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  • 2020-06-26 (xsd:date)
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  • Are These Elijah McClain's Last Words on Police Video? (en)
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  • On Aug. 24, 2019, a 23-year-old Black man named Elijah McClain was walking home from the store when he was stopped by police officers in Aurora, Colorado (part of the Denver metropolitan area), after they received a report of a suspicious person wearing a ski mask. The encounter escalated, McClain was put in a chokehold, and a few days later he was dead. The Denver Post reported: McClain's family called for the police officers involved in his death to be prosecuted, but it was announced in November that they would not face criminal charges. McClain's case did not receive the same national attention as other similar incidents, but it was thrust back into the spotlight after George Floyd's death in May 2020, when protests against racial injustice and police violence spread across the United States. In June 2020, an image of text supposedly relaying McClain's last words started going viral on social media: This message reads: This is a largely accurate transcript of what McClain said in a video recording of his encounter with police in August 2019. These remarks can be heard on the body cam footage of one of the police officers involved in the incident. An official copy of this video from the Aurora Police Department can be seen below (the relevant portion of the video starts at around the 12:30 mark). The text in the viral transcript has been slightly edited to remove repeated phrases and inaudible moments (McClain says I'm just different multiple times), but none of the edits are misleading. The text describing actions in the viral post — at one point noting that McClain was crying, at another noting that he vomited — are also accurate. This viral transcript does omit at least one phrase uttered by McClain during this encounter. A few moments after the final words of this viral transcript, McClain says I can't fix myself before vomiting again. NPR reported: When paramedics arrived, McClain was injected with ketamine (described by Aurora Police as a standard medication routinely utilized to reduce agitation) and then loaded into an ambulance where he suffered cardiac arrest. On August 30, McClain was pronounced brain dead, removed from life support, and died. In February 2021, an independent investigation commissioned by the city found that police officers did not have legal basis to stop McClain. The Denver Post reports: (en)
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