The Colorado Court of Appeals reversed the criminally negligent homicide convictions for the former paramedics in the death of Elijah McClain. The decision by the court states that both men will be remanded for a new trial on that charge, which was announced on Thursday morning.
McClain was walking home in August 2019 when the 23-year-old Black man was confronted by police officers who forcibly restrained him and then the Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics, Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec, injected him with ketamine. He went into cardiac arrest in an ambulance a few minutes later and died three days after that.
After McClain died, the coroner’s office in Adams County initially couldn’t determine how he died, but after social justice protests drew attention to the case, a medical examiner ultimately found that he died from complications of ketamine following forcible restraint. That led to a 2021 indictment of three police officers and two paramedics.
The case was prosecuted by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office in Adams County Court…