In opening statements in the joint trial of a current and a former police officer in Aurora, Colorado, defense attorneys said the two followed department protocol.
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“Listen to Elijah’s words,” prosecutor Jonathan Bunge said as police body camera video was played. “When Elijah is on the ground handcuffed, he’s saying over and over and over again, ‘I can’t breathe. Please help me.’”
But instead of helping him, Bunge said, Aurora Police Officer Randy Roedema and his former colleague, Jason Rosenblatt, ignored McClain's pleas for help and told arriving paramedics that he had been resisting and had "crazy strength."
Then the paramedics gave McClain a sedative "as he was drifting closer and closer to death," Bunge said in Adams County District Court.
"The sedative was the very last thing he needed at the time," Bunge said.
Roedema and Rosenblatt, the first of five people charged with McClain's death to go on trial, listened quietly as Bunge laid out the government's case after Judge Mark Warner seated a jury of seven men and seven women, including two alternates. Most of the jurors appeared to be white.
Both Roedema and Rosenblatt are each charged with one count of manslaughter and one count of criminally negligent homicide. Both men have pleaded not guilty.
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In his opening statement, Roedema's lawyer, Reid Elkus, said his client wasn't on the scene when McClain was first stopped.
McClain didn't start resisting until another former Aurora police officer, Nathan Woodyard, placed a carotid hold on him, Elkus said. And it was the paramedics who diagnosed McClain with "excited delirium" and injected him with a lethal dose of ketamine, he said.
McClain died because Aurora Fire Rescue paramedic Jeremy Cooper injected too much ketamine for a man his size, Elkus said.
Rosenblatt's lawyer, Harvey Steinberg, said McClain was resisting furiously and at one point declared, "I intend to take my power back." He said Rosenblatt was "obligated" to help arrest McClain and at one point heard Roedema say McClain had "gone for" the gun of one of the officers.
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Woodyard, along with Cooper and another Aurora Fire Rescue paramedic, Peter Cichuniec, are also each charged with one count of manslaughter and one count of criminally negligent homicide. They also have pleaded not guilty.
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Rosenblatt was
fired in 2020 after texting “ha ha” in response to a picture sent to him by other officers, one of whom appeared to be administering a chokehold near a memorial for McClain.
Roedema remains on administrative leave without pay.
Cooper and Cichuniec are scheduled to be tried later this year after the Colorado Supreme Court on Monday
denied their petitions to have their cases dismissed. They have been placed on administrative leave without pay.
Woodyard will be tried this year but a date has not been set, prosecutors said. He was fired after the incident.
