Paramedic who injected Elijah McClain with ketamine before his death avoids prison

(26 Apr 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
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POOL
Brighton, Colorado -- 26 April 2024
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Sheneen McClain, Elijah McClain's mother:
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"Jeremy Cooper followed the crowd of cowards and displayed his immorality through the lens of his own cluelessness. Before Jeremy Cooper injected the drug ketamine into my son's unconscious body, Jeremy Cooper did what he felt was best. He did nothing. Human justice does not come anywhere close to what true accountability is. So I will continue to say, meditate and pray for divine justice for my son, Elijah McClain. From my heart to my hands. Long live Elijah McClain. Always and forever. Thank you, Your Honor."
2. Jeremy Cooper in court
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Jeremy Cooper, defendant, as if speaking to Elijah:
"There's so much I want to say to you. First, I want you to know how sorry I am that I couldn't save you. (Cries) How beyond forever devastated I am that I didn't get to hear your last words. I want you to know that I would give anything to have a different outcome. Elijah, I never, ever meant for anyone to hurt you."
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STORYLINE:
A former paramedic who injected Elijah McClain with a powerful sedative avoided prison and was sentenced to probation Friday in the Black man’s killing that helped fuel the 2020 racial injustice protests.
Jeremy Cooper had faced up to three years in prison after being found guilty in a jury trial last year of criminally negligent homicide. He administered a dose of ketamine to McClain, 23, who had been forcibly restrained after police stopped him as the massage therapist was walking home in a Denver suburb in 2019.
The sentencing caps a series of trials that stretched over seven months and resulted in the convictions of a police officer and two paramedics. Criminal charges against paramedics and emergency medical technicians involved in police custody cases are rare.
The other paramedic and the officer sentenced in McClain’s death received more severe punishments than Cooper after being convicted on additional charges of assault.
McClain’s mother told the judge prior to Friday’s sentencing that she blamed McClain’s death on everyone who was present that night, not just those who were convicted.
“Eternal shame on all of you,” Sheneen McClain said.
She said Cooper “did nothing” to help her son after he’d been restrained by police - didn’t check his pulse, didn’t check his breathing and didn’t ask him how he was doing - before injecting him with an overdose of ketamine.
Close to tears as she spoke, McClain ended by raising her right fist in the air and saying loudly, “From my heart to my hands, long live Elijah McClain, always and forever."
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[@nezikiah1]

One of the worst displays of inhumanity we have witnessed was the murder of this young boy. I will remember that poor kid for the rest of my sorry life.