‘LOSS OF A BEAUTIFUL SOUL’

Elijah McClain’s Parents File Federal Suit Alleging Civil Rights Violations

The federal lawsuit argues that McClain should never have been stopped by police to begin with, let alone placed in a chokehold and dosed with ketamine.

The parents of Elijah McClain filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday alleging that the officers involved in the 23-year-old’s death violated his civil rights by putting him in a chokehold. The lawsuit argues that the Aurora, Colorado officers should not have arrested him or tackled and choked him, and paramedics should not have injected him with ketamine. The lawsuit also alleges that McClain’s death was not an isolated incident, but part of a pattern of racist events connected to the Aurora Police Department. McClain was stopped by police officers on August 24, 2019 after reports of a suspicious person in the area, and he died in the hospital six days later. “Plaintiffs bring this action seeking both accountability for the profound loss of a beautiful soul, and to ensure that Elijah did not die in vain by sending a resounding message that racism and brutality have no place in American law enforcement,” the lawsuit said.