Judge Finds Sufficient Evidence To Continue Elijah McClain Case

The sin­gle most vis­i­ble and bru­tal organ of America’s racial oppres­sion of African-Americans since the start of the Republic to the present day has been the police.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​f​i​n​a​l​l​y​-​s​o​m​e​-​a​c​c​o​u​n​t​a​b​i​l​i​t​y​-​f​o​r​-​t​h​e​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​e​r​s​-​o​f​-​e​l​i​j​a​h​-​m​c​c​l​a​in/

McClain died after an encounter with police offi­cers and para­medics in 2019.

A Colorado judge has found that evi­dence against the five for­mer Aurora police offi­cers and para­medics in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain is strong enough to pur­sue crim­i­nal cases.
Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old mas­sage ther­a­pist and skilled vio­list, died fol­low­ing an encounter with police in August 2019 while he was walk­ing home from a con­ve­nience store. A passer­by had called 911 to report McClain as “sketchy,” as he was wear­ing a ski mask on a warm night. McClain’s lawyer lat­er attrib­uted this to the fact that McClain was ane­mic and often cold. Aurora police offi­cers respond­ed to the scene, grab­bing McClain and using a carotid con­trol hold, which led to McClain say­ing, “I can’t breathe,” and strug­gling against the police, accord­ing to police body cam­era footage.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​u​r​d​e​r​-​g​a​n​g​-​a​c​t​i​v​i​t​i​e​s​-​a​l​l​-​p​a​r​t​-​o​f​-​n​o​r​m​a​l​-​p​o​l​i​c​i​n​g​-​a​c​r​o​s​s​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​s​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​d​e​p​a​r​t​m​e​n​ts/

In her order, Loew wrote that based upon the grand jury mate­ri­als, “there is suf­fi­cient evi­dence to estab­lish prob­a­ble cause for each of the counts list­ed in the grand jury indict­ment filed with the court on Sept. 1, 2022.” All five defen­dants have been sched­uled to appear in court for arraign­ment on Aug. 12, accord­ing to court documents.
The Aurora Police Department declined to com­ment on the deci­sion. The city’s EMS depart­ment also declined to com­ment. Iris Halpern, the McClain fam­i­ly lawyer, said that crim­i­nal account­abil­i­ty has been a main goal for Sheheen McClain, Elijah’s moth­er. Halpern said that this par­tic­u­lar case remains impor­tant to McCain because she believes indi­vid­ual account­abil­i­ty is essen­tial, espe­cial­ly in sit­u­a­tions tied to larg­er, struc­tur­al issues such as police reform. “We’ve been stand­ing by the fam­i­ly through­out the case and the pain they’ve suf­fered,” Halpern said. “These are real humans with loved ones, and this issue impacts not only the vic­tim but those around them in the after­math.” Following the 2021 indict­ment of the five defen­dants, the Aurora Police Association Board of Directors released a state­ment in defense of the officers.

Criminal Association stand­ing up for crim­i­nals and doing it under the col­or of law

“There is no evi­dence that APD offi­cers caused his death. The hys­ter­i­cal over­re­ac­tion to this case has severe­ly dam­aged the police depart­ment,” the Aurora Police Association Board of Directors said in a statement.

A bunch of garbage from degen­er­ate mur­der­ers themselves.

The Aurora Police Association has not yet respond­ed to requests from news orga­ni­za­tions for com­ment. Following the death of George Floyd in May 2020, calls for a fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion of McClain’s death were reignit­ed. In June 2020, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis appoint­ed a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor to inves­ti­gate the case and file charges if “the facts sup­port prosecution.
The next month, the Aurora City Council ordered a pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tion of McClain’s death, which was released in February 2021.

The coun­cil con­clud­ed that the orig­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion by the Aurora Police Department’s major crimes unit was bad­ly flawed and alleged the detec­tives “stretched the record to exon­er­ate the offi­cers rather than present a neu­tral ver­sion of the facts.” “This case is a text­book exam­ple of law enforcement’s dis­parate and racist treat­ment of Black men,” McClain’s fam­i­ly and their lawyers said in a joint state­ment issued fol­low­ing the report’s release. “Aurora’s con­tin­ued fail­ure to acknowl­edge the wrong­do­ing of its employ­ees only exac­er­bates the problem.”

This writer con­tin­ues to sound the alarm that a police agency inves­ti­gat­ing alleged crimes com­mit­ted by anoth­er depart­ment rep­re­sents an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion is bull­shit, plain and sim­ple. Worse yet, the idea that the same depart­ment inves­ti­gates itself and returns an impar­tial inves­tiga­tive result is beyond ludicrous.
Nevertheless, peo­ple con­tin­ue to be fooled by this three-card-monte trick, while crim­i­nals wear­ing police uni­forms, their unions, and polit­i­cal patrons con­tin­ue to laugh at their stupidity.
In November 2021, the McClain fam­i­ly reached a $15 mil­lion set­tle­ment with the city of Aurora in the civ­il rights law­suit filed over McClain’s vio­lent arrest and sub­se­quent death. It is the high­est police set­tle­ment in the his­to­ry of Colorado, accord­ing to police. The case will con­tin­ue fol­low­ing the defen­dants’ arraign­ment on August 12.
Citizens in com­mu­ni­ties all across the coun­try will con­tin­ue to fork out large sums of mon­ey to pay for the raw, naked, racist aggres­sion vis­it­ed upon inno­cent cit­i­zens by these sub­hu­man brutes oper­at­ing under the col­or of law until they put an end to it.
It is impor­tant to rec­on­cile that this sum comes from the tax­pay­ers, not the mon­sters who bru­tal­ized and killed this inno­cent soul.
(Story orig­i­nat­ed @ABC).

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.