DENVER — A Colorado prosecutor told jurors in closing arguments Friday that a police officer who stopped Elijah McClain, put the 23-year old Black man in a neck hold and then abandoned him as his condition deteriorated should be convicted of manslaughter in his 2019 death.
Aurora Officer Nathan Woodyard is among three officers and two paramedics charged in the death of McClain after protests over the 2020 killing of George Floyd renewed interest in the case. The trial against the two other officers resulted in a split verdict last month with one convicted of homicide and one acquitted.
Woodyard was the first officer to confront McClain as the massage therapist walked home from a convenience store in the Denver suburb of Aurora. A 17-year-old 911 caller had reported McClain - who was listening to music, wearing a mask and dancing as he walked - as suspicious.
“Elijah McClain was walking home, he was dancing. As he told the defendant he was stopping the music to listen,” Colorado Assistant Attorney General Jason Slothouber told jurors. “There was no need for this escalation of violence.”
Woodyard put McClain in a neck hold that rendered him temporarily unconscious after he allegedly resisted and went for another officer’s gun - a claim prosecutors disputed. McClain was later injected with a fatal overdose of ketamine by paramedics.
The defendant’s lawyers stressed through the weekslong trial that the officer stepped away during part of the nighttime confrontation and was not with McClain as his condition worsened and other officers continued to restrain him.
Woodyard also faces a lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide. He could be sentenced to years in prison if convicted on either charge.
McClain’s mother, Sheneen, sat in the front row as the attorneys made their arguments to the 12-person jury.
Sheneen McClain had expressed disappointment after the first trial last month. It ended with officer Jason Rosenblatt acquitted of all charges and officer Randy Roedema convicted of the least serious charges he faced - criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault - which could lead to a sentence of anywhere from probation to prison time.
Paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Lt. Peter Cichuniec are scheduled to go on trial later this month. They have pleaded not guilty.
The coroner office’s autopsy report, updated in 2021, found McClain died of an overdose of ketamine that was given after he was forcibly restrained by police. While it found no evidence the police actions contributed to McClain’s death, prosecutors presented their own medical expert who said there was a direct link. Dr. Roger Mitchell of Howard University, the former Washington, D.C. coroner, said the police restraint caused a series of cascading health problems, including difficulty breathing and a buildup of acid in McClain’s body.
Prosecutors have also argued that the police encouraged paramedics to give McClain ketamine by saying he had symptoms, like having increased strength, that indicate a controversial condition known as excited delirium that has been associated with racial bias against Black men.
In both trials, defense attorneys sought to blame McClain’s death on the paramedics.
But while attorneys in the first trial suggested McClain bore some responsibility for his medical decline by struggling with police, Woodyard’s lawyers, Megan Downing and Andrew Ho, have seemed more sympathetic to him.
Prosecutors have portrayed Woodyard’s actions as abandoning McClain and suggested he was more worried about administrative concerns, such as a possible investigation, rather than how McClain was doing.
Unlike the other officers, Woodyard also took the stand, testifying this week that he put McClain in the carotid control hold because he feared for his life after he heard McClain say, “I intend to take my power back” and Roedema say, “He just grabbed your gun, dude.”
The defense argued Woodyard had to react to what he heard in the moment.
Prosecutors contended McClain never tried to grab an officer’s weapon, and it can’t be seen in body camera footage, which is shaky and dark before all the cameras fall off during the ensuing struggle.
Prosecutors say Woodyard grabbed McClain within eight seconds of getting out of his patrol car without introducing himself or explaining why he wanted to talk to McClain. McClain, seemingly caught off guard, tried to keep walking. The encounter quickly escalated.
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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.
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