Probe faults police handling of Mcclain case in Colorado
DENVER — The results of an investigation into the fatal arrest of Elijah Mcclain in suburban Denver released Monday criticizes how police handled the entire incident, faulting officers for their quick, aggressive treatment of the 23year-old Black man and the department overall for having a weak accountability system that failed to press for the truth about what happened.
The findings of the investigation commissioned by the city of Aurora released on Monday found “two contrasting stories” of what happened to Mcclain in August 2019 after someone reported him as suspicious. One, based on officers’ statements to investigators, where police describe a violent, relentless struggle. And another based on body camera footage in which Mcclain can be heard crying out in pain, apologizing, explaining himself, and pleading with the officers as they restrained him and applied “pain compliance” techniques like wrist locks and sat or kneeled on him.
“Forgive me … you all are phenomenal, you are beautiful,” Mcclain said at one point, the report said.
Police also put Mcclain in a neckhold that stops the flow of blood to the brain, rendering him temporarily unconscious, and paramedics injected him with ketamine as a sedative. He suffered cardiac arrest and later was taken off life support.
The report also suggests that District Attorney Dave Young’s review of the case failed to assess the officer’s conduct and “did not reflect the rigor” of a police investigation “that one would expect” when assessing whether a crime was committed.
Young’s review of the case did not find sufficient evidence to press criminal charges in Mcclain’s death, according to a June 2020 statement by the District Attorney’s office.
The panel concluded that the district attorney didn’t consider Colorado’s statutory requirement that officer’s must have “reasonable suspicion” of a previous or impending crime in order to stop someone. According to the report, the district attorney relied on the notion that Mcclain was in a “high crime area” and that he was wearing a ski mask and a coat on a summer night.
“Although both factors in the District Attorney’s analysis have been considered by courts assessing the propriety of investigatory stops, neither the neighborhood nor the ski mask by themselves or together are sufficient to create reasonable suspicion without more,” the report states.
His family said Mcclain wore the mask because he had a blood condition that caused him to get cold easily.