DENVER (AP) - Police officers and medics sued over the death of Elijah McClain are asking a judge to dismiss the federal lawsuit.
In one of several dismissal motions filed late Monday, lawyers for the three police officers who confronted and struggled with McClain, a Black man who had been reported as suspicious as he walked down the street, said the lawsuit did not sufficiently allege that they treated him differently than they would a white person. McClain was put in a neck hold and later injected with ketamine, a sedative, on Aug. 24, 2109 in Aurora and died several days later at the hospital.
The filing said McClain’s death was a tragedy but that it was not caused by “deliberate or discriminatory acts or omissions” by the officers.
Other officers who responded to the scene later and paramedics who administered the ketamine also filed motions asking for the claims against them to be dismissed.
The lawyer representing McClain’s family, Mari Newman, criticized the filings in a statement.
“We anticipate that the court will see these motions for what they are: a desperate attempt to avoid accountability for murdering an innocent young Black man, and to prevent Elijah’s family and community from achieving justice,” she said.
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