Randy Roedema is set to begin a 14-month jail sentence on March 22.
AURORA, Colo. — The only Aurora police officer found guilty of wrongdoing in the death of Elijah McClain has appealed his conviction.
Randy Roedema, 41, faces 14 months in jail and four years of probation after being convicted of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault for his actions in McClain’s death.
He is expected to start serving the jail term March 22.
Roedema was among five first responders indicted by a statewide grand jury and accused of wrongdoing in the Aug. 24, 2019, death of McClain, 23.
From Jan. 5: Former Aurora officer gets 14 months in jail after conviction in Elijah McClain’s death
McClain was walking home after buying three cans of tea at a convenience store when a 911 caller reported that he was wearing a mask and seemed “sketchy.”
Aurora officers Nathan Woodyard, Jason Rosenblatt, and Roedema stopped and subdued McClain. After Roedema said that McClain had tried to grab Rosenblatt’s gun, the officers twice put him in a neck hold that briefly rendered him unconscious. He vomited and inhaled some of it, and his medical condition deteriorated before paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec injected him with the sedative ketamine.
McClain’s heart stopped. Although paramedics revived him, he died three days later without ever regaining consciousness.
In the filing, Roedema’s attorneys asked the Colorado Court of Appeals to consider a number of questions, including:
- Whether Adams County District Judge Mark Warner erred in trying Roedema and Rosenblatt together, in allowing amendments to the indictment, and in overruling Roedema’s challenges to the dismissal of several jurors by prosecutors?
- Whether the indictment should have been dismissed before trial for “defects and deficiencies” and for “errors in the instructions given to the grand jury?”
- Whether sufficient evidence existed to convict Roedema of criminally negligent homicide?
The filing also suggested that the attorneys could raise other issues.
The same jury that found Roedema guilty acquitted Rosenblatt of all charges. A jury in a separate trial acquitted Woodyard of all charges.
In another trial, a jury convicted both paramedics of criminally negligent homicide and also found Cichuniec, the supervisor on the scene, guilty of second-degree assault.
Cichuniec is scheduled to be sentenced March 1. Cooper’s sentencing is set for April 26.
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