Colorado officials quietly decided in 2021 that Elijah McClain, an unarmed Black man who died during a violent 2019 arrest, perished because of an injection of ketamine from paramedics on scene, according to newly released documents.
Three Aurora Police Department officers and two paramedics are facing charges related to the arrest, though it’s unclear how the case will proceed, since the Adams County coroner decided in July as part of a grand jury investigation that the manner of death remains “undetermined,” Colorado Public Radio reports. Originally, a 2019 autopsy deemed both the cause and manner of McClain’s death to be “undetermined.”
