Police had no legal reason to stop Elijah McClain, according to a new independent review, the first in a series of unjustified and violent actions by officers that led to the 23-year-old black man being strangled and put on ketamine. was injected. before he died.
The investigative report, released Monday after millions of people called for justice for McClain, also explained concerns about the Aurora, Colorado, the police’s own investigation into the agents’ use of force, claiming that police investigators did not had asked ‘fundamental, critical questions’. “and” failed to present a neutral, objective version of the facts and ignore apparent evidence to the contrary. Although McClain died in August 2019, an independent investigation across the country against Black Lives Matter protests did not begin until the summer of 2020.
The new report, commissioned by Aurora City Council, also found that officers had no legal reason to search or put McClain in the controversial cheek, noting that none of the agents involved suspected McClain of a specific crime at any time. before he was wrestled to the ground.
McClain was stopped by police when he walked home around 10:30 p.m. on August 24, 2019.
According to the report, the first officer to contact McClain, Officer Nathan Woodyard, placed his hands on McClain within 10 seconds of first approaching him, even though there were no visible weapons and McClain made no threatening gestures at him.
“Woodyard’s decision to turn what may have been a consensual meeting with Mr. McClain into an investigative freeze – in less than ten seconds – did not appear to be supported by an officer’s reasonable suspicion that Mr. McClain was involved in criminal activity,” said to the report. “This decision affected the rest of the meeting.”
After the violent stop, during which McClain had trouble breathing, he was injected with a potent dose of sedative and taken to a hospital. He died there three days later.
When Aurora police investigated his death, authorities asked no basic questions, the independent review found.
“ Instead, the questions often seemed designed to evoke specific exonerating ‘magical language’ from court decisions, ” the review’s three-member panel concluded, stating that the department’s investigation into McClain’s death “ was not neutral. , objective version of the facts. and seemingly contradictory evidence ignored. “
The actions of the agents have also never been reviewed by the department’s Internal Affairs department, which can only open an investigation at the request of the police chief. An assessment by the department’s Force Review Board was “volatile and at best sketchy”, according to the new investigation.
A spokesman for a local Black Lives Matter group said the new report confirmed that McClain should never have been confronted by the police in the first place.
“The results of the independent investigation into Elijah’s murder further support what his family and community already knew,” said Apryl Alexander, a community organizer and spokesperson for BLM 5280. “He was a young man who tried to walk home and was for no reason. Instead of simply talking to Elijah, physical violence was used within 10 seconds – not enough time for him to even explain that he was going home. Criminalizing black people for living their lives must end. “
McClain’s death sparked major protests on the streets of Colorado, and more than 5 million people signed a Change.org petition demanding that the agents involved in the killing stop be held to account.
According to authorities, McClain was initially detained after police received a call from someone who said she was wearing someone wearing a ski mask and was “acting funny” and “waving his arms.”
McClain’s family members have said he wore a ski mask to keep warm because he was anemic.
Audio from camera footage of the body revealed that McClain asked officers to release him. And according to the report released Monday, although officers needed a “reasonable, objective” and “articulate” suspicion to stop, none of them offered one during subsequent interviews.
“None of the agents committed a crime they believed Mr. McClain had committed, would commit or was about to commit,” the report said.
Instead, agents said in interviews that McClain was acting “suspiciously”, pointing to the ski mask and waving his arms in an area they believe had a “high crime rate.”
An officer, the report said, claimed that McClain’s refusal to quit was suspicious in itself, because it was “consistent with someone who ‘just committed a crime’ or someone who is’ hiding something, be it a weapon or drugs is ”.
But that’s not a legal reason for the police to detain a person, the report said.
The panel also wrote that they could not find sufficient evidence that officers had legal justification for searching McClain, noting that one of the officers indicated that he ‘felt safe making an approach’ and that there was no suggestion that McClain had a gun.
Instead, agents forced McClain to the ground, and one of them reported that McClain had attempted to grab an officer’s gun. Officers used a carotid artery to restrain McClain just before he passed out.
The report also noted that in describing their meeting with McClain, police described the 23-year-old as “struggling” and said he had “incredible strength” or “crazy strength.”
“It is not clear from the record whether Mr. McClain’s movements, interpreted by the agents as resistance, were an attempt to escape or simply an attempt, voluntary or involuntary, to avoid the painful force being applied to him, improve his breathing, or to deal with his vomiting, ”the report stated.
Audio of the meeting instead recorded McClain “screaming in pain, apologizing, vomiting, and at times sounding disjointed.”
His words were apologetic and confused, not angry or threatening, the report said. “He was getting complainer and more desperate as he was struggling to breathe. He told the officers that he had his ID, his name was Elijah McClain and that ‘I was just going home’.”
One of the agents called the dispatch and said McClain was’ still fighting ‘, but audio at the time of that broadcast shows that McClain said to the officers’ forgive me’ and ‘you are all phenomenal, you are beautiful. Forgive me’.