Two paramedics on trial over the 2019 death of Elijah McClain told investigators in videotaped interviews previously unseen by the public that the 23-year-old Black man had " excited delirium,” a disputed condition that some say is unscientific and rooted in racism.
McClain died after being stopped by police while walking home from a convenience store, then forcibly restrained and injected with ketamine by the paramedics in the Denver suburb of Aurora. Initially no one was charged because the coroner’s office could not determine exactly how McClain died. But social justice protests over the 2020 murder of George Floyd drew renewed attention to McClain’s case — which led to the 2021 indictment of the paramedics and three officers.
