Colorado's Black community wonders, ‘Where did all the good allies go?' after Elijah McClain paramedics' convictions overturned
DENVER - Members of Colorado's Black community expressed outrage Friday in the wake of a Colorado Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the convictions of two former Aurora paramedics involved in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain.
Standing on a street corner in Denver's historically Black Five Points neighborhood, a group of activists, elected officials and mothers of those slain by police called on the attorney general to commit to retrying the cases and publicly acknowledge the previous convictions.
"What this system told us yesterday was liberty and justice for all - except Elijah McClain and anyone that looks like him," said MiDian Shofner, CEO of the Epitome of Black Excellence and Partnership.
The appeals court on Thursday reversed homicide convictions for Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper, the former paramedics, ruling that the district court failed to properly instruct the jury on the standard of care applicable to the criminally negligent homicide charge. The three-judge panel upheld Cichuniec's second-degree assault by drugging conviction.
Attorney General Phil Weiser, in a statement Thursday, said his office would appeal the decision.
McClain, a 23-year-old Black man, died after Aurora police put him in a neck hold and Cooper injected him with an overdose of ketamine, a sedative. He was coming from a convenience store on Aug. 24, 2019, after buying a few cans of iced tea when a 911 caller reported a "sketchy" Black man walking down the street in a ski mask, waving his arms. McClain was unarmed and not suspected of committing any crimes.
His death sparked massive racial justice protests in Colorado in 2020 and spurred state lawmakers to pass a series of criminal justice reform bills. After prosecutors initially declined to file charges against the officers and paramedics, Gov. Jared Polis enlisted Weiser to prosecute the case.
The court's decision Thursday reaffirmed what Black leaders have long known about America's justice system, they said during Friday's news conference. Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy who was lynched in 1955 after offending a white woman in a grocery store, "warned us about what happened to Elijah McClain," Shofner said. So did Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old shot in 1991 in Los Angeles by a convenience store owner.
"Yet we are supposed to believe that we are in a post-racist society," Shofner said. She recalled the thousands of people who took to the streets in 2020, rallying for racial justice. The problem, Shofner said, "is that we confuse progress for permanence."
"So I have to ask myself," she said. "Where did all the good allies go?"
Veronica Seabron knows all too well what McClain's mother is going through. Her son Jalin, in February 2025, was killed after being shot nine times in the back by a Douglas County deputy. The district attorney declined to file charges against the deputy.
The court's ruling Thursday "punched me in the stomach," Seabron said.
"Behind every reopened case is a mother," she said. "This isn't just a case number or a headline."
Seabron wore black, red and white to the news conference - black to remember the lives lost; red to symbolize the bloodshed; and white for the purity of the deceased's souls.
Shofner said the community stands ready to launch protests once again. The systems, she said, have simply not done enough.
"Our demands are clear; our demands are reasonable," Shofner said. "We will be watching."
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This story was originally published June 5, 2026 at 4:16 PM.