Colorado officer jailed for killing 23-year-old

A white ex-police officer in Colorado has been given a 14-month prison sentence for the 2019 killing of a black man.

41-year-old Randy Roedema was found to be responsible for the death of Elijah McClain in October.

McClain, who was 23 years old, was held by the police and given a medicine called ketamine by a medic. He died after that, even though he had not done anything wrong.

The judge said he was surprised by the lack of care for McClain’s pain.

Another police officer, Jason Rosenblatt, was found not guilty of the same charges last year.

Both men were charged with using too much force and not listening to the unarmed man who kept saying, “I can’t breathe. ”

McClain died in Aurora, near Denver, three days after the police put him in a chokehold, injected him with ketamine to make him calm, and his heart stopped beating.

At the Colorado court on Friday, Judge Mark Werner said he was surprised by the lack of care for Elijah McClain‘s pain.

McClain was not a big threat to anyone and was restrained with handcuffs, according to Werner.

Roedema told the judge that he and the other officers acted the way they were trained to.

McClain’s death got more attention again after George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2020.

Before Elijah’s punishment, his mother Sheneen McClain said Roedema will always be a bully who has a badge.
A gathering was held to ask for fairness for Elijah McClain on the one year anniversary of his passing.