Paramedic gets five years for his involvement in the death of Elijah McClain

Peter Cichuniec, one of two paramedics convicted of criminally negligent homicide in connection with Elijah McClain’s death in 2019, was sentenced on Friday to five years in prison with a three-year period of parole.

Leading up to McClain’s death — described in a revised statement by the coroner as being due to ketamine administration following forcible restraint — Cichuniec arrived at the scene where the 23-year-old had been stopped by three Colorado police officers responding to a call about a “suspicious person” as he was walking home from a convenience store and, acting to sedate him, Cichuniec administered “a dose of the powerful sedative ketamine appropriate for a 200-pound person, even though he weighed just 143 pounds,” as described by CNN. En route to the hospital after this, McClain suffered a heart attack and ultimately died three days later.

“It is impossible to unremember the video and images of Elijah McClain’s suffering in the last minutes of his young life,” Adams County Judge Mark Warner said during the sentencing.

The second paramedic, Jeremy Cooper, is scheduled to be sentenced on April 26.