Former Colorado officer sentenced to 14 months in jail and 4 years of probation in death of Elijah McClain
By Andi Babineau, Jay Croft and Ray Sanchez, CNN
(CNN) — Former Colorado police officer Randy Roedema was sentenced to 14 months in jail and 4 years of probation in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a Black man who was subdued by police and injected with ketamine.
After sentencing, McClain’s mother Sheneen called the jail term and probation “a slap on the wrist” for the death of her 23-year-old son.
“This is not justice, this is not accountability,” she said outside court. “We are not valued by the system… This is about good versus evil.”
Roedema was convicted last year of criminally negligent homicide and assault in the death of the 23-year-old.
Another officer, Jason Rosenblatt, was acquitted of all charges, including reckless manslaughter and assault, in the same trial.
Rosenblatt was fired by the police department in 2020 and Roedema had been suspended. He was fired after his conviction.
On the assault conviction, Roedema will serve a 14-month jail sentence. For criminally negligent homicide, he’ll serve 90 days in jail, concurrent with the assault sentence, plus four years of probation. He’s authorized for work release during his incarceration.
Roedema, in his first public statements since McClain’s death, offered his “deepest condolences” to the young man’s family. He said he often thinks of what could have been done differently that night.
He called McClain’s death a “horrible outcome that nobody intended or wanted.”
Roedema did not testify during his trial, nor were his police interviews following the incident entered into evidence.
“I cannot imagine the agony they must feel on a day-to-day basis,” he said of McClain’s family before sentencing on Friday. “I know that I would be devastated if I lost any of my children.”
Sheneen McClain, before sentencing, asked the court for a prison term.
“My son will never be a dad, an uncle or a grandfather,” she said. “Randy Roedema stole my son’s life. All the belated apologies in the world cannot remove my son’s blood from Randy’s hands. Prison is the only accountable justice that Randy Roedema deserves.”
She called the former cop a “bully with a badge” and said her son “will always be the hero and Randy Roedema will always be the villain.”
The case began on August 24, 2019, when officers responded to a call about a “suspicious person” wearing a ski mask, according to an indictment. The officers confronted McClain, a massage therapist, musician and animal lover who was walking home from a convenience store carrying a plastic bag with iced tea.
In an interaction captured on body camera footage, police wrestled McClain to the ground and placed him in a carotid hold, and paramedics later injected him with the powerful sedative ketamine. He suffered a heart attack on the way to a hospital and was pronounced dead three days later.
Prosecutors initially declined to bring charges, but the case received renewed scrutiny following the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in spring 2020. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis appointed a special prosecutor to reexamine the case, and in 2021 a grand jury indicted three officers and two paramedics in McClain’s death.
The third officer, Nathan Woodyard, was acquitted of all charges in November and is transitioning back to the police department on a probationary period.
Paramedic Jeremy Cooper was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and acquitted of assault charges in December. Fellow paramedic Peter Cichuniec was convicted in the same trial of criminally negligent homicide, a second-degree unlawful administration of drugs assault charge and a sentence enhancement charge, which guarantees prison time and required him to be held immediately after the verdict. Both are scheduled for sentencing on March 1.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
CNN’s Ray Sanchez, Eric Levenson and Emma Tucker contributed to this report.
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