I chose an article that covers a topic I have been following for many years: the murder of Elijah McClain. The New York Times article https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/us/elijah-mcclain-verdict-officers.html focuses on the duel trial of Jason Rosenblatt and Randy Roedema, two of the three officers who were involved in McClain’s death. This is the first trial of three trials that will be held. The other two will be for the third police officer and two paramedics who were also charged with his death.
The fault lines in this story regard race/ethnicity, gender, class and generation. You could propose that geography is a factor as well, but unfortunately at his point, there is arguably no state in this country where a young black man has not been murdered by police officers.
The authors Audra Burch and Kelley Manley make a point to note that the jury was mostly white. The anger and surprise felt by many is that the jury only convicted Roedema guilty of criminally negligent homicide and assault. Rosenblatt left a free man although many feel that he is just as responsible for McClain’s murder.
“How do you convict one and acquit the other? How can you call this justice?” said Candice Bailey, an Aurora activist who led many of the early marches and demanded police reform. This quote is the first one presented in the article. I feel they did that because it pointedly highlights the frustration felt within activist communities who are fighting for justice for McClain.
Shortly after, the article quotes McClain’s mother, who stated “None of them did their job that night the way they were supposed to. The police didn’t do their job that night and neither did the paramedics. They worked as a team to murder my son.” You can hear the grief and frustration through this quote of a mother who has had her son stolen from her. It is mentioned that when the officers were first indicted, the Aurora Police Association was vocal that they felt their officers did nothing wrong.
“This is the divided states of America, and that’s what happens,” his mother said. When you hear this quote her message is clear and you can feel it. When the writers of the article retell the story of McClain’s murder, you feel the suffering to its full extent all over again. He was unarmed. He was on his way home. He was vocal about the fact that he couldn’t breathe. He begged for his life. None of that was taken into consideration.
The most insidious and horrific part of this case, to me, is that this case was all but dismissed until the murder by cops of another unarmed Black man, George Floyd. Only then did the Colorado governor intervene. Must humans unfailingly wait to make up for their mistakes until after the damage is done? Or can we act with grace, compassion, morality and humility before mistakes are made that cannot be undone, like taking another person’s life?
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/5/31/mapping-us-police-killings-of-black-americans
Ruby Cayenne 