges in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a Black man whose name became a rallying cry in protests over racial injustice in policing.
Aurora police officer Randy Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault. The 12-person jury found officer Jason Rosenblatt not guilty on all charges. Roedema faces up to three years in prison on the more serious homicide charge, with sentencing to occur at a later date.
Roedema and Rosenblatt were charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and second-degree assault — all felonies. However, the jury as it went into deliberation was asked to consider a lesser form of assault for Roedema, the one he was found guilty of. At least three other officers who were not charged were involved in restraining McClain at some point during the confrontation. One of them, officer Alicia Ward, testified for the prosecution that she had her hand on McClain’s head when the ketamine was administered but did not apply pressure. Ward said she would have applied pressure if McClain resisted at that point, but said she did not need to.
Roedema and Rosenblatt did not testify in their defense at trial. Their attorneys blamed McClain’s death on the paramedics for injecting him with ketamine, which doctors said is what ultimately killed him. Despite the emotional weight of McClain’s last words captured on body camera and a story about him playing the violin in an animal shelter, the trial did not include much testimony about him or his life.
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