A Colorado police officer who is facing homicide charges in connection to the 2019 death of Elijah McClain said that he feared for his life during the encounter.
A police officer charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain testified Wednesday that he put the 23-year-old Black man in a neck hold because he feared for his life after another officer said McClain grabbed for one of their guns. Prosecutors have refuted that McClain ever tried to grab an officer’s gun, and it can’t be seen in body camera footage, which is shaky and dark before all the cameras fall off during the ensuing struggle.
Lawyers for Woodyard have argued he had to react to what he heard in the moment. He was the first of three officers who approached McClain after a 17-year-old 911 caller said McClain, who was wearing earbuds and listening to music, seemed 'sketchy' and was waving his arms as he walked home on the night of Aug. 24, 2019. The encounter quickly escalated.
To gain control of McClain, Woodyard said he applied a carotid control hold by placing his arm around McClain's neck, putting pressure on the sides to stop the flow of blood to McClain's brain and render him briefly unconscious. The technique was allowed at the time but later banned in Colorado, one of over two dozen states that took steps to limit neck restraints after Floyd's killing. McClain was then handcuffed.
Prosecutors have portrayed Woodyard as abandoning McClain after using such serious force against him and suggested he was more concerned with administrative concerns, such as a possible investigation, rather than how McClain was doing. In cross-examining Woodyard, Senior Assistant Attorney General Jason Slothouber pointed out that the first thing he did after returning back on the scene was call Rosenblatt away to talk away from anyone's body camera.
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