Elijah McClain case: Colorado officer jailed over 23-year-old's death

A white former police officer in Colorado has been sentenced to 14 months in prison for the 2019 killing of a black man.

Randy Roedema, 41, was found guilty in October for his role in the killing of Elijah McClain.

McClain, 23, was not suspected of any crime when he was pinned down by police before a medic injected him with ketamine and he died.

The judge said he was shocked by the "indifference" to McClain's suffering.

Another officer, Jason Rosenblatt, facing the same charges, was acquitted last year.

Both men were accused of using excessive force and ignoring the unarmed man's repeated cries of "I can't breathe".

McClain died in Aurora, near Denver, three days after he was put in a chokehold by police, injected with ketamine to sedate him and suffered cardiac arrest.

During sentencing in a Colorado court on Friday, judge Mark Werner said he was "shocked by what appeared to be, really, indifference to Elijah McClain's suffering".

McClain was "handcuffed and really wasn't much of a threat to anybody", Werner said.

Roedema told the judge he and his fellow officers had "responded in the way we were trained to do".

McClain's death received renewed scrutiny after George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2020.

Ahead of sentencing, Elijah's mother, Sheneen McClain, said Roedema "will always be a bully with a badge".