Former Colorado police officer sentenced to 14 months for role in killing of Elijah McClain
Randy Roedema, a former police officer in Colorado, has been sentenced to 14 months in jail for his involvement in the 2019 killing of Elijah McClain. McClain, a Black man, was not suspected of any crime when police restrained him and paramedics injected him with a powerful sedative.
Before the sentencing, McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, condemned Roedema as the only law enforcement official to be found guilty. She stated, “Randy Roedema stole my son’s life. All the belated apologies in the world can’t remove my son’s blood from Randy Roedema’s hands,” and called the sentence “a slap on the wrist”.
Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault, while fellow police officer Jason Rosenblatt was found not guilty in a joint trial.
The incident occurred on August 24, 2019, when police confronted McClain after a bystander reported his behavior as suspicious. McClain was restrained and put in a chokehold, resulting in him repeatedly stating he could not breathe and vomiting. The original autopsy was inconclusive, but a revised report in 2021 attributed his death to complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint.
In a separate trial, two paramedics were convicted of criminally negligent homicide for injecting McClain with an overdose of ketamine. They are set to be sentenced in March.
The case initially received little attention, but following the global protests triggered by the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, Colorado Governor Jared Polis asked for an investigation into McClain’s case. A state grand jury indicted the officers and paramedics in 2021.
The sentencing of Roedema is seen as a small step towards accountability in McClain’s tragic death.