AURORA | It was a taste of justice for Sheneen McClain and a bitter pill for Aurora paramedics — three years after encountering Elijah McClain pinned under the knees of police, Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper were convicted of felony homicide for injecting the youth with an overdose of the sedative drug ketamine.
The convictions marked the end of a yearslong quest by Sheneen McClain to hold the first responders involved in her son’s death accountable. Walking out of the courtroom after the verdicts were read Dec. 22, Sheneen McClain lifted her fist into the air.
“We did it!,” she exclaimed in the presence of reporters.
Meanwhile, Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics had followed the trial with mounting anxiety. That anxiety came to a head after Cichuniec and Cooper were convicted, ultimately prompting Fire Chief Alec Oughton to give paramedics permission to opt out of providing medical care beyond the limited scope of treatment rendered by EMTs.
As of Thursday, agency spokeswoman Dawn Small said that 10% of the agency’s entire paramedic force has taken Oughton up on his offer.
While prosecutors insisted Cichuniec and Cooper failed to perform basic medical checks on McClain, the fact that two of their coworkers could face criminal charges for what paramedics saw as behavior consistent with the department’s guidelines at the time made them worry that they, too, could be charged for making a good-faith effort to provide medical care.
By the time Cichuniec and Cooper were found guilty, fears that Aurora could see a mass departure of paramedics had taken hold among the city’s top firefighters.
In a Dec. 23 email to firefighters — shared by Charlie Richardson, a former city attorney and current representative of the city’s firefighter union, and verified by Small — Oughton gave paramedics the ability to opt out and said the agency was suspending the requirement that all firefighters obtain their paramedic certification.
“In the wake of the trial, I understand that many of you may feel the risk to your livelihood in performing as a paramedic is too great in the current environment,” Oughton wrote in the email. “I truly appreciate those who will maintain their paramedic scope but understand the concerns of those who elect to limit it.”
Small said 25 firefighters out of the 236 certified to work as paramedics are no longer doing so, with most having officially ceased that work in early January. The agency employs about 460 firefighters in total.
In response to a records request, the City of Aurora also said two paramedic students opted to remain EMTs after completing paramedic programs since Dec. 22, despite the pay raise of up to 10% available to firefighters working as paramedics.
Unlike paramedics, EMTs are not expected nor allowed to administer sedatives. Aurora Fire Rescue stopped equipping paramedics with ketamine in 2020 — two other sedative drugs, droperidol and midazolam, remain in use.
EMTs are also not able to administer medications intravenously in general nor perform more advanced life-saving procedures such as intubation and tracheostomies.
All but three of the 25 scope-limited firefighters hold a rank higher than fire medic, meaning they are less likely to provide hands-on patient care. However, Oughton said in response to questions by the Sentinel they may still provide care in “circumstances where all hands are needed, like cardiac arrest, multi-system trauma or multi-casualty incidents.”
“It has not impacted the way we deliver service,” Oughton wrote in an email to the Sentinel. “We continue to have the ability to staff all of our engines and ladder trucks with paramedics, allowing us to quickly address advanced life support needs in the community.”
While Richardson agreed with the chief’s analysis that there was a serious risk of firefighters leaving the department en masse after the verdicts, he questioned the assertion that the agency losing one-tenth of its paramedics hasn’t impacted services.
“If you lose 25 people, that’s an issue,” Richardson said.
On Friday, Cichuniec was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Cooper will be sentenced April 26.
Impacts outside of Aurora
The trial and convictions of Cichuniec and Cooper have generated unease among paramedics and firefighters beyond Aurora.
Professional organizations representing firefighters in Colorado say the prosecutions have fueled uncertainty in agencies across the state about when prosecutors might choose to charge a paramedic for an in-the-moment treatment decision.
Garry Briese, executive director of Colorado State Fire Chiefs, said he hadn’t heard about firefighters at other agencies declining to work as paramedics but added he was “sure those discussions are going on.”
“It’s very unsettling,” he said. “People are indeed asking themselves, if they’re a paramedic in particular, ‘Could this happen to me?’ And there’s no easy answer to that question.”
Less than an hour after the verdicts were read, the nation’s largest firefighter union also issued a dire warning about their significance for fire medics across the country.
International Association of Fire Fighters general president Edward Kelly wrote in a statement that the two prosecutions stemming from the death of Elijah McClain would set “a dangerous, chilling precedent” for paramedics that could cause them to second-guess themselves in situations where minutes and seconds can mean the difference between life and death.
“Today’s verdicts … only compound this tragedy,” Kelly opined.
Doug Wolfberg — a lawyer specializing in emergency medicine who in January visited the city to train Aurora Fire Rescue personnel on medical law, patient care and interacting with law enforcement — said the convictions could embolden prosecutors to charge paramedics who make mistakes or poor decisions as a result of inadequate training.
In general, a medical provider may be found liable for negligence if they violate professional standards while treating a patient, hurting that person as a result.
Most medical malpractice cases end up in civil court. For negligence to rise to the level of a crime, prosecutors typically look for evidence that a provider’s neglect of standards was malicious or reckless.
Wolfberg said the lack of a clear distinction between negligence as a civil wrong and recklessness as a crime means that, in practice, paramedics who act negligently aren’t charged unless a prosecutor can prove they intentionally violated standards.
“I’m not saying they didn’t have the right to file the charges, because obviously they did, and obviously they convinced a jury that the charges had merit,” Wolfberg said. “But this is relatively unprecedented in terms of the facts for an EMS case.”
At trial, state prosecutors argued that Cichuniec and Cooper acted recklessly and contrary to medical standards when they arranged for the injection of Elijah McClain — who was handcuffed, restrained and had not moved in over a minute — with a 500-milligram dose of ketamine.
The paramedics did not talk to the 23-year-old or take his pulse before Cooper injected him with what state witnesses said was 50% more than what he should have been given based on his bodyweight. Forensic pathologist Stephen Cina previously reported the injection was the immediate cause of Elijah McClain’s death.
“There was no justification not to assess Mr. McClain. There was no justification to give someone who was not moving a sedative,” prosecutor Shannon Stevenson said during the state’s closing arguments. “The defendants knew the risk of giving an overdose of ketamine.”
Defense attorneys argued that the paramedics were misled and prevented from interacting with McClain by police and said prosecutors failed to prove the two paramedics acted contrary to their training on the treatment of excited delirium.
“They’re told by police that Mr. McClain was demonstrating incredible strength, crazy strength,” Cichuniec’s attorney David Goddard said at trial. “That information fits squarely within the signs and symptoms of excited delirium.”
The diagnosis of excited delirium has since been purged from Colorado law enforcement training materials over concerns about its legitimacy and frequent use in the context of Black people dying in police custody, and the importance of treating it quickly.
Testifying in their own defense, Cichuniec and Cooper described their education on the condition, which they were taught should be treated quickly using a dose of ketamine based on a patient’s bodyweight.
If the patient’s exact weight was unknown, they were taught they could administer a “small” 300-milligram dose, a “medium” 400-milligram dose or a “large” 500-milligram dose. Cooper overestimated Elijah McClain’s weight by about 60 pounds.
Richardson said about 50 off-duty firefighters, mostly from Aurora, attended each day of the trial, which lasted weeks.
“The verdicts were so demoralizing,” Richardson said. “And those 50 per day have obviously spread through their observations throughout the department.”
Attorneys for Cichuniec and Cooper did not respond to requests for interviews. Sheneen McClain also did not reply when the Sentinel reached out through her attorney.
Besides potentially lowering the bar for paramedics to be criminally charged, Wolfberg said paramedics have also questioned whether the case is a repudiation of implied consent, the idea that providers can legally treat a person who requires urgent medical care but can’t give explicit permission to be treated, such as if they are unconscious.
“I think one of the negative impacts of this case is planting a seed in the minds of many EMS providers that the law of implied consent is out the window, and that’s not the case,” Wolfberg said.
“It’s simply not true. But I’ve heard medics tell me that they’re going to be reluctant to administer treatment unless the patient themselves gives a clear statement of consent to the treatment.”
He said part of the confusion stems from the fact that Cichuniec was convicted of assault by the unlawful administration of drugs in addition to the criminally-negligent homicide charge that both he and Cooper were found guilty of.
The assault statute specifies that it only applies in situations where a drug is administered “without (a person’s) consent.” However, Wolfberg pointed out that the statute only applies when a drug is given for “a purpose other than lawful medical or therapeutic treatment,” which he said should encompass implied consent.
Richardson said Aurora firefighters are particularly uncomfortable when a situation may call for the administration of a sedative, given how “the trial really highlighted the perils of implied consent, especially in a police custody scenario.”
“I think the use of chemical sedatives in the context of paramedic medicine needs to be severely restricted to almost an express consent situation, where the patient acknowledges they’re having some issues and they don’t mind that,” he said.
Tribulations from the trials
For Oughton, faced with a climate of apprehension among firefighters as well as the public’s expectations for services provided by the agency, there was no easy answer to the question of how to prevent the exodus from Aurora Fire Rescue that he and others dreaded.
“It is my fear that, when members must choose between shouldering the risk of criminal charges and leaving the department, they will choose the latter,” the chief wrote in his email to the Sentinel.
“This exodus would be devastating to the department and could leave Aurora in a position where its fire department doesn’t have adequate staffing levels to protect the community.”
Oughton said — and a city spokesman and city lawmaker confirmed — that he sought the approval of City Manager Jason Batchelor and Aurora’s City Council before moving forward with the changes to his agency’s paramedic policies.
The chief pointed out that the policy requiring all firefighters to obtain their paramedic certification was introduced two decades ago “in an unsuccessful attempt to resolve a paramedic shortage in the department … that continues to exist today.”
About 46% of firefighters are certified to work as paramedics and have not expressed their desire to cease that work.
Oughton said the agency had already been thinking about eliminating the requirement to ease the burden on firefighters who struggled to succeed in the fast-paced learning environment of paramedic training.
In addition to Aurora Fire Rescue, Falck Rocky Mountain employs paramedics serving Aurora in addition to running ambulance crews throughout the city. Despite the reduction in the agency’s paramedic force, Oughton said Aurora’s emergency response infrastructure remains strong overall and that other cities look to AFR members for in-person and online training.
“We were very thoughtful and prudent to ensure adequate staffing levels that protect the community when the scope limitation option was made available to our members,” he wrote.
“Even with the relatively small number of scope imitations that have been exercised to-date, we are still in a strong position to have a paramedic on each suppression unit, with consideration of a staffing factor to accommodate leave, injuries, military, etc.”
When asked how the verdicts have been received by Aurora firefighters, Oughton said they are fearful that lawmakers will assume bad medical outcomes are necessarily the result of intentional, malicious behavior.
“Obviously, they can’t predict the future, which means they don’t always get it right,” Oughton wrote. “Now, their livelihood could hang in the balance based on discretionary decisions like the ones that prosecutors called into question in this case, such as implied consent, the methodology used for assessments or clinical impressions.”
But while the convictions of Cichuniec and Cooper have caused strife within the emergency medicine field, the department has also made improvements in parallel with the city’s police department and tried to draw lessons from the death of Elijah McClain
Since 2019, in addition to phasing out the drug that Cina blamed for the 23-year-old’s death, Aurora Fire Rescue has re-established its medical branch to improve oversight of paramedics and introduced quality-assurance reviews for all uses of sedatives by paramedics.
The agency also expanded its community outreach efforts, revamped its rules clarifying the roles of agencies at emergency scenes and rolled out new dispatch protocols in conjunction with Aurora911 to promote the ability of firefighters to focus on patient care.
Oughton joined the agency in the middle of its reckoning with the aftermath of Elijah McClain’s death, being named chief in January of last year, after former chief Fernando Gray left for a job in Nevada. He said he was proud of the changes Aurora Fire Rescue had made prior to and since his arrival.
“AFR is in a much better position today after making these necessary improvements,” he wrote. “I have assured our members that choosing to scope-limit doesn’t have to be permanent. As we continue to improve our medical training, quality assurance and supervisory infrastructure, they may request the removal of the limitations and restoration of their paramedic scope of practice.”
Small said one captain returned to work as a paramedic after he was allowed to cease that work Jan. 5. A total of seven captains, six lieutenants, nine engineers and three fire medics remain certified but approved not to work as paramedics.
When asked why officers were choosing to cease working as paramedics more often than the fire medics who are more likely to do hands-on paramedic work, Richardson mentioned how the pay raise for paramedics gets smaller relative to a firefighter’s base pay as the firefighter rises through the ranks.
Oughton said the officers likely wanted to focus on excelling in their other roles.
“The practice of paramedicine is just that, a practice. Proficiency takes repetition, constant focus on evolving protocols and best practice,” Oughton wrote. “Many officers may have had the desire to scope-limit in order to have more focused responsibilities, but it hasn’t been an option available to them until now.”
Back to the Capitol
As for what could be done to make paramedics feel more confident working in an environment where the legal ground rules are less certain than they were three months ago, Wolfberg said he supports legislation clarifying when police officers must stand down to provide paramedics access to detainees.
Richardson said Aurora Fire Fighters Local 1290 will be “aggressively” negotiating its upcoming contract with the city to make sure the agency’s active paramedics are compensated for additional work they may be expected to do in light of other paramedics stepping down.
When asked about the status of that discussion, Oughton only said that firefighters who decide to stop working as paramedics agree to relinquish the associated pay raise.
The chief’s Dec. 23 letter also described a survey that the department planned to send out, soliciting firefighter feedback about “areas of weakness or ambiguity in our policies, medical protocols and training.”
Oughton said Local 1290 offered to send the survey to its members. Union president Travis Pulliam did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the survey results.
Since the death of Elijah McClain, some of the policy changes impacting paramedics have come directly from the state legislature. In 2021, Gov. Jared Polis signed into law a bill regulating the use of ketamine by paramedics and expressly prohibiting police officers from meddling in the decision-making of emergency medicine providers.
Rhonda Fields — who represents north Aurora in the state Senate and co-sponsored the ketamine bill along with state Sen. Julie Gonzales, state Rep. Leslie Herod and former state Rep. Yadira Caraveo — said the state “can’t legislate everything” and argued that agencies should step in to provide leadership and clarity to paramedics if paramedics are concerned about the legal consequences of doing their jobs.
“If they have a legislative fix, I’d be happy to support it in any way I can, but I think they need to own it initially,” Fields said. “I don’t think, just because these two guys are being held accountable for their acts, that should be a signal that you should drop out of the profession.”
Herod said she remains open to legislation guaranteeing paramedics are able to do their jobs free of police interference but that she has not personally heard of firefighters considering leaving jobs if they are expected to work as paramedics.
Oughton described Elijah McClain’s death as “tragic and avoidable,” and emphasized the ways in which the agency has learned and grown from the incident since 2019. At the same time, he said the convictions of Cichuniec and Cooper had “changed medical practice forever.”
“It added a new risk for providers on top of the risks they knew when they signed up, like potentially losing their life in the care and protection of others,” Oughton wrote. “Rarely has a district attorney — let alone a governor and attorney general — assumed malice or criminal intent and prosecuted poor care as a criminal charge.”
While Herod said she believed all of the people who were present for the incident had “the ability and the duty to save Elijah McClain’s life,” she acknowledged Cichuniec and Cooper wouldn’t have been there had it not been for the decisions made first by police.
“None of them should even know Elijah McClain’s name,” Herod said.
Our hearts go outo Sheenan McClain on beloved young Elijah.
Easy to miscalculate a person’s weight when the person is wearing a winter coat.
Do not resist police.
I would immediately complyvith whatever officers ordered – and have!
If unjust, take ito court or not bother.
Why do we call them firefighters when fighting fire is not their main function? They serve as emergency medical responders primarily. Wouldn’t it make more sense to separate their work into actual fire fighters and emergency medical providers? Seems if we had public healthcare like the rest of the world,this could be solved easily
You are a communist.
Leslie Herrod and Rhonda Fields are directly responsible for the police reform bill that has created a completely uncertain situation for the police. They talk about not being able to legislate everything and clarity. Well, the police reform bill they created has made everything so vague that the police no longer know what they can legally do and what they will be prosecuted for doing. They won’t discuss all of the ridiculous guidelines that are in their bill. The legal advisors can’t tell the police what the bill means. No one can explain it. Yet, the police are left with all these vague ideas and no clear guidance. The Supreme Court made it clear that the police should not be judged from 20/20 hindsight and that they should be judged from the viewpoint of a reasonable officer at the scene. This was all due to the type of circumstances that the police have to deal with. The bill passed by Herrod and Fields has done more damage than anyone knows. The result is that the officers are no longer willing to get involved. Further, prosecutors are charging officers who were just in the area when someone dies. They have no practical idea of what happens in all the different circumstances faced by police. The death of Elijah McClain was a tragedy. It was not criminal. The prosecution of the officers and the fire people was purely political. The political prosecution was after anyone they could get. The reality is that one really knows why McClain died. Good peoples’ lives have now been destroyed on top of the McClain tragedy. So, Herrod and Fields are perfectly happy to leave the fire people in the same vague circumstance as the police.
The other thing that no one seems to understand is that suspects have been dying from unknown causes for many years even when no excessive force was applied and no neck restraint was used. The medical people could not explain it and the terms excited delirium and sudden in-custody death were coined to describe the type of behavior and the circumstances. The problem is that these people will continue to resist and die unexpectedly. Now, when someone dies, we have to blame it on the first responders at the scene. Then, the doctors they bring in can be all exacting in opinions on what could have been done better. Well, who wants to risk the future of their family when they will be judged by hysterical people with no facts and very little knowledge of what really transpires on the street. Herrod and Fields are not being asked to clarify the vague guidelines in their bill. The people who should be standing up and making them explain are not doing so. The chiefs and sheriffs are letting their people go out trying to do the job in completely unknown circumstances. They can’t explain the police reform bill but they won’t speak out. So, be all judgmental. But, understand that you don’t really know what is happening. Meanwhile, you can just say that the police and fire should just go out and do their jobs. Well, you should be saying to Herrod and Fields that they cannot do their jobs when people like you make completely unknown risks for them. And, ask Herrod and Fields to explain the bill they created. I know….crickets.
Thank you Sergeant Black for stating the obvious to the oblivious and uninformed folks in society! Keep up the good work!
The outspoken radicals, socialists and activists in our community have, again, made Aurora a less safe place to live. They seem to do this time and time again under the banner of “Black Lives Matter”. When does the safety of Aurora’s other 85% matter?
It makes me more afraid for our future when the State Legislatures mentioned in this article state that you can’t legislate everything, yet they attempt to do so. When will it ever end?
The horror of it all will eventually make Aurora just like a third world country led by radicals, socialists and activists that have no feelings for the “common man”.
The weak reason for police to have even engaged McClain is the elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. Suspicion, petty stops, removal of people from vehicles, and behavior created by boredom are easily addressed if not driven by egos and revenue generation. Suspicious activity is what Terry vs Ohio calls a hunch and police are supposed to be prohibited from basing investigations on hunches. Frivolous police contact with the public is the main source of many of the problems own making.
Not quite accurate. Terry vs Ohio was the ruling that gave officers the right to detain and identify someone if they had a reasonable suspicion that they were involved in a crime (have committed, were committing or about to commit). That is the start of an investigation approved by the Supreme Court. The question of whether there was truly enough justification for the stop is partially subjective. That is a matter debated by the courts. The question of whether you should stop, as a citizen, has been established by law.
These paramedics take an oath to serve the people they respond to. If they cannot meet that oath (and that means without racism, with the standard of care and with courage and empowerment to protect the injured and those in need and stand up to whomever you need to including the police) then quit and get out. We do not want you in this profession.
Easy to say Debra. Let me state some facts here.
1. The paramedics were following protocols based on their training
2. The cops were devoid of common sense and their training to de escalate the situation in responding to and then dealing with Elijah in the first place.
And I’m tired of hearing Don Black say the same old bullshit “oh you weren’t there that night, so you don’t know what took place”. True, but my common sense would have been there. But those of the cops were not.
3. The cops were quick to point fingers at the paramedics at the trials.”we didn’t give him the shot of ketamine”.
All of this resulted in a tragic situation that could have far reaching effects for all that live in Aurora, and is already having a negative impact. How so you may ask?
How about the fact that now 10% of paramedics are going to offer less care when they need to respond- EMT rather than paramedic care. This could mean the difference between life and death. Think about that if you need to call 911 for a life threatening emergency. Paramedics do a hell of a lot more than give shots of ketamine.
Here is a dirty little secret for you.
The cops pretty much rule when on scene and dictated what the paramedics should do.
Very good, Debra. You made a comment without once throwing a verbal stone at Mayor Mike. So are firefighters your new enemy for rock throwing? I doubt I would be pleased for anyone you chose for any profession much less one that had to do with community safeness.
The fact remains that if APD had not responded in the manner they did, if they had not stopped a young man walking down the street minding his own business, Elijah McClain would not have died that night and paramedics wouldn’t be on trial. The police officers in this case would’ve likely gone on to commit other atrocities in other cases if this had never happened because anyone capable of this level of brutality is a danger to us all. We’d probably still be here talking about them for something else they did. I don’t know why we aren’t talking about the racist coward who called the police–because a black man walking down the street made them uncomfortable. But maybe it’s because the caller wasn’t sworn to uphold any standards of conduct. Maybe it’s because the caller isn’t paid by all of us to protect ALL of us. Maybe it’s because the actions and the prejudice of the caller should’ve been dismissed by the APD instead of validated and replicated. The public, for better or, in this case, worse, has the right to call police and make crazy reports. The police have the responsibity to discern those calls. What justification did they use that night to use taxpayer money to respond to a black guy walking down the street wearing a ski mask? Not running down the street as if he was trying to elude capture after committing a crime, not hiding in the bushes, not scaling fences, not threatening anyone, but strolling down the sidewalk at his own leisure, singing to himself and carrying a bag from 7-11. Was it a slow night in the neighborhood? Were the officers bored and needing something to do? I used to live in that neighborhood and so I know better–it’s NEVER a slow night in North Aurora. I used to have to call APD multiple times to get them to respond to REAL crimes in progress there. I was always told that they were too busy to respond quickly. Welp, not too busy to harass innocent pedestrians! The caller started this mess but the caller is nobody. The police are the ones who failed in their responsibility that night. The responding paramedics had options but they shouldn’t have even been there. They were there because APD called them there. Another waste of the public’s resources. Elijah was attacked. Yes, by police officers, which was undoubtedly as confusing and disorienting as it was terrifying. None of us expect to be attacked by the people who are supposed to be protecting us. We all hear the stories of bad police officers but nobody expects such horrors to happen to them. It shocks the conscience to experience that level of unprovoked brutality. I know because I’ve survived domestic violence. All that makes sense in those moments is to get out of the situation and preserve your own life by whatever means necessary. It’s our most basic human instinct. These perpetrators were wearing uniforms unlike mine, but so what? What they were doing was wrong, and Elijah was correct if he assumed he was in danger–that’s a proven fact because he’s dead, and those officers didn’t deserve his respect. They were immediately a threat to him, as body camera footage shows. They were thugs posing as police officers, and he was scared, and he should’ve been. However, he showed them an unfathomable amount of respect. He apologized. He asked for their forgiveness. He told them he loved them. He begged for his life, while outnumbered and overpowered. None of it mattered. None of this is Elijah’s fault. He is not responsible for his own death, or whatever happens now. The APD put this giant snowball into motion, not Elijah, and not even the deranged lunatic who made that fateful call to police, so stop blaming the easy target. It’s so cheap and easy to blame the victim. There is only 1 victim in this story, and that’s Elijah McClain. Hopefully at least 1 of these defendants will spend some time in prison, but this is not what justice looks like.
If you know any of the people involved, police and fire, you know that they were not thugs. They were people doing a job. They were, for the most part, good people. If you want any laws enforced, then you need to understand that we must expect people to stop when told to stop by the police. The police don’t get good information much of the time. If we expect them to ignore the information they get out of an extreme caution, then simply accept that crime will be out of control and your community will not be safe. There will be many mistakes by the police. The circumstances and the information that the police receive make it inevitable. Having responded to confusion many times and having tried to slow things down long enough to get a clear picture of what was happening and who was the real bad guy, I can tell you that it is not easy. The laws that were written in the past acknowledged this and made it a crime for you to resist being stopped by the police. The laws made it illegal to lie to the police while they were investigating. The laws made it illegal to try to disarm a police officer like the suspect did in the famous “pistol whipping” incident. It is sad that Elijah died. It is sad that he strongly resisted being stopped. The suspect determines the level of force. I don’t know why Elijah resisted being stopped. I have been involved in many struggles where I said later “that was stupid”. “All that person had to do was to listen and cooperate for a moment and they would have been on their way”. Unfortunately, many people, especially criminals, choose not to cooperate. We now make excuses for them. As a citizen, we have an obligation to cooperate with the police in order to have an orderly and safe society. People should be accountable for their actions.
Now, let us discuss the idea that the police should held accountable for their use of force just like a citizen. Are you, as a citizen, required to use force on a regular basis, against all kinds of resistance? In addition, are you given vague rules about how to use that force by the very same people who will be super critical when it isn’t perfect? Do you know that the police are given about one third to one half the training they should get on use of force? Do we criminally charge athletes who seemingly use too much force in the tackle. Force is a required part of their job. Do we charge them when they get into fights during the game? Why not? Isn’t everyone subject to the same laws? Why don’t we charge every kid who gets into a fight at school? Why not? No one is above the law. When we put people in situations where force is required or common, then we must use some understanding when looking at it. The referees decide when to penalize a player. They do it from a position of knowledge. They don’t look into the stands and look for a thumbs up or thumbs down from the crowd as did Attorney General Weiser. Now, if the force is really extreme in a football game, yes the player could be prosecuted. Otherwise, the player is subject to discipline on the field and by the league. The police are subject to those lesser disciplines without going to the extreme of criminal charges. Are criminal charges sometimes appropriate? Certainly. I have been witness to enough police misconduct to know far better than you do when charges are appropriate. But, fighting or struggling with someone is subject to all kinds of variables. The police have had enough training to understand risks that you do not. While you calmly judge the force in the video, you are not feeling the resistance of the suspect. You are not thinking about the fact that the suspect may suddenly access a weapon you can’t see. The officer has to fight like this a lot. He/she has a family. This isn’t some calm exercise. It is sometimes life or death. It can change in a split second. The Supreme Court made it clear that the use of force should not be judged by 20/20 vision and must be judged from the viewpoint of a reasonable officer at the scene. That means people, like the referee, who understand all of the factors involved. Now, you should be expecting that the police leaders give the officers the training and the equipment to do the job. Unfortunately, the police leaders are not the good guys. They are not requiring that the officers and their supervisors be well trained or well guided. Right now, they are ignoring that the police reform bill has given officers vague guidelines about use of force. In many cases, the guidelines are completely unworkable. In the past, the police leaders have failed to set ethical guidelines and failed to discipline where they should. They have simply talked a good game to you while abdicating their responsibility to the officers and to the public.
Please understand that by the actions of harshly judging the paramedics and officers in the Elijah McClain case, you have damaged all public servants and their ability to protect you. Will we be charging all of the medical people for their mistakes? Medicine is not yet an exact science. There are hundreds of thousands of deaths yearly from medical mistakes. Do we not accept that there are many unknowns in treating patients. Now, if it is extreme, then yes we can charge the medical people. As a society, we must either accept that the police should be judged from facts and knowledge and not from emotion or we must accept that the police will do little. We are at that point. Unfortunately, it takes a long time for people to realize when they were wrong. The border is an example. The media and the public opinion are wrong right now. Police use of force should be scrutinized and transparent. To label all police without factual basis is damaging to our society.
The last thing I want to address is the fact that people say that the police cause all of these problems by making minor stops. Okay, tell me what laws you want ignored. First, understand that the enforcement of all of these minor laws create at least a feeling of some order in society. Second, it is how the police find all of those wanted people and discover more serious crimes in progress. I never had much heartburn about marijuana use. I did, however, solve many more serious crimes when I stopped someone for marijuana. All of those minor stops for expired plates and other traffic violations are where we catch the wanted criminal and the guy with a kidnapped child in his car. You don’t know it because you don’t do the job. I can’t guess which laws you feel are too minor to enforce. When the person resists and puts everyone at risk, you can simply say that the officer should not have stopped them. Okay. Then. I won’t stop anyone. That suspicious guy outside the elementary school who has an expired plate is too much of a risk for me to stop. So, decide, as a society, what you want.
Don’t stop, Don, replying to those commenters who do not have any understanding of what it takes to have a civil society. By the way, you know already, what I suspect that no APD copper is stopping anyone suspicious in Aurora for some time. We are already a much less safe City, since Mrs. McClain’s big mistake in not properly educating her son.
The feedback that I get is that after the police reform bill came out, the supervisors told the officers to not stop anyone. Further, in talking to people I know who worked for RTD security and another police department, that was confirmed. I was told that the APD officers just stood by and watched while they had to fight with someone. I was told that when the license plate readers on Colfax reported a stolen vehicle, no one responded to try to stop it. It should not be a surprise. The police reform bill defines use of force as “any technique our tactic”. What is that? Just touching someone and putting handcuffs on them is a use of force. That is without any struggle. It says that the officer must use minimal force. What is that? You can always say that the officer could have used less force. He/she could run away, for example. Minimal force is dangerous to everyone. Trying to use too little force gives the suspect a chance to get loose and/or to get to a weapon. That means that now you have to shoot the person. I have video of that happening already. The chokehold definition includes language that infers that an officer can be accused of choking someone any time they interfered with their breathing. That means when I fall on you in the struggle, you can just yell that you can’t breathe and I may be charged. I don’t even have to touch the suspect’s neck. I could go on. But… you are right in your analysis.
Petulant comment. Grow up.
without the Thuggish actions of those officers none of this tragedy would have happend.
“more than 50% of what he should have been given based on his bodyweight”, no, it’s more than 150% of what he should have been given based on his bodyweight
I have seen thuggish. Thuggish is beating someone senseless with a flashlight or a bunch of officers kicking and punching a suspect on the ground. These officers were just trying to hold McClain down. The carotid was applied when he had reached for a gun and showed enough strength to push up with them on his back. Just because you don’t like the police or know nothing about the realities of police work and use of force, is no justification for labeling people as thugs or racists without facts. I would really like to put all of you in the circumstances that the police deal with and watch the shock that comes with dealing with real life where people don’t give you a chance to talk before they start to resist or fight. I know from experience that most of you would fair far worst than you talk. It is not how you picture it.
I am GLAD paramedics (and hopefully hospice staff) are limited in drugs they can administer. I don’t know who the culprit is, but when my husband was sitting alert and upright in an ambulance en route to Denver Hospice (and I followed close behind) he was unconscious when I saw him immediately in hospice, and he never regained consciousness again.
So sorry, Sandy.
Was he given anything in the ambulance? Such would be documented and that information available to you. (Normally such is not done in transports to hospice care. Usually monitoring and supplemental oxygen if necessary.)
Could it be that he would have become unconscious, anyway, and it just happened to occur while he was in the ambulance?
EMS is guided by protocols determined by physicians.
The emergency medications EMS personnel have administered pre hospital have helped save countless lives.