Overview

The Death Of Elijah McClain occurred on August 30th, 2019, when the 23-year-old died in Aurora, Colorado. On the night of August 24th, 2019, he was assaulted by police during an arrest and then injected with ketamine by paramedics attempting to sedate him. After paramedics administered ketamine, McClain went into cardiac arrest en route to the hospital and died a week later after being removed from life support. In June 2020, following the death of George Floyd, a push for the case to be reopened flooded social media resulting in officials agreeing to reinvestigate.

Background

On August 24th, 2019, 23-year-old Elijah McClain was seen walking down the street by an Aurora, Colorado citizen who called 911. After reporting that McClain appeared to be wearing a ski mask and flailing his arms, he also stated that he didn’t believe McClain was armed or that anyone was in danger. The three officers who responded to the call claimed that McClain resisted arrest when confronted and that he attempted to reach for one of their guns. According to police, their body cameras were knocked off during the ensuing struggle to arrest him, which is allegedly why there’s only audio from certain events of the incident. During the audio recording, one of the officers can be heard telling another to move his camera, which the McClain family attorney claimed as proof to support the officers’ false allegations of McClain reaching for a gun. Officers reportedly held McClain for 15 minutes on the ground and Officer Nathan Woodyard applied a chokehold to his neck. After paramedics arrived, they injected McClain with 500 mg of ketamine to sedate him, and he reportedly vomited several times while being held down.

On the way to the hospital, McClain suffered two cardiac arrests and was later pronounced brain dead on August 30th, 2019, when he was removed from life support and died.^[1] According to police, the coroner who performed McClain’s autopsy was unable to determine an exact cause of death, which is why it’s listed as “undetermined.” The coroner later stated that his death may have been an accident resulting from an idiosyncratic drug reaction or an asthma attack. The three officers were put on paid administrative leave, but Adams County District Attorney Dave Young ultimately determined that there were no criminal acts committed and no charges were filed against them.^[2] On November 22nd, 2019, the body camera footage and audio of the 911 call were released to the public by the police department (seen below). Protests were held in November 2019 at the Aurora Municipal Center after the decision not to file charges.

Developments

2020 Protest and Reopening of Case

In 2020, following the death of George Floyd, support for reopening the case was reignited among the public. On June 6th, 2020, a protest was held again at the Aurora Municipal Center in honor of McClain, which contributed to the rise in demand for McClain’s case to be reinvestigated. In June 2020, a Change.org ^[3] petition received nearly 3 million signatures within weeks, and a GoFundMe ^[4] campaign to cover McClain’s funeral costs received over $1.4 million. On June 24th, 2020, according to The Sentinel Colorado,^[5] Aurora officials were flooded with requests to reexamine the death of McClain and “received more than 10,000 emails and 1,000 voicemails regarding the McClain case since June 7.” As a result, officials decided to reopen the case.

Online Reactions

In late June 2020, social media users, including several politicians and celebrities, began flooding various platforms demanding justice for McClain with calls to reopen the case. On June 24th, 2020, Ellen DeGeneres posted photos of McClain to her Twitter^[6] account with the caption, “Read what happened to #ElijahMcClain, and ask yourself what you would do if it happened to someone you knew,” receiving over 7,400 likes and 2,800 retweets. Elizabeth Warren also shared a post about McClain on her Twitter,^[7] receiving over 20,600 likes and 6,100 retweets (shown below).

On June 24th, 2020, Instagram^[8] account theshaderoom posted a series of images and videos of McClain (seen below), which was viewed over 2.35 million times and liked over 818,000 times.

On Facebook,^[9] Shaun King posted the video of the body camera footage released by police with the caption, “Elijah McClain. A sweet, kind, gentle soul. An artist. Walking home from the store with groceries in hand.⁣ This was in Aurora, Colorado last year but many of us are just now learning about it. ⁣Police choked him unconscious. In the full video he screams over and over again that he can’t breathe. They threaten to have dogs bite him. ⁣Then the paramedics injected him with drugs.⁣ He went into cardiac arrest and died at the hospital. Follow @GrassrootsLaw. We will amplify the efforts of the family and local organizers to get justice,” receiving over 21,000 likes, 18,000 shares and 2,500 comments.

On June 24th, 2020, Redditor^[10] Careless_Negotiation posted a tweet about McClain to the r/BlackPeopleTwitter subreddit with the title, “Cops murdered Elijah McClain over literally nothing, it was a modern day state-sanctioned lynching.” The post (shown below) received over 101,000 upvotes, 1,300 comments and several Reddit awards.

Search Interest

External References