A second Denver-area police officer has been acquitted in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain
FILE - Aurora, Colo., police officer Nathan Woodyard attends an arraignment hearing after being charged in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, Jan. 20, 2023, at the Adams County Justice Center in Brighton, Colo. Closing arguments are scheduled Friday, Nov. 3, in the trial of the police officer charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the death of McClain, a 23-year-old Black man stopped as he walked home from the store after someone reported that he was suspicious.
Unlike the first two officers who were prosecuted, Woodyard took the stand during his trial. He testified that he put McClain in the neck hold because he feared for his life after he heard McClain say, “I intend to take my power back” and another officer say, “He just grabbed your gun, dude.” The killings of McClain, Floyd and others triggered a wave of legislation that put limits on the use of neck holds in more than two dozen states. Colorado now tells paramedics not to give ketamine to people suspected of having a disputed condition known as, which had been described in a since-withdrawn emergency physicians' report as manifesting symptoms including increased strength. Critics have called it unscientific and rooted in racism.
Paramedics injected McClain with ketamine as Roedema and another officer who was not charged held him on the ground. He went into cardiac arrest en route to the hospital and died three days later. In both trials, the defense sought to pin the blame for McClain’s death on paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Lt. Peter Cichuniec. But while attorneys in the first trial suggested McClain bore some responsibility for his medical decline by struggling with police, Woodyard’s lawyers seemed more sympathetic to McClain.
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