Vanguard News Desk Editor
AURORA, CO – Prosecutors here insist a paramedic – convicted in the death of a young Black man who became part of a social justice movement in 2020 to stop killings of people of color across the nation – should not be released from prison as he was last week.
Judge Mark Warner announced Friday Peter Cichuniec would be released from his jail sentence in lieu of four years of probation, the Denver Post reported.
The Colorado paramedic was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault, and sentenced to five years in prison, in the killing Elijah McClain.
“I can’t breathe,” McClain said on police video as police pinned him to the ground on a summer night in 2019. “My name is Elijah McClain…I’m just different! I’m just different. That’s all! That’s all I was doing!”
After being held down and given the sedative ketamine, he died three days later.
In a statement to The Washington Post, the office of Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said it was “disappointed” by the judge’s decision, adding, “After considering the evidence, a statewide grand jury indicted Cichuniec, and a jury of his peers found him guilty of his criminal acts that led to the death of Elijah McClain.”
AG Weiser wrote, said the Post, the legal arguments “do not negate the criminal actions against Mr. McClain. Defendant Cichuniec and his co-defendants simply followed the policies and protocols in place at the time, Mr. McClain would still be alive.”
But, the judge excused Cichuniec, who injected McClain with a fatal dose of ketamine, a potent sedative, after police stopped him while he was walking home. Cichuniec was also convicted of second-degree assault for giving the drug without consent or a legitimate medical purpose.
Cichuniec’s lawyers in June, writes the Post, filed a motion to ”modify his sentence — a move that prosecutors argued would ‘undermine the jury’s verdict, the legislature’s mandatory sentencing scheme, and the deterrence of the abuse of anesthetic drugs for improper purposes.’”
“Colorado’s mandatory sentencing law allows judges to reduce prison sentences in exceptional cases if a defendant has both spent at least 119 days behind bars and undergone a risk assessment by the state’s corrections department,” reported AP and the Post.
Judge Warner said, “The court must also, and does today as well, look at the deterrence effect of the sentence,” Warner said. “For the most part, the court believes based on the issues that arose in this case, a deterrence effect has been really accomplished and there are unique circumstances to this case.”
“Cichuniec, who served as a firefighter and paramedic for 18 years, was among two Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics and three Aurora police officers who detained McClain as he walked home in August 2019. McClain, a massage therapist, had been reported as a “sketchy” person by a driver who saw him wearing headphones and a ski mask,” added the Post.
Officers reportedly tackled McClain – who was walking with headphones on – to the ground and restraining him in a way that caused him to go in and out of consciousness — a type of chokehold since been banned in Colorado. Paramedics injected him with ketamine. McClain went into cardiac arrest and died.
The Post writes McClain’s death “fueled protests over racial injustice and, a year later, prompted Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) to sign a sweeping police accountability law that mandated the use of police body cameras, established a new and stricter use-of-force standard and strengthened reporting requirements for law enforcement. Since McClain’s death, Colorado has also banned police chokeholds and limited the use of ketamine by paramedics during arrests.”
An independent panel investigating McClain’s death issued a “highly critical report faulting the officers for stopping the young man without justification and escalating their use of force. The report also concluded that the paramedics had been slow to help McClain, who they injected with enough ketamine to sedate a 190-pound person, although he only weighed about 140 pounds,” the Post reports.
A CO grand jury indicted two paramedics and three Aurora police officers, with two officers acquitted and another sentenced to 14 months in prison for criminally negligent homicide and assault.
Although Cichuniec and his co-accused, Jeremy Cooper, were convicted of failing to properly monitor McClain. Cooper was sentenced to four years of probation, 14 months of work release and 100 hours of community service a month later.
