Paramedic Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison for Death of Elijah McClain
Published on March 6, 2024
A paramedic involved in the death of Elijah McClain has been sentenced to five years in prison, with the defendant claiming he had “absolutely no intent to cause any harm” to the victim. Mr. McClain, 23, died in 2019 when Peter Cichuniec and a fellow paramedic injected him with more ketamine than required after he was forcibly restrained by police officers in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado. Ketamine is a powerful sedative. In December, Mr. Cichuniec was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and second-degree assault. On March 1, in addition to his five-year prison sentence on assault charges, he was also sentenced to a concurrent one-year sentence for criminally negligent homicide....