'Some structural damage' from wildfire near Fort Nelson, B.C., mayor confirms
More than one home has been damaged or lost due to a massive wildfire outside of the B.C. community of Fort Nelson, the mayor confirmed Wednesday.
A former paramedic who injected Elijah McClain with a powerful sedative avoided prison Friday and was sentenced to 14 months in jail with work release and probation in the killing of the Black man that helped fuel the 2020 racial injustice protests.
Jeremy Cooper had faced up to three years in prison after being found guilty in a jury trial last year of criminally negligent homicide. He administered a dose of ketamine to McClain, 23, who had been forcibly restrained after police stopped him as the massage therapist was walking home in a Denver suburb in 2019.
The sentencing cap s a series of trials that stretched over seven months and resulted in the convictions of a police officer and two paramedics. Criminal charges against paramedics and emergency medical technicians involved in police custody cases are rare.
Cooper, who was fired after his conviction, was sentenced to four years of probation including 14 months in jail under a program that will allow him to leave for work and return to jail at night and on weekends, said Lawrence Pacheco with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.
The other paramedic involved in McClain’s death received a more severe punishment after being convicted on an additional charge of felony assault.
Judge Mark Warner said evidence showed Cooper did not purposely give McClain a ketamine overdose, rejecting claims by prosecutors that the paramedic had acted with indifference.
McClain’s mother told the judge prior to Friday’s sentencing that she blamed McClain’s death on everyone who was present that night, not just those who were convicted.
“Eternal shame on all of you,” Sheneen McClain said.
She said Cooper “did nothing” to help her son after he’d been restrained by police — didn’t check his pulse, didn’t check his breathing and didn’t ask him how he was doing — before injecting him with an overdose of ketamine.
Close to tears, McClain ended by raising her right fist in the air and saying loudly, “From my heart to my hands, long live Elijah McClain, always and forever."
She later told reporters that she wasn’t expecting much from the trials and wasn’t surprised Cooper avoided prison time. “We won, Elijah won," she said.
Experts say the convictions would have been unheard of before 2020, when George Floyd’s murder sparked a nationwide reckoning over racist policing and deaths in police custody.
At least 94 people died after they were given sedatives and restrained by police from 2012 through 2021, according to findings by The Associated Press in collaboration with FRONTLINE (PBS) and the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism.
McClain’s name became a rallying cry in protests over racial injustice in policing that swept the U.S. in 2020.
“Without the reckoning over criminal justice and how people of color suffer at much higher rates from police use of force and violence, it’s very unlikely that anything would have come of this, that there would have been any charges, let alone convictions,” said David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh law professor and expert on racial profiling.
Harris added that juries are often reluctant to second guess the actions of police and other first responders.
“It's still very hard to convict,” he said.
Cooper said during the hearing that he was sorry he couldn’t save McClain.
“I want you to know that I would give anything to have a different outcome, Elijah," Cooper said as if he were talking to McClain. “I never, ever meant for anyone to hurt you.”
He added that he wished he knew more at the time, implying that he could have used that knowledge to help McClain.
Sheneen McClain walked out of the courtroom as Cooper was speaking but later returned.
Prosecutor Jason Slothouber had asked the judge to incarcerate Cooper and argued that the paramedic was “singularly most responsible” for McClain’s death because Cooper gave him a “massive overdose” of ketamine.
Cooper's attorney and wife and fellow firefighters urged the judge to show leniency. They described him saving people from fires, jumping into floodwaters to help an older woman and using CPR to try to save a child who died in a fire.
Cooper was not taken into custody after the hearing. He declined to comment as he walked out of the courthouse with his wife and supporters.
Judge Warner previously sentenced ex-paramedic Peter Cichuniec in March to five years in prison. He faced the most serious of the charges in the case. It was the shortest sentence allowed under the law.
Warner sentenced officer Randy Roedema to 14 months in jail with work release for criminally negligent homicide and misdemeanor assault.
Prosecutors initially declined to pursue charges related to McClain's death when an autopsy did not determine how he died. Democratic Gov. Jared Polis ordered the investigation reopened in 2020.
The second autopsy said McClain died because he was injected with ketamine after being forcibly restrained.
Since the killings of Floyd, McClain and others put a spotlight on police custody deaths, many departments, paramedic units and those that train them have reexamined how they treat suspects.
Medical experts said by the time he received the sedative, McClain already was in a weakened state from forcible restraint that rendered him temporarily unconscious.
McClain was not armed, nor accused of breaking any laws. He went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and died three days later.
The Colorado health department has since told paramedics not to give ketamine to people suspected of having excited delirium, described in a since-withdrawn emergency physicians’ report as manifesting symptoms including increased strength. A doctors group has called it an unscientific definition rooted in racism.
The protests over McClain and Floyd also ushered in a wave of state legislation to curb the use of neck holds. At least 27 states including Colorado have passed some limit on the practices. Only two had bans in place before Floyd was killed.
Sheneen McClain said outside the courthouse Friday that the only closure she got was that the trials and sentencings were over.
“It doesn’t matter what anybody else does to wipe the blood of my son off their hands,” she said. “It's already there.”
AP reporter Thomas Peipert contributed.
More than one home has been damaged or lost due to a massive wildfire outside of the B.C. community of Fort Nelson, the mayor confirmed Wednesday.
A warning from a Saskatoon driver about using your fast-food app while in the drive-thru line — a trip to get some free lunch cost him a lot more than he bargained for.
An 'unrepentant' YouTuber has been ordered to pay $350,000 in damages as compensation for a 'relentless' campaign of defamation waged online against a business owner and his company, the B.C. Supreme Court has ruled.
Chief Robert Michell says relief isn't the right word to describe his reaction as the search begins for unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school he attended in northern British Columbia.
While it's unclear what these closures might mean for the 27 restaurants in Canada, Red Lobster is expected to file for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. this month.
A man from B.C.'s Lower Mainland has been sentenced to four years behind bars after shooting a sex worker in the back during a drug-fuelled 43rd birthday.
Nearly six dozen dogs were seized from a home Wednesday morning by the Winnipeg Humane Society. It is the largest known seizure of animals in the city’s history.
Of the $40-million Aiden Pleterski was handed over two years, documents show he invested just over one per cent and instead spent $15.9 million on "his personal lifestyle." The 25-year-old Oshawa, Ont. man was arrested and charged with fraud and money laundering on Tuesday.
A man with a long record of dangerous driving told investigators he smoked marijuana oil and took prescription drugs hours before he sideswiped a bus, killing eight Mexican farmworkers and injuring dozens more, according to an arrest report unsealed Wednesday.
When Adam Kirschner wrote 'Slap Shot,' he never imagined the song would be embraced by his favourite team.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.