Today’s episode of Unnecessary Money Cops Cost the Public Because They Can’t Control Themselves comes from Aurora, Colo., where ABC News reports that the family of Elijah McClain has reached a $15 million settlement with the city over his death at the hands of cops and EMTs.
McClain died at age 23 in August 2019 after someone (likely named Karen), called the cops to report - you guessed it— a suspicious man in the neighborhood. That neighborhood was McClain’s, and he was walking home from the store. He was wearing a ski mask because, his family says, he was anemic, a condition that tends to make people feel constantly cold.
What followed was yet another deadly, unnecessary, tragic encounter between a Black man and police.
According to an independent review of his death, officers placed McClain in a carotid chokehold that restricts the carotid artery and cuts off blood to the brain.
The independent review found that McClain had pleaded with officers, crying out in pain, apologizing, and attempting to explain himself.
When EMTs arrived, he was administered a shot of 500 milligrams of ketamine and placed in an ambulance where he had a heart attack, according to officials. He died on Aug. 30, three days after doctors pronounced him brain dead and he was removed from life support, officials said.
The cops and EMTs who contributed to McClain’s death face charges including manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, according to the ABC News report. But here’s another thing you won’t be surprised by: the local police union in Aurora thinks they did nothing wrong.
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From ABC News:
The Aurora Police Association Board of Directors has defended the officers, saying in a past statement: “There is no evidence that APD officers caused his death. The hysterical overreaction to this case has severely damaged the police department.”
There is, in fact, plenty of evidence. Chances are next to none that McClain dies that night if police weren’t called, if they don’t choke him out and if paramedics don’t administer a dose of a medical sedative that some say cops have used as a weapon against Black people. And prosecutors tend not to charge cops with things they don’t think they can prove, if they charge them at all.
Here’s where we remind you that police unions are the reason settlements like this end up costing taxpayers money instead of the cops who kill. Cop unions are the biggest opponents of efforts to end qualified immunity, a legal concept that shield cops from being sued for their misdeeds, even in cases where they’ve been held criminally responsible.