Former Aurora, Colorado police officer Randy Roedema was sentenced on Friday for his involvement in the 2019 death of 23-year-old Elijah McClain, making him the first of five men — including two other Aurora Police Department officers and two Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics — who were prosecuted in relation to the tragic event to receive a sentence.
According to The New York Times, McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, gave an impassioned address to the court before the sentence was delivered, asking where Roedema's humanity was when her son's life was stolen away, and expressed her opinion that the ex-cop deserved jail time for picking up her son and slamming him to the ground on the night in question. McClain was unarmed at the time and later died at the hospital from ketamine toxicity after being injected with enough of the drug by paramedics to sedate a much larger man, according to the results of an independent probe.
