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AURORA, Colorado (AP) – Police released photos Friday that showed three officers smiling as they recreated a stranglehold that their colleagues used on Elijah McClain, a black man who died after police stopped him while walking down the street this summer. passed in a Denver suburb. .
After an internal investigation by the Aurora Police Department, the Provisional Police Chief Vanessa Wilson fired three officers, one of whom received the photos by text message and replied “haha.” The officer who was seen recreating the choke resigned.
“We are ashamed, we are sick and we are angry,” Wilson said. Officers may not have committed a crime, but the photographs are “a crime against humanity and decency,” he added.
McClain’s death received new attention after national protests over police brutality and racial injustice. Under mounting pressure, Democratic Governor Jared Polis last week ordered the state attorney general to reopen the case after prosecutors declined last year to charge the three white officers who faced McClain.
The news of the photos came shortly after. Aurora police launched an investigation last week after another officer reported photos that were taken near where the 23-year-old was detained, a site that is now a monument.
An unspecified number of the officers were suspended during the investigation, and one resigned this week.
“The fact that three uniformed police officers on duty thought it was appropriate to recreate the murder, jokingly, shows that the department is rotten to the core,” said Mari Newman, an attorney for the McClain family who viewed the photos earlier. they were released publicly. Elijah’s mother, Sheneen McClain, also saw them.
“For her, it was devastating to see people making fun of her son’s murder,” Newman added.
Officials with the Aurora Police Association, the department’s police union, have not responded to calls seeking comment Thursday or Friday.
Officers detained McClain, a massage therapist, after a 911 call on August 24, 2019, reported him as a suspect because he was wearing a ski mask and was waving his arms. Police said they had the right to arrest him because he was “suspicious,” and repeatedly begged them to release him, according to the body camera video.
Police placed him in a choke that cuts blood to the brain, and paramedics administered 500 milligrams of a sedative to calm him. He suffered cardiac arrest, then he was declared brain dead and his life support was taken away.
