A Colorado paramedic convicted within the 2019 demise of Elijah McClain, a younger Black man whose case helped drive the nationwide police reform motion, was sentenced on Friday to 5 years in jail.
The case was a uncommon legal prosecution of emergency medical personnel, and stirred outrage amongst paramedics and firefighters throughout the nation who fear that pressing selections made as a part of their jobs could be criminalized.
The paramedic, Peter Cichuniec, 51, a former lieutenant with Aurora Fireplace Rescue, was convicted in December of criminally negligent murder and second-degree assault for the illegal administration of medication. He was one in all 5 law enforcement officials and paramedics prosecuted in state district courtroom over three consecutive trials.
A second paramedic and a police officer had been additionally convicted. In January, Randy Roedema, 41, a lieutenant within the Aurora Police Division officer on the time, was sentenced to 14 months in a county jail. Jeremy Cooper, the paramedic working with Mr. Cichuniec, is scheduled to be sentenced in April.
In a courtroom filled with Mr. Cichuniec’s household and dozens of firefighters from throughout the nation, District Decide Mark Douglas Warner mentioned he took many variables into consideration, together with reward for Mr. Cichuniec’s character from those that knew him, weighed in opposition to the “demise of a younger man who is solely strolling residence from a comfort retailer.”
Throughout greater than an hour of character statements, members of the family, mates and colleagues testified that Mr. Cichuniec was a compassionate man and expert chief with a “servant’s coronary heart” who was emotionally wrecked by the demise of Mr. McClain.
Handcuffed and carrying his striped inmate’s uniform, Mr. Cichuniec started his request for leniency by saying he had taken an oath 18 years in the past to place different individuals’s lives earlier than his personal. “I want I might look Ms. McClain within the eye and inform her that Elijah could be OK,” he mentioned, including his the younger man’s demise destroyed him as an individual, a father and a dad or mum. “I’m sorry that Elijah McClain is not with us.”
The decide additionally heard an impassioned assertion from Mr. McClain’s mom, Sheneen McClain, who mentioned her son’s demise was not a horrible tragedy however an avoidable homicide. She described as soon as desirous to turn out to be a firefighter herself and considered them as “native heroes” till “I watched them homicide my son,” she mentioned.
She mentioned the paramedics “didn’t save him” and “felt no must cease the brutality.”
Ms. McClain emerged from the courthouse together with her fist raised, and mentioned she had no additional remark.
Mr. Cichuniec was dealing with as much as 16 years in jail, and the sentence he obtained was probably the most lenient based mostly on necessary sentencing pointers. The judged added one other 12 months on a separate cost, to be served similtaneously the five-year sentence.
The convictions of the 2 paramedics shook the world of emergency staff who’ve usually been shielded from legal prosecution — and it compelled questions in regards to the dynamic between the police and paramedics at a scene.
