A year after Elijah McClain’s death, activists want charges

In the year since Elijah McClain died after being stopped by police in suburban Denver on his way home from a store, the number of people calling for justice to be done in his case has grown to millions of people around the world.

Like his family and activists who have been protesting over the Black man’s death from the beginning, they want the three officers charged with killing McClain.

Three Aurora officers, including one involved in the encounter with McClain, were fired and one resigned in July over photos that mocked the neck hold that was used on McClain on Aug. 24, 2019.

However, the three officers who got into a violent struggle with McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist, after he questioned why he was being stopped have not faced any discipline for their actions in the encounter itself.

Aurora activist Candice Bailey said action, not more dialogue, is what is needed.

“There’s nothing to talk about. We’re at an impasse in the conversation,” she said.

A district attorney said last year he could not pursue criminal charges because an autopsy did not determine how McClain died, but state Attorney General Phil Weiser is looking at whether criminal charges are warranted in the case. Gov. Jared Polis ordered him to look at the case in June after outrage over McClain’s death grew amid protests over racial injustice following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

It’s one of several investigations or reviews taking place related to McClain’s death, including a health department review of paramedics’ use of the sedative ketamine on him. The Aurora Police Department also announced an independent review of its agency this month on the same day that the McClain family filed a civil rights lawsuit accusing the department of a pattern of racism and brutality.

McClain was stopped because someone had called 911 to report that he was wearing a ski mask and waving his hands and seemed “sketchy.” His family said he wore the mask because he had a blood condition that caused him to get cold easily.

Police body-camera video shows an officer getting out of his car, approaching McClain and saying, “Stop right there. Stop. Stop. ... I have a right to stop you because you’re being suspicious.”

In the video, the officer turns around McClain and repeats, “Stop tensing up” and says, “Relax, or I’m going to have to change this situation.”

Other officers join to restrain McClain, who tells them that he had stopped his music to listen to them and asks them to let him go.

The officers move McClain over the grass in front of an apartment building but what happens next is not clear from the video. Police have said one of the officers applied the neckhold.