Producer/Director donnie l. betts first hand report on the trial of Elijah McClain. The officers now on trial — Randy Roedema and Jason Rosenblatt — are charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent reckless homicide and assault, all felonies... Read More
From the show: Destination Freedom Black Radio Days
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Producer/Director donnie l. betts first hand report on the trial of Elijah McClain. The officers now on trial — Randy Roedema and Jason Rosenblatt — are charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent reckless homicide and assault, all felonies. They pleaded not guilty.
Roedema, a former Marine who is currently suspended without pay, had been with the department for five years before McClain's death. Rosenblatt worked for the agency for two years and was fired in 2020 for making light of other officers' reenactment of the neck hold.
The two officers have not talked publicly about McClain's death and it's unknown if they'll take the stand to testify. Their lawyers told jurors that the officers' actions followed police policies and weren't responsible for McClain's death. They've sought to shift any blame to the paramedics who injected the ketamine.
Body cameras worn by the officers captured the confrontation and the footage is being used by both sides to bolster their arguments.
That's what jurors will have to decide.
Rosenblatt initially tried to put McClain in a neck hold but couldn't because of his position, so Woodyard did, authorities said. The maneuver, called a carotid control hold, restricts the flow of blood to a person's brain, rendering them temporarily unconscious. Neck restraints have been banned in many states following the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests.
Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.
[0:03] Donnie L. Betts: This is Donnie Betts, producer director of Destination Freedom Black Radio Days and the Eclectic.
[0:08] Donnie L. Betts: For the next month, I'll be bringing you special reports from Destination Freedom Black Radio Days, The Eclectic.
[0:16] Donnie L. Betts: I'm covering the trial of two officers from the Royal Police Department, Randy Roedema and Jason Rosenblatt, who are charged with three felony counts resulting in the death of Elijah McClain in 2019.
[0:31] Donnie L. Betts: Now, I don't know how many of you remember Walkman and other kind of devices you put over your ears to listen to music.
[0:38] Donnie L. Betts: Today everything's earbuds or connected to your phone.
[0:42] Donnie L. Betts: And I know many of you probably have been walking down the street or walking in the park or whatever you and listening to music or podcasts like this, and you fill your arms and you kind of bop your head to the beat and things like that.
[0:56] Donnie L. Betts: That was what's happening the night that Elijah McClain left the convenience store on August 24th, 2019.
[1:05] Donnie L. Betts: Another young man called 911 and reported seeing someone sketchy.
[1:14] Donnie L. Betts: South Yeah, he's walking south on Billy Street.
[1:17] Donnie L. Betts: He has a mask on.
[1:18] Donnie L. Betts: Okay.
[1:19] Donnie L. Betts: And then when I pass by him, you put your hands up and badly fans with five.
[1:24] Donnie L. Betts: I know he's good to let him like a good person or bad person.
[1:28] Donnie L. Betts: Yeah.
[1:29] Donnie L. Betts: So don't follow him or anything.
[1:31] Donnie L. Betts: We're gonna have officers come check the area, okay?
[1:34] Donnie L. Betts: Okay.
[1:36] Donnie L. Betts: Elijah was wearing a runner's mask.
[1:40] Donnie L. Betts: He was a runner.
[1:42] Donnie L. Betts: These two officers responded to that call in 911, among many other officers from the Royal Police Department.
[1:50] Donnie L. Betts: Now, what happened next is going to be up for debate.
[1:53] Donnie L. Betts: So, as I sat in the courtroom and watched the jury selection, which is very interesting.
[1:58] Donnie L. Betts: This selection went on for some time.
[2:01] Donnie L. Betts: Each party had a chance to accept or reject jury members.
[2:07] Donnie L. Betts: The makeup of the jury is very interesting.
[2:09] Donnie L. Betts: I won't really tell you about it until later on.
[2:12] Donnie L. Betts: But there were a lot of similarities of what was chosen and not chosen when it came to the jury selection.
[2:19] Donnie L. Betts: Then came the opening arguments, which once again was very interesting.
[2:23] Donnie L. Betts: Each side presented their case, what they're going to, how they're going to try this case.
[2:52] Donnie L. Betts: But you could hear Elijah's voice in many of them saying over and over, said seven times, I can't breathe.
[2:59] Donnie L. Betts: As he was put in a carotid hold, he was also restrained against the wall and then taken to the ground.
[3:21] Donnie L. Betts: Attorneys for the police officers say that once the paramedics arrived, it was their responsibility to take care of this young man.
[3:32] Donnie L. Betts: But as you'll hear on a lot of the body cam, it sounds like the officer instructed the paramedics to give him the ketamine.
[3:44] Donnie L. Betts: Because they said he was talking crazy, uh, wasn't making any sense, had incredible strength, and so on and so forth.
[3:52] Donnie L. Betts: Well, this is the narrative that we hear a lot of times when it comes to black people.
[3:56] Donnie L. Betts: Oh, they were so strong, you know, they're an animal, they're a beast or whatever like that.
[4:00] Donnie L. Betts: They didn't say any of those words, but they said he was incredibly strong, shows amazing strength.
[4:06] Donnie L. Betts: My question is, what would you do if you're fighting for your life?
[4:11] Donnie L. Betts: Elijah McClain's mother was visually shaken.
[4:18] Donnie L. Betts: She listened to this footage for over an hour, hearing her son suffering.
[4:24] Donnie L. Betts: She left the courtroom in tears Friday.
[4:27] Donnie L. Betts: Her shoulders were shaken when I was sitting right behind her.
[4:31] Donnie L. Betts: I could see her stressed.
[4:34] Donnie L. Betts: She refused any tissue, anything like that.
[4:38] Donnie L. Betts: But when she left the courtroom, others had reported that they could hear her sobbing.
[4:42] Donnie L. Betts: And later, when I saw her walking down the sidewalk, she was still visually shaken an hour later.
[4:49] Donnie L. Betts: Now, as I said earlier, Elijah McClain was five, six, 140 pounds.
[4:54] Donnie L. Betts: And normally for someone that size, that drug that was given him, ketamine, would be 320 to 350 milligrams for an individual of his weight.
[5:07] Donnie L. Betts: But he was given 500 milligrams, 500 milligrams, five, six hundred and forty pounds.
[5:20] Donnie L. Betts: Never once was Elijah McClain asked his name.
[5:23] Donnie L. Betts: He said, I am Elijah McClain.
[5:25] Donnie L. Betts: He also said, All I'm trying to do is become better.
[5:29] Donnie L. Betts: I'll do it.
[5:29] Donnie L. Betts: I'll do anything.
[5:31] Donnie L. Betts: Sacrifice my identity.
[5:32] Donnie L. Betts: I'll do it.
[5:33] Donnie L. Betts: He compliments the officers.
[5:35] Donnie L. Betts: You're all phenomenal.
[5:36] Donnie L. Betts: You're beautiful.
[5:37] Donnie L. Betts: And I love you.
[5:40] Donnie L. Betts: But they keep telling him, don't do it, don't do it.
[5:43] Donnie L. Betts: We'll put the canine on you.
[5:45] Donnie L. Betts: What are you doing, dude?
[5:47] Donnie L. Betts: Relax.
[5:49] Donnie L. Betts: He says seven times, I can't breathe.
[5:49] Donnie L. Betts: I can't breathe.
[5:53] Donnie L. Betts: I can't breathe properly.
[5:55] Donnie L. Betts: I can't breathe properly.
[5:56] Donnie L. Betts: He vomited, vomiting into the mask, goes back down into his lungs.
[6:01] Donnie L. Betts: Now, Dr. Moss from the University of Colorado Health Science Centers was the doctor who pronounced him brain dead.
[6:08] Donnie L. Betts: After doing a series of tests twice.
[6:11] Donnie L. Betts: That's the type of thing that the doctors do in order to pronounce someone who is brain dead.
[6:17] Donnie L. Betts: It doesn't have brain activities anymore, can't breathe on their own.
[6:21] Donnie L. Betts: Not responding to light being shined in our eyes.
[6:27] Donnie L. Betts: The rise of the chest is not there.
[6:29] Donnie L. Betts: Even the paramedic in the uh AmyLA said the chest wasn't rising anymore.
[6:34] Donnie L. Betts: So basically, when he was put in on a gurney and transported to the hospital, he was probably already uh had passed away.
[6:44] Donnie L. Betts: But it was uh three days later when he was pronounced brain dead, and then on the 30th of August, he died.
[6:51] Donnie L. Betts: Elijah McClain, after that first encounter with police on August 24th, 2019.
[6:58] Donnie L. Betts: I can't breathe.
[6:59] Donnie L. Betts: I can't breathe.
[7:01] Donnie L. Betts: I can't breathe.
[7:02] Donnie L. Betts: I can't breathe.
[7:03] Donnie L. Betts: I can't breathe.
[7:03] Donnie L. Betts: Um, it was a total of 18 minutes and two seconds that he encountered these police officers from the Royal Police Department.
[7:13] Donnie L. Betts: So hopefully that'll be a fair and impartial trial leading up to this verdict that will be coming sometime in the next month or so.
[7:21] Donnie L. Betts: It's estimated that the trial would last for about a month.
[7:23] Donnie L. Betts: And hopefully I will come to you again with more information about this trial.
[7:28] Donnie L. Betts: I will say I wanted to talk about the body language that I saw in the courtroom that day from the two defendants.
[7:35] Donnie L. Betts: The one Rosenblatt looked straight ahead, no emotions that I could tell, and Randy Roedema had kind of a nervous twitch when he was listening to the body cam footage, uh moving his neck around and around and uh shrugging his shoulders and things like that.
[7:53] Donnie L. Betts: There was one jury member who actually was dozing off during this body cam footage.
[8:03] Donnie L. Betts: Just think about that for a minute.
[8:05] Donnie L. Betts: Me and them were taking notes.
[8:07] Donnie L. Betts: They have clipboards that they can take notes on, and they have to leave at the court every day.
[8:12] Donnie L. Betts: Uh but that's some of the things I saw body language wise and just personalities within the courtroom.
[8:19] Donnie L. Betts: Oh real estate.
[8:23] Donnie L. Betts: And thank you so much for listening to this brief report on the trial of Elijah McClain.
[8:29] Donnie L. Betts: Uh police officers that are charged, being charged with three felonies.
[8:33] Donnie L. Betts: Be free.
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