White policeman in USA was sentenced to 14 months in prison on Friday for his role in the death of Elaza McClain, a young African-American man who was headlocked by police during his 2019 arrest and heavily sedated.
The sentencing judge said he was “shocked by the apparent indifference” of the officer “to the plight” of the young man, “who was wearing handcuffs and really posed no threat to anyone”.
Of the three officers prosecuted in the case, a symbol of police brutality in the US, only Randy Redima was found guilty of manslaughter in October. His two other colleagues were acquitted.
The judge also imposed a four-year suspended sentence on him.
“Randy Redima will remain a peasant with a police badge,” Eliza's mother Sinine McClain complained, denouncing the “inhumane protocols” of the police. According to her, “prison is the only justice the policeman deserves”.
The death of the 23-year-old African-American man in Aurora, Colorado initially did not attract the attention of the public. But that changed after the death of George Floyd, another African-American who died in May 2020 during his violent arrest by a white police officer.
Eliza McClain died three days after his arrest of cardiac arrest. During his arrest, the police put a headlock on him, while two paramedics administered ketamine, a powerful sedative.
In a separate trial, the rescuers were found guilty in December of manslaughter and await sentencing.
“We reacted as we are trained,” Redima claimed in court yesterday. The former police officer, who has now been dismissed from the force, also expressed his “sincere condolences”.
On the evening of August 24, 2019, police received a call from a citizen who reported that a man wearing a thick coat and ski mask, despite being hot, was “acting strangely” on an Aurora street. A police officer claimed that McClain, who was unarmed, tried to grab his gun.
The officers restrained McClain within seconds and headlocked him at least twice. He vomited into his ski mask and repeatedly told officers he couldn't breathe.
According to the victim's family, he had just gone to buy a drink and often wore his ski mask to keep from catching a cold, as reported by AFP and relayed by Athenian Agency.
“There was no reason for Randy Redima to put his knee on my son's back and sit on him”McClain's mother insisted, recalling that her son was “already wearing handcuffs” and “just needed to sit in a better position so he could breathe.”
McClain's initial autopsy in 2019 did not return a specific cause of death. However, a new autopsy in 2021 reported that the young African-American man died “of complications from ketamine administration after being forcibly restrained.”
Colorado prosecutors initially declined to investigate the case, which changed after Floyd's death and after Colorado Gov. Jared Polis requested a retrial in June 2020 after meeting with the family of the deceased.
A petition to reopen the investigation had gathered more than three million signatures.
Source: News Beast
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