By Keith Coffman
DENVER (Reuters) -The city of Aurora, Colorado, has agreed to pay $15 million to settle the civil rights lawsuit brought by the family of Elijah McClain, a Black man who died in 2019 after he was subdued by police and injected by paramedics with a sedative, the city said on Friday.
The settlement came about nine weeks after Colorado’s attorney general completed an investigation finding that Aurora’s police routinely violated state and federal law by in engaging in racially biased policing and the use of excessive force.
The inquiry led to a consent decree with the city police department in Aurora, a Denver suburb of about 369,000 residents.
On Sept. 1, three police officers and two paramedics involved in McClain’s death were indicted on charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.
McClain, 23, was walking home from a convenience store in Aurora when he was confronted by police on reports that he was acting suspiciously, though he was not suspected of a crime.
Police officers placed McClain in a carotid neck hold and he was later injected by paramedics with ketamine, a powerful sedative. He went into cardiac arrest and died days later at a hospital.
“No amount of money can change what happened or erase the pain and heartbreak experienced by the family over his loss,” Aurora City Manager Jim Twombly said in a statement on settlement. “This tragedy has greatly changed and shaped Aurora.”
The finalized agreement comes after a mediation hearing between McClain’s family members in U.S. District Court on Friday, the statement said.
(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Chris Reese and David Gregorio)
