Two Colorado paramedics were convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a young unarmed Black man whose case drew national attention and forced public safety reforms in the city where he lived and died.
A mostly white jury found the paramedics, Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper, guilty of a more serious charge they faced. But the jury split on two lesser assault charges: They cleared Mr. Cooper of both assault charges, but convicted Mr. Cichuniec of one of those charges, second-degree assault for the unlawful administration of drugs.
The men had injected Mr. McClain with the powerful sedative ketamine while he was in police custody in Aurora, Colo., which doctors said left him near death. He died days later in the hospital.
The trial was a rare prosecution of paramedics, and raised the question of the role that medical personnel play in police encounters and whether they could be held criminally responsible for their actions.
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You might not like the answer to this. We don’t have the luxury of doing things the way they are done in controlled settings like doctor’s offices or hospitals. Law enforcement will restrain people and then all I need as a shoulder or a leg and about 3 seconds.
You are correct we are not generally there for the initial encounter. We do not make the determination if law enforcement is justified in fighting with people. Becoming combative is a symptom of quite a few medical emergencies. In situations like this I don’t decide who is right, that’s what court rooms are for. I do act in the way that I believe is best and safest for everyone. People in other comments don’t like this but even in this case, as a paramedic if I see someone fighting, throwing up, and going in and out of consciousness, I’m going to act as if they have a brain bleed. Which means aggressive sedation and airway management. Anything less or allowing fighting to continue significantly increases the risk of death for the patient.
Everything you described about law enforcement attacking people is why my personal philosophy is to stop the fighting. If law enforcement escalated a situation, who wins by me not doing what I can to stop the fighting? People can and do die from fighting with the police. People are much less likely to die if sedated and appropriately managed until they are discharged from the hospital.
That said, this case is an exception, the paramedics caused his death and were convicted as such. This is a very abnormal and unusual situation that disgraces the profession and it does not reflect how a competent paramedic would handle the situation.