Paramedic Peter Cichuniec will be sentenced Friday after being convicted of criminally negligent homicide in connection with the 2019 death of 23-year-old Elijah McClain.
Peter Cichuniec, alongside his co-defendant Jeremy Cooper, was accused of administering an excessive amount of ketamine to sedate McClain after an encounter with police on August 24, 2019.
Cichuniec was found guilty of assault in the second-degree unlawful administration of drugs and criminally negligent homicide.
They were both acquitted of assault in the second degree with intent to cause bodily injury causing serious bodily injury. Cooper was found not guilty of assault in the second-degree unlawful administration of drugs.
They both had pleaded not guilty to their charges.
Paramedic Peter Cichuniec and his wife make their way to the courtroom in Brighton, CO, Dec. 1, 2023.
Philip B. Poston/AP
McClain was confronted by police while walking home from a convenience store after a 911 caller told authorities they had seen someone “sketchy” in the area.
McClain was unarmed and wearing a ski mask at the time. His family says he had anemia, a blood condition that can make people feel cold more easily.
When officers arrived on the scene, they told McClain they had a right to stop him because he was “being suspicious.”
In police body camera footage, McClain can be heard telling police he was going home, and that “I have a right to go where I am going.”
Officer Nathan Woodyard placed McClain in a carotid hold and he and the other two officers on the scene moved McClain by force to the grass and restrained him.
When EMTs arrived at the scene, McClain was given a shot of 500 milligrams of ketamine for “rapid tranquilization in order to minimize time struggling,” according to department policy, and was loaded into an ambulance where he had a heart attack, according to investigators.
Paramedics Jeremy Cooper, left, and Peter Cichuniec, right, at an arraignment in the Adams County district court at the Adams County Justice Center Jan. 20, 2023.
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McClain’s cause of death, which was previously listed as “undetermined,” was listed in an amended autopsy report as “complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint.” The manner of death remained listed as “undetermined” as it was in the initial report.
McClain weighed 143 pounds, but was given a higher dose of ketamine than recommended for someone his size and overdosed, according to Adams County coroner’s office pathologist Stephen Cina.
The prosecution argued that Cichuniec and Cooper failed to give McClain adequate medical assessments before administering the ketamine when they arrived at the scene.
“Elijah is on the ground, barely moving. He does not need to have struggling minimized,” prosecutors said. “There was not one reason that the defendants needed to make any one of these terrible decisions. There was no justification not to assess Mr. McClain. There was no justification to give someone who is not moving a sedative. There is no justification to ignore a lifeless patient for 6 minutes before you try to take his pulse.”
Cooper’s defense attorney argued there is a lack of protocol for the situation these paramedics found themselves in, citing the aggravated police presence, the way paramedics say they had to estimate McClain’s weight with police on top of him, the way to determine who had authority at the scene, and the protocols to accurately assess if a patient is suffering from excited delirium.
He died on Aug. 30, 2019, three days after doctors pronounced him brain dead and he was removed from life support, officials said.
Former police officer Randy Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and assault in the third degree in McClain’s death.
Two other officers, Jason Rosenblatt and Nathan Woodyard, were found not guilty on charges of reckless manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Rosenblatt was also acquitted on charges of assault in the second degree.