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Date: 11-21-2021
Case Style:
Case Number: 1:20-cv-02389-DDD-NRN
Judge: Daniel D. Domenico
Court: United States District Court for the District of Colorado (Denver County)
Plaintiff's Attorney:
Defendant's Attorney: Isabelle Sabra Evans, Peter Ruben Morales, Jonathan Marshall Abramson and Yulia Nikolaevskaya, David M. Goddard, Michael Turner Lowe, Andrew Christopher Nickel, Stephen Jerome Hensen
Description: Denver, Colorado personal injury lawyer represented Plaintiffs, who sued Defendants on civil rights and wrongful death theories claiming that he death of Elijah Jovan McClain was caused by the wrongful acts of Aurora Police Officer Nathan Woodyard, Randy Roedema, Jason Rosenblatt, Matthew Green, Alicia Ward, Kyle Dittrich, Erica Marrero, James Root, Jordan Mullins-Orcutt, Darren Dunson, Stephanie Nghiem, Rachel Nunez, Peter Cichuniec, Jeremy Cooper, Eric Hill and Dale Leonard.
Mr. McClain, a 23-year-old Black man, died after the police in that city restrained him with a chokehold maneuver. On Aug. 24, 2019, police received a 911 call in which the caller said that Mr. McClain, who was walking home from a convenience store, “looked sketchy” and was wearing a ski mask and waving his arms.Mr. McClain had told the officers he was simply walking home, according to an independent review. “I’m an introvert and I’m different,” he said during the confrontation, according to audio recordings from the stop. “I’m just different,” he added. “That’s all. That’s all I was doing. I’m so sorry.” He vomited because he could not breath and was injected with ketamine. He went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and died a few days later.
The Defendants were the 12 police officers, two Fire Department paramedics and the department's medical director.
The Plaintiffs' claimed that "“In a span of 18 minutes, defendants subjected Elijah to a procession of needless and brutal force techniques and unnecessary, recklessly administered medication, the combined effects of which he could not survive,...”
Three of the officers were indicted for manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. The charged remained pending on November 21, 2021.
Outcome: Settled for $15 million.
Plaintiff's Experts:
Defendant's Experts:
Comments: