Speaker 1: 0:00

On August 24th 2019, a healthy 23-year-old, 5'6 and 140-pound African-American man just starting his adult life, named Elijah McClain, was apprehended and detained by police in Aurora, colorado, after a phone call was made to police by a concerned community member who had just walked past Elijah on the street around 10pm and said Elijah looked suspicious because he was wearing a ski mask. And it's just a few days later when Elijah McClain is declared dead. This is the case of the alleged wrongful death of Elijah McClain and how this case forced law enforcement to review their protocols and policies to prevent subsequent deaths, and how the court system acknowledged that there was enough evidence in the wrongful handling of Elijah McClain by first responders to bring them to court on charges of reckless manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Hi, it's Jules. This is True Crime in Headlines. Jo will be back next week and we are your True Crime Besties. Today I am riding solo, jo is doing her jobs as a mental health provider and that leaves me, so you and I are riding together. Thank you so much for being here. I am so thankful that you have chosen to spend your time with us here at True Crime in Headline. I am going to be a True Crime Bestie confidant, and I'm going to challenge you to ask some big questions. I really want to know the why, not just the how, behind these stories, so we can try to understand these, try to help educate people and one day I won't have a job as a True Crime Podcaster. That's the goal for humanity, am I right? So we're going to talk about this case as open as I can and I don't want you to go into this thinking I'm pushing a political agenda, because I'm not. If I do my job correctly, you will not know my political agenda. You will know that I have a humanity agenda because somebody lost their life and a bunch of lives have been forever changed in this case. So we're going to try to proceed with empathy, sympathy and a little bit of conviction here. But if you want to help us grow, we'd absolutely love a five star review. I know it sounds desperate and that's because we are.

Speaker 1: 2:30

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Speaker 1: 3:07

If you would like to donate to our podcast funds, you can do so on our website by clicking bias a coffee or wherever you get your podcasts. In the description it says support our show. We truly appreciate every coffee support or just a share on social media. It means just as much to us. I would like to shout out Sarah Leder in Colorado. She is an amazing supporter of our show and I just want to tell you, sarah, I appreciate you. She's sharing our show with everybody. She's so encouraging. She was an amazing educator. Now she's an amazing real estate agent in Colorado. Sarah Leder, thank you so much for being a friend to the show. I have one more shout out. Sally's granddaughter, addison Janssen, has discovered our podcast and they are spending time together in the car listening to our podcast together. I cannot tell you how special that is to me that you guys are listening to stories that matter together and spending time together and you're supporting our show and I'm so thankful. Sally, you're an amazing human, and I just know that your granddaughter, addison, must be amazing too. So thank you for being here. We love y'all. And let's go Full disclosure.

Speaker 1: 4:23

I don't exactly know how to best present this case and here is why it likely won't be a shock to anybody who's heard of this case. It's a current and very hot button case, so I guess I'll just put the big overarching question out there. We're first responders responsible for the death of 23 year old massage therapist, elijah McClain. This is the question that is circulating the nation currently, even in the court system, and we're not going to shy away from trying to dissect this case as best as we can, just because the fear of cancel culture if we say something that might be taken in a different context than we intended. I will do my best to remain as politically neutral as I can. This is not a political podcast. It never will be. That will take away from the victims, from the advocates and what they're trying to accomplish, both on law enforcement and on the victim side in this case.

Speaker 1: 5:31

Let's start at the beginning. Who was Elijah McClain? So Elijah McClain was born in the Denver neighborhood in 1996 and this neighborhood was called Park Hill, and he was born to mother Shanine McClain and father LeWayne Mosley. Elijah's mother soon moved the family out of Park Hill as the gang violence in their area was rising and she didn't feel like it was a safe community any longer for her children. Now, elijah did have a large family, five brothers and sisters. They began their life outside of Denver in a different town called Aurora. This was supposed to be a safer place for the siblings during their formative years. According to website crimegradeorg, quote, a crime occurs every 15 hours 33 minutes on average in Park Hill and, quote, a crime occurs every nine minutes on average in Aurora. Whoa, park Hill has a current safety rating of B and Aurora has an F minus, per the same website. So, things to consider, these ratings are current statistics as of 2022. A lot of change has been made to Colorado as a whole, as people are moving into it in trolls from other states, and when Shanene, elijah's mother, moved her family out of Park Hill area, it was for gang activities, so we're not sure what they were personally seen and experiencing in 1996. From 2014 to present, though, aurora has seen a massive spike in recorded crime statistics.

Speaker 1: 7:13

Aurora, colorado, is no stranger to national headlines. You guys? Do you remember the 2012 movie theater shooting, when a murderer dressed as a joker went into an Aurora movie theater at the premiere of the Batman movie, the Dark Knight Rises, and he shot at the audience, taking the lives of 12 innocent people and injuring 70 others. Now I do have a connection to this event, as I was in grad school for my master's in teaching at Metro State University of Denver. At the time, I had numerous friends in my cohort that lived in Aurora, and one amazing woman, who will remain anonymous, who still this day inspires me with her resilience, was selected to be one of the 12 jurors for the movie theater shooting killers trial in 2015. And I know how deeply it affected her life, her career, her path towards getting her degree, and it will likely shape her forever. Aurora was once known as the largest growing city in the country in the mid 1970s, and you can see on the scale of crimes, which I'll link in our show notes, how the crime rates just continue to skyrocket by 2019.

Speaker 1: 8:27

When Elijah's last days were lived out, it was very obvious that Aurora was no longer the safer option between Park Hill and Aurora, and perhaps people were often on edge about spotting crimes to try to prevent crimes for the community. Could the individual who called 911 on Elijah just have been looking out for his community? Yes, he could have been trying to be a good community member. So let's, let's look deeper. Okay, elijah was remembered by friends and family as being extremely gentle and adverse to conflict. He was known to disengage in conflicts and he lived his life by the philosophy that every life mattered.

Speaker 1: 9:14

Numerous news outlets referenced how one of Elijah's co-workers recalled how Elijah wouldn't let the office kill a fly. Instead, he insisted on catching it to put it outside. The same co-workers from Massage Envy, where he was employed as a massage therapist at the time of his death, fondly recall how, according to a quote from a Guardian article, quote it was almost like he walked with a gold orb around him. End quote. Elijah's sister, samara, also said this of her brother to the Denver Post. Quote he was a really good person. He didn't argue with anybody. If you tried to argue with him, he would just say I love you and walk away. And quote. Elijah was working as a massage therapist for about four years and developed great relationships with his clients, one of them telling the Sentinel, colorado's Grant Stinger, in an article that quote, he was the sweetest, purest person I have ever met. He was definitely a light in a whole lot of darkness end quote. And her description really goes hand in hand with more accounts of Elijah's docile nature, with the same article stating that Elijah's friends were having a hard time grappling with the violent incident. Saying Elijah was a quote pacifist, oddball, vegetarian, athlete and peacemaker who was exceedingly gentle end quote. Before he became a massage therapist in his early twenties, he was a self-taught guitar and violin player and he was known for his volunteer work at a local animal shelter where he would often play violin for the animals.

Speaker 1: 10:51

In 2019, the year Elijah died, elijah was living in an apartment with his cousin, not far from where he was detained by police. I worked hard to find alternate accounts of Elijah's character history, and all for the sole purpose of putting out the facts before us and trying not to become too attached to Elijah and his story through the articles I've read. Remember, human bias is human condition and I am but a mere human. So it's hard here Okay, I'm just going to be very transparent. It's hard not to really feel for Elijah. He just seemed to live his life and try to live it in light.

Speaker 1: 11:31

I did see police body cam footage of one of his relatives stating that Elijah acted different and odd when he would occasionally smoke marijuana. Now, this is in Colorado in 2019 and you have to take into consideration also that you know the laws on marijuana are different in 2019 in Colorado and so it might not be a legal activity, but she did say that Elijah would just act different while smoking marijuana. However, she is recorded on the body cam footage during the police interview saying he was never, ever violent, just acted odd, and only when he occasionally smoked marijuana, but there was absolutely never any violence. Now, going into the actual events of the incident, I tried to scour sources as best as I could to find out if Elijah had any mental health history, which would be helpful to know going into the case, or if he was neurodivergent. The family did come out and address one article which they state wrongfully claimed that Elijah had autism. They said he indeed did not have autism.

Speaker 1: 12:53

Now I say all this to give us a holistic view, holistic information on Elijah as an individual, as I can do it as best as I can for us, because we're going to get in the weeds here situation. What I don't want to do is to divide our audience because we isolate one entire group by saying political statements, and that's not what I'm going to do here. Again, you won't hear my political views on this show, but what you will hear is me asking people to do their jobs ethically and as safely as they can. What can we learn from this incident and who can we hold accountable? Sometimes we see that. Sometimes we see that there are some amazing people upholding their ethics, their code of ethics, their job titles. They're doing it well, they're trying their best. They're overworked, underpaid, not properly supported for mental health in these careers that they see and do traumatic things every day to help people see the worst of the worst. However, the truth is, I tell a small majority of human stories in this podcast, so we tried to ask what can be changed to prevent this, and that's the entire point of doing a podcast, guys. How can we help prevent these incidents by raising awareness instead of hurting the efforts of law enforcement to be better? How can we help our civilian citizens and our law enforcement in the relations together to have the goal of keeping the community safe?

Speaker 1: 14:22

I'm going to play audio from the official body camera footage. I am choosing to do this before I go into the weeds of all the details and events, because I want you to hear. I want you to hear the tones, I want you to hear the words that came out of the police officers, that came out of Elijah. I want you to form an opinion on your own based on what you hear. Now I am aware you can't see it I have linked it on our website if you want to watch it in its entirety. The first call you're going to hear is the 911 call from the concerned citizen and his account about why he felt Elijah was suspicious 911,.

Speaker 2: 15:04

What is the address of the emergency? I?

Speaker 3: 15:09

think it's Black Hawk who comes right now. Let me take a quick Okay, it's Black Hawk. Okay, is it Black Hawk? Way, black Hawk.

Speaker 2: 15:26

Okay, give me one second. Just repeat that intersection for verification. Okay, are you sure you're not on? Give me one second. Is it possibly Evergreen? Okay, no, I understand that. I just don't show you anywhere near a Black Hawk. Okay, just stand right, give me one moment. I don't show you. What I'm saying is I don't show you anywhere near Billings and Black Hawk. What about Billings? Sweden, evergreen? Okay, that's where I show you near. Okay, what's the phone number you're calling from? And your name, red, and your last name, one. Okay, tell me exactly what happened.

Speaker 3: 16:28

So there's a guy, he's walking between South, he's walking South on Billings Street and here's a mask on, okay. And then when I pass by him, he puts his hands up and says I know he's pretty scared of you. Okay, is this person a bad person?

Speaker 2: 16:55

Yeah, Okay, I'm going to put a call in so officers can go see what's going on. Okay, are you still at that location now? Yes, okay, all right. When did this happen? When did you see him? Right now.

Speaker 3: 17:14

I just send the letter and see if I'm putting it there.

Speaker 2: 17:18

Okay, don't approach him. Okay, if you need to just drive away, I don't want you to go near him. Were any weapons involved or mentioned? No, Okay, I already have a call in. Okay, I need to get his full description. What race is he? I think he's wearing a black mask. Okay, how old does he look? I know he's wearing a mask. Uh-huh, no clue. Okay, what color is the mask? What does it look like? Black, Black mask.

Speaker 3: 17:48

He's like a black piece of non-binary skin purple and black.

Speaker 2: 17:52

Okay, is it like a ski mask, or what type of mask is it? Yeah, like a ski mask. Okay, and then what else is he wearing?

Speaker 3: 18:05

Um, I think that's like a brown long-sleeved shirt, okay, and then a black shirt.

Speaker 2: 18:17

Okay, give me one moment. I'm just adding notes. Are you anyone else in danger right now? No, okay, we have this call in. Is there a? Don't approach that person and do not disturb anything at this scene. We are going to have officers dispatch to check the aliens right and locate him, okay.

Speaker 3: 18:33

Okay, do you think I want to just uh, to just say some other words?

Speaker 2: 18:39

to help us. Yep, I let them know that. Okay, so don't follow him or anything. We're going to have officers come check the area, okay. Okay, could call us back immediately if anything changes or if you have any further information. Okay, all right, and do you need officers to contact you, sir? Um, no, it's fine. Okay, thank you, call us back immediately if anything changes.

Speaker 3: 19:05

Okay.

Speaker 2: 19:05

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 19:08

Okay, I know it's a little hard to hear some of that and I hope I didn't lose some of you in that, but just to recap, he thought the guy looked sketchy. He was not in any danger. He walked by the guy who we now know is Elijah. Elijah was in a ski mask and when he walked by him, elijah put his hands up in some kind of weird way, according to the eyewitness who called 911. Again, I want to say that he was not in any danger. He did not see any weapons and the reason he called was because he felt it looked sketchy. And let's talk about that real fast. We'll impact that.

Speaker 1: 19:49

Okay, guys, it's August. That's kind of a hot month in Colorado Colorado weather. They always say, if you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes and it'll change. So you never really know what you're going to get in Colorado. But I can kind of assume that a ski mask is not typical for the area of someone just walking around.

Speaker 1: 20:11

Now, remember this was before the pandemic. This is one year before actually less than a year before the pandemic, and if this had happened in 2020, a ski mask would have looked just totally typical. I mean, it may have changed the whole, the whole projectory of this incident because everybody was in a mask, people were in ski masks, I mean, people were in bubbles. But I'm not going to play all of the body cam footage audio Proceed with knowing that we are actively listening to somebody's child's last words and that is not something I take lightly when I play audio. So I just want you to know that the purpose of playing this audio is because we need to hear what actually was going on, to be fair to both parties involved here. Where we are picking up with this audio is when police officer Nathan Woodard, who is the first one to arrive to the scene, initially makes contact with Elijah, who is just walking down the street. Here we go.

Speaker 2: 21:26

Favorite stop right there. Hey, stop right there, stop, stop, stop, stop. I have a right to stop you because you're being Stop.

Speaker 3: 21:35

I'm tensing up the boundaries that I'm speaking. Stop tensing up, stop.

Speaker 2: 21:40

I'm going home, relax, or I'm going to have to change this situation.

Speaker 3: 21:44

Stop, stop, can you please? No, please, can you leave me alone? No, we're gonna talk to you. You guys started to arrest me and I was talking about music to listen.

Speaker 1: 21:54

He's heard saying that he is trying to go home and he was trying to take his headphones out of his ears to hear them. He had earbuds in listening to music and that's when the police put their hands on him and he tried to explain I was taking my music out and you went to arrest me. And then he is being restrained and contained to the ground. This is all within a minute of stopping Elijah on the street, that their hands are already on Elijah. Now Elijah will be put in a carotid control hold, which is essentially what it sounds like a use of physical force. So this is where the police officer will place his arm around Elijah's neck and in doing so, he will squeeze to restrict the blood flow to Elijah's brain through the carotid arteries. Nbc News reporter Emanuel Saliba analyzed the footage and released their findings a link that I've shared for everyone on our website, and Emanuel reports that our officers would later state that Elijah did lose consciousness at least once, and then the officers released the hold. Folks, this is just two minutes after Elijah McClain is first initially stopped by a police officer. He was already put in a carotid hold. He's already on the ground being pinned and put into the hold. And this is what he says from beneath the officers, while he is on the ground in between the hold. Listen up, woo.

Speaker 1: 24:34

I'm going to read what Elijah McClain said in case you had a hard time hearing it, but I think it's important to hear it again. My name is Elijah McClain. I was going home. That's what I was doing, just going home. I'm just different, that's all. I'm so sorry. I have no gun. I don't do that stuff. I don't do any fighting. Why are you attacking me? I don't even kill flies. I don't eat meat. You can hear the officers talking amongst themselves in that video about whether or not Elijah did lose consciousness during the hold. One of the officers said I did hear snoring and you can hear them trying to decide whether or not Elijah did lose consciousness. And just a few minutes later Elijah begins to throw up.

Speaker 3: 25:25

Stop. Oh yeah, I'm sorry. Oh, was he trying to do that?

Speaker 1: 25:31

I can't breathe correctly because you can hear Elijah throwing up. He's being told to stop and Elijah responds with I'm sorry, I can't breathe, he's on the ground. The officer then readjust Elijah so that Elijah could be up enough to be able to throw up. Now firefighters have arrived and a few minutes later you can hear discussions between the police officers and the firefighters Saying quote, now, when the ambulance gets here, we'll go ahead and give him some ketamine and we'll let him sit for a minute. That came from one of the firefighters. And then the officer says yeah, quote, whatever he's on, he has incredible strength. And another officer agrees by saying quote, yeah, crazy strength. End quote.

Speaker 1: 26:20

When the medical first responders arrive, they administer 500 milligrams of ketamine. I'm going to pause audio for a moment here so we can talk about ketamine. What is ketamine? What's its role? Let's talk about it.

Speaker 1: 26:40

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration website, quote ketamine can induce a state of sedation, feeling calm and relaxed, immobility, relief from pain and amnesia. You know, no memory of events while under the influence of the drugs. End quote. Okay, I want to read the effects of ketamine on the body per the DEA site and I want to quote it directly to avoid any misinterpretation on my end so from the DEA site itself. Quote what is its effect on the body? A couple of minutes after taking the drug, the user may experience an increase in heart rate and blood pressure that gradually decreases over the next 10 to 20 minutes. Ketamine can make users unresponsive to stimuli. When in the state, users experience involuntary rapid eye movement, dilated pupils, salivation, tear secretions and stiffening of the muscles. This drug can also cause nausea. What are its overdose effects? An overdose can cause unconsciousness and dangerously slowed breathing. End quote Elijah McClain was administered 500 milligrams of ketamine. The Alcohol and Drug Foundation website says that this is how ketamine affects each individual. Quote. Ketamine affects everyone differently, based on size, weight and health, whether the person is used to taking it, whether other drugs are taken around the same time, the amount taken and the strength of the drug, because it varies from batch to batch. End quote.

Speaker 1: 28:32

The officers can be heard saying on the camera footage that whatever quote he is on end quote that he's crazy strong, which I am led to believe is a verbal agreement among the officers at the scene in the moment in their opinion that Elijah is on an additional drug at the time. So if they believed he was already drugged, would ketamine be the right choice? I do want to know what the medics were told upon arrival and what evaluations they did before administering ketamine. There's a 23-year-old adult pinned to the ground saying he can't breathe, apologizing for throwing up, losing consciousness from the hold. So medical first responders would likely absolutely do the first obvious step of basic medical care and take his vitals. If he was not a physical threat to the environment at the moment and he was contained and he was showing distressed physical signs, distressed health signs, did we take his vitals first?

Speaker 1: 29:43

In the body camera footage, audio, one officer is seen and heard leaning over Elijah, who is restrained on the ground by other officers, and he's asking Elijah, tell me what you were on? The officer continues to repeat the question hey, you need to tell us what drugs you're also on. What else did you take? Which I interpret as the officer truly believing Elijah is again already on a drug. Elijah never confirms this suspicion. Elijah never says he is on drugs. He says quote, I am different, end quote but never admits to being on any type of drug. Could he have been on a drug? Yes, per the police officer's perception of how he is perceiving the situation, you have to just go with what he's saying and what he's doing. Clearly, his perception at the time is that Elijah was on a drug, and he's asking Elijah to tell him what other drugs he's on so that when the medics arrive, they know how to treat him. He verbally confirms that they need to know what drug he is on so that they can treat him effectively. This officer is on record showing one he believes Elijah is on drugs and two that he doesn't know what he is on, and thus he admits that they cannot fully know how to instruct the medics about the scene in its entirety. So how will they truly know how to treat him, which drugs to give him? However, after in conversations on records with the fire department, you do, like I said previously, hear the fire say that when medics arrive, we're gonna have to put him on ketamine and then we'll let him sit for a minute. And this is after conversations with the police officers. The police officers are saying you know, he's crazy strong 500 milligrams of ketamine.

Speaker 1: 31:45

The alcohol and drug foundation goes on to report which drugs, when interacted with ketamine, can cause possible death. So here we are. We have law enforcement and first responder standing around, elijah McClain, who is being pinned down on the ground who's clearly distressed and distraught and going into physical distress, and they believe that Elijah McClain is on other drugs. Well, here is a list of things that if you were also given ketamine when you were on this list, it could cause possible death GHB slash, gbl, opioids, benzodiazepines, alcohol. So that is a broad list of things and any of those things could look to the officers in their professional opinion and their experience that Elijah is on one of those things.

Speaker 1: 32:52

2012 article from the website the Guardian by Josiah Hesse, titled quote weaponization of medicine Police use of ketamine draw scrutiny after Elijah McClain's death. Quotes the family McClain family lawyer saying, quote what we're talking about is the weaponization of medicine, says Mary Newman, the lawyer representing McClain's family. It might as well be a taser or a gun. End quote. You know it does beg me to ask why was a taser not used? These officers clearly all have tasers on their person. Why was the taser not used If they clearly felt they could not control him in that situation, but they could control him and pin him long enough for the medics to arrive to then sedate him?

Speaker 1: 33:41

If there was a concern for a detainee being physically dangerous, shouldn't that be the decision of the medical crew upon arrival. Ultimately, it's their ultimate decision upon arrival. Their entire responsibility is to secure, stabilize, transport and deliver the patient to the hospital. If the patient is physically stable and no longer a threat, and they're strapped to the stretcher, which is also protocol, what is the danger? Well, here's the deal the medical crew needs to do their own visual, physical and health assessment upon arrival. Because they are the medical crew, they're not the police. But we know that medical crew and police work very closely together. They're on a team together to help people the best. So maybe there was a level of trust in the police officer's assessment and they believe there was a danger and that they did believe, in conjunction to what the officers and firefighters were telling them, that this was the best choice. Ultimately, the police officer can and did talk with fire about how they felt Ketamine needed to be administered. However, just because he is a physical capability of talking speaking those words audibly does not give him the jurisdiction to make that decision.

Speaker 1: 35:00

Now, it's a comment in passing at most. Then. This article truly brings up a great question. And what did the medics do upon arrival before administering what many sources are claiming to be an extremely excessive dose of Ketamine on this 140-pound 23-year-old man. Now the same article does go on to share this Quote Newman says that McClain was exhibiting none of the signs of excited delirium syndrome, a controversial diagnosis that legally warrants a Ketamine injection and that police officers erroneously employed quote code words like he had superhuman strength, and quote that she says were an attempt to influence paramedics to give the injection and justify their own use of excessive force. And quote whoa, guys, we need to unpack that.

Speaker 1: 35:55

The family lawyer representing Elijah McClain's family is saying police purposely said known buzzwords to persuade the medics in their decision to inject Ketamine. She is claiming and this is a bold claim she's claiming that the police knew, if you said superhuman strength, that would indicate a syndrome called excited delirium syndrome that the police used to justify giving Ketamine. This is a really big claim. This is the family lawyer for the McLean's saying that the police officers willingly and knowingly misused words to get an outcome of what they wanted to persuade and mislead the medics. This article, guys.

Speaker 1: 37:04

It also states that this is not a condition that is recognized by the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders or the American Medical Association. Now, I did go and do some fact-checking on that for myself before I presented this case, and Joe has taught us previously about the Diagnostic Statistical Manual 5, which is the current one, the DSM-5. She's talked about that. It's basically a book of all of the recognized conditions in mental health and it's saying that this reason that they use to justify giving ketamine to people detained in police custody is not even a recognized medical condition. How can we justify? We're making up a condition or we're using an outdated condition-adjusted name. Either way, that condition is not acknowledged by mental health professionals, yet we're using it to justify giving ketamine to sedate somebody.

Speaker 1: 38:12

An article on paramedicpracticecom by Brian Segstock and Janet Curtis says this about excited delirium syndrome. That quote involves extreme agitation and aggression in a patient with an altered mental status, and one in 10 cases ends in cardiac arrest. It has two main triggers acute drug use and psychiatric illness. Patients display violent behavior, increased pain tolerance and great strength, and they pose significant risk to themselves and those around them. Maintaining safety on the scene is paramount, which can be supported by dual response by paramedics and law enforcement officers, and the patient is likely to need restraining or sedation. Treatment is nonspecific and involves managing symptoms and complications such as hypothermia, acidosis and rhabdomyliosis Stumbled over that one. Sorry, guys, end quote.

Speaker 1: 39:15

Nowhere does it say that the treatment for the supposed condition, which is not recognized by mental health professional associations, is ketamine. It doesn't say that ketamine is the only treatment. So let's go back. The McLean family lawyer claims that the police officers were discussing Elijah's great strength in order to justify giving him ketamine. In order to justify ketamine, you have to prove at that time for the police officers in order to back up your claim, that this person that you have detained now is experiencing some type of delirium which is not recognized by mental health professionals. They already justified the neck hold. He's already passed out from that once. Then an officer standing over Elijah while he's already on the ground and saying if you keep this up, I'm going to release my police dog on you, to Elijah, who's already on the ground under three police officers.

Speaker 1: 40:27

Now the reason that excited delirium syndrome is not recognized as a condition is because it's way too broad and it's way too vague to accurately describe information about a person. Acute behavioral distress is one condition which is used commonly in place of excited delirium syndrome. Now here's a list of organizations that do not recognize excited delirium syndrome. Now I tell you this so that you know how backwards it was that the Aurora Police Department was using excited delirium syndrome to justify the use of getting ketamine, in a time and age where it is not recognized by all of these institutions diagnostic and statistical manual mental disorders, international classification of diseases, world health organization, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Emergency Medicine or the National Association of Medical Examiner. So riddle me this If all these professionals mental health professionals, health professionals do not recognize that this is a condition and therefore do not suggest the use of ketamine to subdue this condition, which is not a condition, what qualifies a police department to give authority to its officers to do so, or paramedics to do so?

Speaker 1: 41:54

And in doing so, how do they justify the use of maximum dose on a person who's already restrained? Does the public have access to the tier of interventions applied by the police? We start with least invasive and we go to most invasive. Yet within a few minutes of stopping Elijah McLean on the street, he's already been in two corroded holds, he's been threatened to have a police dog on him, he's been told to stop puking, he's been accused of being on narcotics and he was administered ketamine. How do we jump through all the least invasive steps so quickly with a person who is not physically violent? Back to officers. How is that justified?

Speaker 1: 42:39

Now we do have to talk about officer judgment and perceived danger. Did the officers perceive themselves to be in danger? In the body camera footage the little that we do have officers are heard saying how there were way too many officers at the scene than necessary. Now this could be used in court to show that this was excessive force and they didn't need all those people there which could also go to show for the McLean family lawyer if that was me, he was not as big of a danger as everyone was trying to say he was to justify the use of ketamine. This absolutely tells me that these officers at least did not see this as a situation that needed all of these police officers in big force and numbers. Medical first responders have now arrived, the medics have now arrived, and in part two we are going to listen to what transpires and we're going to listen to what the officers tell Elijah's family when they finally meet Elijah up at the hospital to check on him. You don't want to miss part two.

Speaker 1: 43:52

I'm doing my best here to convey all of the information. Obviously, some parts I have limited insight. I'm in a different state. I did not see this with my own eyes. I did not experience it here with my own ears, in live action. I'm not a police officer. I don't have training. All I have is a microphone in front of me, information in front of me and a story that I feel needs to be told and that we need to hear it, and I want to present all the sides. So don't go away on me yet, guys.

Speaker 1: 44:26

I'm going to try my best here, to do my best to lay it all out for you so we can learn from this and discuss it and remember this all comes back to what can we learn from this experience?

Speaker 1: 44:38

How can we prevent this so that another person doesn't lose their life and so that law enforcement can continue to have ethical practices in stopping people and use least invasive force? And how can we learn from what the officers did wrong and how can we learn from what we feel they may have done correctly? Join me in episode 15, part two, about the case of Elijah McClain next week, and I promise you we will continue to ask the tough questions as best and apolitical as I can. You are wanted, you're loved and I'm so thankful that you're here with me and you're trusting me to present this information as best as I can. I might screw up, but just know I'm learning. It's a humbling experience, but this case it just breaks my heart. I love you guys and I will see you next time, and later I'll see my mama as a podcaster.