US jury finds paramedics guilty for custodial death of black man

WASHINGTON: A jury in the western US state of Colorado has found two paramedics guilty of negligent homicide in the death of a black man who was put in a chokehold and injected with ketamine during his arrest, US media said.

Just a day ago, a US jury cleared all the three police officers of all criminal charges in the death of an unarmed black man, Manuel Ellis, who died in police custody in 2020 in Washington state.

Elijah McClain, an unar­med 23-year-old black man, died in August 2019, several days after a struggle with police and after being injected with the sedative by attending paramedics, in a case that caused widespread anger at the time.

The jury found the two paramedics, Jeremy Coo­p­er, 49, and Peter Cichu­niec, 51, guilty of criminally negligent homicide, Washington Post reported.

McClain died after police in the city of Aurora responded to a call about a “suspicious” black male “acting weird” in the street and wearing a ski mask. One officer said McClain, who was unarmed, had reached for another officer’s gun.

No evidence was produced to support this claim.

McClain’s family told the media he had been out buying iced tea, and often wore the mask to stay warm because he suffered from anemia.