Final trial over Elijah McClain’s death in suburban Denver spotlights paramedics’ role

DENVER — The final trial over the 2019 death of Elijah McClain after he was stopped by police in suburban Denver is expected to delve into largely uncharted legal territory, with paramedics, not officers, being prosecuted this time.

Starting Monday, jurors will be chosen to decide if the paramedics committed a crime when they gave the 23-year-old Black man an overdose of the powerful sedative ketamine after he was forcibly restrained by police.

McClain went into cardiac arrest on his way to the hospital and was pronounced dead three days later. Three officers already have gone to trial and two were acquitted.

The case will be the first of several recent criminal charges against medical first responders to reach trial and could “set the bar” for prosecutors in future cases, said Douglas Wolfberg, a former emergency medicine instructor and founding partner of a Pennsylvania law firm representing emergency medical services workers.

Aurora Fire Department paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Lt. Peter Cichuniec have pleaded not guilty.

Initially no one was charged because the coroner’s office could not determine exactly how McClain died. But in 2021, social justice protests over the 2020 murder of George Floyd drew renewed attention to McClain’s case, prompting an indictment against the paramedics and three officers.

“What we saw three years ago, that put a huge spotlight on the police profession,” University of Miami criminologist Alex Piquero said, adding that the McClain case “has the potential to do that for paramedics and first responders.”

Wolfberg said the thinking about such cases has changed, especially since George Floyd.

“Obviously there are political considerations. That’s not to deny Mr. McClain’s family the justice they are seeking,” he said.

Defense attorneys at a November court hearing indicated they plan to blame police for McClain’s death during a trial expected to last most of December. The defense attorneys did not return telephone calls or emails seeking comment on the charges the men face.

Cases pending elsewhere include paramedics in Illinois facing first-degree murder charges after a patient they strapped facedown to a stretcher suffocated, and an involuntary manslaughter charge against a nurse in California who continued to draw blood from an unresponsive patient while officers pinned him down.

“It’s exceedingly rare for EMS providers to be charged criminally related to providing inpatient care,” Wolfberg said. “That…