A former Colorado police officer was sentenced to 14 months in prison for his role in the 2019 murder of Elijah McClain, a young black man. McClain was roughly restrained by police and injected with a powerful sedative by paramedics, but was not charged with any crime.
Former Aurora police officer Randy Rodema, 41, who faces up to three years in prison, was found guilty by a jury in October of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault.
The same jury acquitted fellow police officer Jason Rosenblatt, 35, in a joint trial.
Judge Mark Warner sentenced Roedema to 14 months in prison for third-degree assault.
He also ordered a four-year suspended sentence and 90 days in prison to be served concurrently with the assault sentence for manslaughter.
Roema was not immediately taken into custody. He must report to the Adams County Jail by March 22.
“I was struck by how truly indifferent this court seemed to be to Elijah McClain's suffering,” Warner said before handing down his sentence.
The 23-year-old boy's mother, Sheneen McClain, addressed the judge before the sentence was handed down and said she had been watching the trial of her son's killers, looking for any signs of repentance.
“I couldn’t find anything,” she said. “I listened to the trial to see if I could hear their voices, but instead all I heard was lies and voices blaming others for their trained brutality.”
Roema offered her condolences to McClain's family in court Friday. He did not apologize for Elijah McClain's death and said he acted in accordance with his training.
“I can't help but think of all the different scenarios that could have happened that night and that could have resulted in a different outcome,” Roedema told the court. “For example, I wish the bystander hadn't called that (911) call.”
Prosecutor Jason Slotover told the judge that Roedema's statements “do not admit any intent to cause pain or harm to Mr. McClain, nor do they admit any significant deviation from his training. Quite the contrary.”
A total of three trials related to McClain's death were held.
In a second trial, Aurora police officer Nathan Woodyard, 34, was acquitted of manslaughter in November.
In the third trial last month, paramedics Jeremy Cooper, 49, and Peter Cichniec, 51, were found guilty of manslaughter. They are scheduled to be sentenced on March 1st.
brutal showdown
Police confronted McClain on his way home from a convenience store after witnesses reported a man wearing a winter coat and ski mask acting suspiciously on a warm night.
Within seconds of stopping the young man, police put their hands on him and put him in a carotid chokehold at least twice. He vomited into his ski mask and repeatedly told officers he couldn't breathe.
During Roedema and Rosenblatt's trial, defense attorneys played body camera audio in which Roedema can be heard screaming that McClain tried to take Rosenblatt's gun. After that, police action escalated rapidly.
Prosecutors suggested during the trial that Roedema may have lied or made a mistake, noting there was no footage of him grabbing a gun.
An initial autopsy conducted in 2019 found the cause of death to be “undetermined.” A revised autopsy report in 2021 concluded that McClain died from “complications from the administration of ketamine following forced restraint.”
Local prosecutors initially declined to press charges. The situation changed in May 2020 following the death of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of Minneapolis police.
In June 2020, Colorado Governor Jared Polis asked the state attorney general's office to investigate McClain's case. A state grand jury indicted the police officer and paramedic in 2021.
