The solely police officer convicted in Elijah McClain’s dying was sentenced Friday to 14 months in jail and 4 years of probation.
Adams County District Court Judge Mark Warner sentenced former officer Randy Roedema throughout a two-hour listening to in Adams County District Court.
The 41-year-old was convicted in October of criminally negligent murder and third-degree assault in McClain’s 2019 dying. Roedema confronted between one and three years in jail on the murder conviction and as much as 24 months in jail on the assault conviction.
Warner sentenced Roedema to 4 years of probation with 90 days in jail, throughout which he might be eligible for work-release, on the murder cost, and 14 months in jail, additionally with work-release eligibility, on the assault cost.
The sentences are to be served concurrently.
Roedema should report back to the Adams County Jail by March 22, the choose mentioned.
He additionally most full 200 hours of neighborhood service.
Roedema didn’t seem to visibly react when the sentence was imposed.
People on either side of the case cried in the course of the sentencing listening to.
Warner famous that Roedema would have been eligible for parole in about 13.5 months had he been sentenced to 3 years in jail, the utmost allowable and the time period requested by the prosecution.
“The court was shocked by what appeared to be indifference to Elijah MClain’s suffering,” Warner mentioned.
Sheneen McClain, Elijah’s mom, addressed the choose earlier than he handed down his sentence. Her son, she mentioned, “was murdered with intent and malice.”
“My son, Elijah McClain, was a healthy young man the night Randy Roedema chose to show my son the power and privilege of the boys in blue,” she mentioned.
Roedema additionally addressed the choose, saying the state of affairs that evening in 2019 had a “horrible outcome that no one intended or wanted to happen.”
“I cannot imagine the agony they must feel,” Roedema mentioned of McClain’s household.
Some 75 folks submitted letters of assist for Roedema earlier than the sentencing, court docket information present.
Roedema was the one considered one of three Aurora law enforcement officials charged in McClain’s dying to be convicted. Two Aurora paramedics additionally had been convicted of criminally negligent murder.
McClain was strolling residence on Aug. 24, 2019, when officers contacted him after an adolescent referred to as 911 and reported McClain as a suspicious individual. The 23-year-old unarmed Black man was carrying a ski masks, listening to music and waving his arms as he walked residence.
Within seconds of reaching McClain, Aurora law enforcement officials threw him to the bottom and violently arrested him. Roedema helped to restrain McClain and Aurora police officer Nathan Woodyard used a carotid maintain on McClain, squeezing his neck to drive him to lose consciousness.
McClain vomited after the neck maintain and inhaled that vomit into his lungs, testimony at trial revealed. He begged the officers for assist, repeatedly telling them that he couldn’t breathe, however the officers didn’t give him any medical assist, as an alternative calling for paramedics.
After McClain was subdued and handcuffed, Aurora paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec injected McClain with a dose of the sedative ketamine, and he suffered a coronary heart assault. He by no means recovered and died within the hospital days later.
Three officers and the 2 paramedics had been criminally charged in reference to McClain’s dying. Roedema, Cichuniec and Cooper had been convicted. Woodyard and former officer Jason Rosenblatt had been acquitted.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”