US Paramedic Found Guilty of Black Man’s Death During Arrest

The last chapter in a case that became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement saw one of the two paramedics who gave a young black man an intravenous ketamine injection as he was being placed in a chokehold by US police sentenced to 14 months in prison with work release and probation on Friday.

In December, Jeremy Cooper was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in connection with the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old man who was unarmed and passed away a few days after a physical altercation with Colorado police.

Shortly after his violent arrest, he went into cardiac arrest while in the ambulance.

According to US media, Cooper, 49, was sentenced to four years of probation and 14 months in prison with work release on Friday in a Colorado court.

In most work-release programs, offenders must spend the evenings and weekends in prison, but they are permitted to go to work on weekdays.

Peter Cichuniec, a fellow paramedic, was found guilty of drugged assault and criminally negligent murder. The obligatory minimum penalty for an assault conviction is five years in jail, which is what he received last month.

The incident started in August 2019 when Aurora police were called to complaints of a black guy who was “acting weird” and “suspicious” on the street while wearing a ski mask.

Later on, McClain’s family informed the reporters that he had gone out purchasing iced tea and that he often wore the mask to remain warm due to his anemia.

McClain, who was unarmed, allegedly grabbed another officer’s pistol, according to one officer. There was no proof offered to back up this assertion.

They struggled with him, and Cooper and Cichuniec gave him ketamine injections while they restrained him.

The paramedics’ attorneys said throughout the trial that their clients had just followed procedure in giving a medication that was authorized in Colorado to patients in an “agitated state.”

In response, prosecutors said they had disregarded their instructions on how to deal with agitated patients.

McClain’s murder happened months before another black man, George Floyd, was killed in Minneapolis in May 2020, but as demonstrations against police brutality grew, the incident gained fresh prominence shortly after.

A campaign supported by celebrities resulted in a special inquiry and the eventual indictment of three police officers and two paramedics.

While the third police officer was given a 14-month prison term in January, the other two were found not guilty.