Two Colorado paramedics were convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a young unarmed Black man whose case drew national attention and forced public safety reforms in the city where he lived and died.
A mostly white jury found the paramedics, Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper, guilty of a more serious charge they faced. But the jury split on two lesser assault charges: They cleared Mr. Cooper of both assault charges, but convicted Mr. Cichuniec of one of those charges, second-degree assault for the unlawful administration of drugs.
The men had injected Mr. McClain with the powerful sedative ketamine while he was in police custody in Aurora, Colo., which doctors said left him near death. He died days later in the hospital.
The trial was a rare prosecution of paramedics, and raised the question of the role that medical personnel play in police encounters and whether they could be held criminally responsible for their actions.
It is not our job to determine who is innocent and who is guilty. Law enforcement does not direct medical care, if the medic gives meds it is their responsibility to ensure they are giving them appropriately.
In this situation, there was a patient fighting with law enforcement and EMS was requested. They don’t know what the patient was doing before they showed up but they have to make a decision about what to do with what they see and what they are told. A sign that someone has a brain bleed is becoming combative. If they let a patient with a brain bleed continue to fight with law enforcement, the patient will die, which means failing to act will result in the death of an innocent person. Appropriately sedating and managing a patient with a brain bleed and they might live. We don’t get the details of what’s doing on with someone the same way doctors in a hospital do.
Do not apply what happened in this situation as if it is a common occurrence, it isn’t. The negligent actions of these medics lead to them being charged criminally. I don’t know everything that happened so I do not want to comment on what I this is or is not appropriate in this case, however a jury that was given the details of this case determined that they were negligent and cause someone’s death and convicted them of that.
You don’t need to like that it is part of our job and our training but it is and we do it appropriately every single day. This time they did it in a way that lead to a jury convicting them of charges after their actions lead to a patients death. Go spend some time around EMS, we might be a bit strange but most of us joined this profession to help others, not force our will on others.
That’s the contention, that’s why they’re going to jail, there is no proof this man was fighting anyone. The police put him in a choke hold seconds after the encountered him then order paramedics to sedate him!
That this as a default in our system where they “just follow orders” and sedate people is troubling and I don’t know why you don’t understand that…
Because that is not why they were convicted. They were convicted because they did not assess the patient before administering sedation, then continued to not assess or monitor him in any way after administering sedation.
The “just follow orders” to sedate someone is not how this works. When we give a med it’s on us, that’s why they were convicted.
I would love to remain impartial without seeing all the evidence but the more I see and learn about this incident I’m losing that ability. Partially because I don’t think I could stomach all the evidence due to how grossly negligent these individuals were. They are a disgrace to paramedicine.
I will continue to stand by my previous comments as I was speaking in terms of how things should work, situations like this are part of the job. However these two assholes should be ashamed to have ever called themselves paramedics.