A young African American man dies in the United States in 2019 after being arrested. Five officers are now on trial. They plead not guilty.
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the essentials in brief
- In 2019, a young African American man died after being arrested in Colorado.
- The police put him in a stranglehold and injected him with tranquilizers.
- The accused pleaded not guilty in court.
In the case of an African American man who died in 2019 in the US state of Colorado after a police operation, the five defendants have pleaded not guilty.
The three police officers and two paramedics made these statements on Friday at a court hearing in Adams County, the Denver Post newspaper reported. The trials in the case are scheduled to begin in the second half of the year. The accused are charged with manslaughter and negligent homicide.
African American Elijah McClain died in August 2019, three days after a police operation in the city of Aurora, near Denver. The police officers had the unarmed 23-year-old in a stranglehold, and paramedics injected him with a strong sedative. McClain suffered a heart attack.
23-year-old is said to have worn a ski mask to protect against the cold
The police had responded to a call that a “suspicious” black man with a ski mask over his face was behaving “strangely”. A police officer alleged that McClain grabbed another officer’s service weapon during an altercation. According to his family, the 23-year-old wanted to buy iced tea and wore the ski mask to protect himself from the cold.
After initially no charges were brought against the police officers and paramedics, Colorado Governor Jared Polis launched an investigation in June 2020 in the face of massive public pressure. More than three million people, including many celebrities such as former TV presenter Ellen DeGeneres, had signed an online petition calling for an investigation into McClain’s death.
A few weeks earlier, the death of African American George Floyd in a brutal police operation in Minneapolis triggered nationwide protests and put police violence against black people at the center of public attention. Deadly police operations against unarmed African Americans repeatedly cause outrage in the United States.
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