JUSTICE FOR The story so far ELIJAH MCCLAIN T
he summer of 2020 has been one for the books, engulfed in record-high temperatures and equally heated conversations around the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, political strife, and the election, riding the wave of continued nationwide, protests against police brutality and a resurgence in the Black Lives Matter movement. Making a dent in the month of August, we steadily approached the one-year anniversary of Elijah McClain’s death, which happened right here in Colorado. Elijah was a 23-year-old, unarmed, Black man who was apprehended by Aurora police August 24, 2019 after a passerby noticed him wearing a mask (which he wore outside due to his anemia and to help him stay warm), flailing his arms, and listening to music. On the 911 call, the caller indicated he didn’t appear dangerous. When officers stopped him, Elijah told them, “I have a right to go where I am going.” An officer touched him; Elijah told him that he was going home and urged the officer to respect his boundaries. A struggle ensued, with Elijah thrown to the ground, an officer applying a “carotid control hold” around Elijah’s neck as he urged them to stop and that he was unarmed. To sedate him, medics injected Elijah with ketamine, too much for his body size. He suffered two heart attacks on the way to the hospital and was pronounced brain dead three days later. Elijah McClain died August 30 after being removed from life support, and none of the officers or medics at the scene have been charged. It wasn’t until November that police body camera footage was released, though it is difficult to indicate what protocol was followed by officers, as their body cameras all allegedly fell off during the arrest. An officer can be heard in the footage stating Elijah had done nothing illegal prior to the arrest, and Elijah repeatedly asks officers to stop, pleads that his house is nearby, that he has an ID and is unarmed. This is before he vomits, apologizes to the officers, and tells them he cannot breathe correctly. A camera is briefly picked up and pointed at Elijah, then dropped into the grass once more. Around the 15:34-mark, a police officer can be heard saying, “Leave your camera there” as another officer goes to retrieve it. 1 8 \\ D E C E M B E R 2 3 , 2 0 2 0
by Keegan Williams
The autopsy report was released the same month, which notes a combination of factors could have killed Elijah, that he had chronic asthma, and that his physical exertion likely contributed to his death, though indicated it was “unclear if the officers’ actions contributed as well.” Following the release of the autopsy report, Mari Newman, the lawyer representing the McClain family, rebutes, “Whatever the report says, it’s clear that if the police had not attacked Elijah McClain, he would be alive today. They immediately went hands-on and tackled him. And, of course, the fact that all three of their body cameras fell off is something that we should all be pretty suspicious about. It makes it awfully easy for them to say whatever they want, but what we know is that they attacked him for no reason whatsoever.” Details around Elijah’s case caught nationwide attention this past June following the death of George Floyd, another unarmed, Black man, at the hands of Minneapolis police in late May. Following weeks of Black Lives Matter and police brutality protests in Denver and worldwide, Colorado had the momentum to pass the Law Enforcement Accountability and Integrity Act, which Rep. Leslie Herod had started working on in late-2019 after Elijah’s death. Among other police reform measures, the bill makes it a duty for officers to intervene if another sworn employee is inappropriately applying force, explicitly outlaws the carotid hold that was used against Elijah, creates a public database to prevent the rehiring of bad officers, and removes qualified immunity for prosecution of law enforcement found to have acted unlawfully. “Many people are saying they’re going to quit because it’s too much, which I’m fine with, because they’re obviously bad officers,” Herod says. “What we can’t do is bring their babies back.” Herod continues, “I could write a law tomorrow saying wearing green pants is illegal, but if you wore green pants on Tuesday, I can’t throw you in jail for that, you know? You didn’t actually break the law when you were doing it. Now, I don’t contend that these officers haven’t broken the law, but what I do know is that we’re operating under pre-217 [Law Enforcement Accountability and Integrity Act] language, which gives the officers a lot more flexibility and ability to murder, and I think that needs to be
