Former US police officer sentenced in killing of Black man Elijah McClain
Al Jazeera
Randy Roedema handed 14-month sentence for 2019 killing of McClain, who was put in a chokehold, injected with ketamine.
A former police officer in the western US state of Colorado has been sentenced to 14 months in jail for his role in the 2019 killing of Elijah McClain, a Black man who was not suspected of any crime when police roughly restrained him and paramedics injected him with a powerful sedative.
Before the judge handed down the sentence on Friday, McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, condemned Randy Roedema, the only law enforcement official to be found guilty.
“Randy Roedema stole my son’s life,” she said. “All the belated apologies in the world can’t remove my son’s blood from Randy Roedema’s hands.”
She also called the sentence “a slap on the wrist”.
Roedema was found guilty in October of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault. The same jury found fellow police officer Jason Rosenblatt not guilty in a joint trial.
