The surge in homicides following the Michael Brown fiasco in Ferguson, Missouri sparked a debate about whether the demonizing of police by the news media, lawyers seeking quick liability pay-outs every time a perp was killed in a confrontation with police, and progressive politicians demonstrations, and the anti-police hostility they engendered triggered the murder spike. City Journal contributing editor Heather Mac Donald, among others, identified a “Ferguson Effect,” in which police were pushed into passive law enforcement for fear of criminal prosecutions primed by political factors and the kind of life- and career-wrecking publicity that savaged Officer Darren Wilson, who was found by a grand jury to be blameless in Brown’s shooting. Since that 2014 ethics train wreck, the Ferguson Effect has metastasized thanks to the George Floyd freakout, the Black Lives Matters riots, and the conviction and imprisonment of the group officers involved. It is indisputable that proactive law enforcement is dangerous now both in the streets and in the aftereffects when events turn ugly.If police are going to be sitting ducks for moral luck prosecutions, it requires a martyr or a fool to take the kinds of risks today’s social and legal climate engenders.
Next up on the metaphorical social justice shooting gallery: paramedics.
Two Colorado paramedics were convicted of criminally negligent homicide yesterday in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain. He was, of course, a young unarmed black man. He was walking home from a 7-11 on Aug. 24, 2019, when police officers, responding to a 911 caller who described McClain as “sketchy,” wearing a ski mask and “waving his arms,” stopped him. Again, of course, McClain was not cooperative, resulting in police restraining and arresting him. He was apparently sufficiently uncooperative that one officer placed him in a carotid chokehold, since banned in Aurora and other police departments but at that time approved as a measure to subdue those resisting arrest.
After officers restrained him on the ground, McClain vomited several times and lost consciousness. Paramedics arrived and gave him what was described as a “therapeutic” dose of ketamine. His body went limp, and he was loaded onto the ambulance where he died of cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital. It was determined that McClian had been given a ketamine dose apppropriate for a person close to 200 pounds, and McClain only weighed 143 pounds.
The autopsy report said a combination of factors were involved McClain’s death: the chokehold, McClain’s history of asthma, and the overdose.
Sheneen McClain, the dead man’s mother, posted a GoFundMe page that raised more than $2 million. About five million people signed an online petition demanding that the officers involved be taken off duty and that there be an in-depth investigation of the encounter. So there was. As with the George Floyd mess, case publicity, pressure by the family and inflammatory statements by civil rights activists reduced the likelihood of a fair trial. The guilty verdicts ended the final trial in the wake of McClain’s death. One police officer was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault. Two other officers were acquitted, and one has been reinstated with the Aurora Police Department.
After an independent panel investigating McClain’s death produced a highly critical report in early 2021 that faulted the officers for stopping McClain on flimsy evidence and for using excessive force. The Fire Department’s paramedics were also criticized for a slow response and for overdosing McClain on ketamine. When the initial autopsy report was released,the Adams County district attorney announced that criminal charges would not be filed. But Democratic Governor Jared Polis, responding to the pressure from the family, the media and activists, appointed Attorney General Phil Weiser as a special prosecutor to investigate the death further. This culminated in a grand jury indicting the three officers involved as well as the two paramedics convicted yesterday, Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec.
The nearly four-week trial represented an extremely rare prosecution of paramedics, with many questioning whether it is appropriate for EMTs to be held criminally responsible when emergency efforts fail or go horribly wrong. Firefighters had packed the courtroom during the trial as a show of support for the paramedics. The criminal convictions came on top of the civil penalties paid by the city, after officials and the McClain’s family’s attorneys agreed to settle the civil rights lawsuit for $15 million.
Now wait for the Aurora Effect. “It seems like they laid accountability at the feet of the paramedics,” said Doug Wolfberg, a former emergency medical technician and founding partner of a Pennsylvania law firm that represents emergency medical service organizations told the New York Times. The verdict, he said, would “send a ripple through the E.M.S. community. This is a new calculus.” The Aurora fire chief told the Times that he was “deeply concerned and disappointed” in the convictions and found it ominous that paramedics had “received felony punishment for following their training and protocols in place at the time and for making discretionary decisions while taking split-second action in a dynamic environment.”
There is already a shortage of qualified paramedics in many communities. I wonder how many lives will be lost as a result of holding the paramedics criminally responsible for a single death.
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Ethics Alarms 
Whatever happened to “The Talk.”
Members of the black community like to talk about how parents of black children have to have The Talk about how to interact with police.
White people just nod their heads and contemplate the unfairness of it all.
And, it is unfair. People should not be treated unfairly because of their race, age or gender.
Having said that, if black kids get The Talk, why do we see so many instances of black males resisting police? Maybe the police should not have stopped McClain. The description of him sounds flimsy, but they responded to a 911 call. Add to that: the burden for stopping someone is pretty low. Did they know he was black?
If not, what is the issue? The 911 call warranted a stop, however brief. Resistance and lack of cooperation draw out the shortest of stops. Again, I don’t know much about the details of how this escalated. But, isn’t that exactly what The Talk is designed to avoid?
Maybe it was the fault of the officers.
Maybe it was McClain’s fault.
The parties least at fault were the paramedics.
I don’t like to second-guess criminal proceedings and verdicts that are handed down. Trials are unpredictable and the unexpected can always happen. That hesitancy does not hold when prosecutions become political. At that point, the State can no longer pretend that they seek justice; they want to convict somebody for something.
-Jut
One of two things, Jut:
1. The “talk” does not occur in real life, it is only talked about as a means of showing those in attendance what a responsible parent you are; or
2. The “talk” does occur but falls on ears not interested in hearing how they should “act white” or ears connected to a brain unable to process and retain the information.
Its a sad state of affairs. But the population has brought it on themselves, either by actively playing the “ghetto lottery” or by turning a blind eye to the whole situation.
I’ve come across another incident involving a “individual of color” found unresponsive on a bus and treated by white first responders.
Minutes after a firefighter administers narcan and saves the life that mattered, an officer asks if he can pat down the previously unconscious person prior to transport to the hospital.
He refuses, says he can’t be checked, then produces a gun he had concealed and kills the firefighter who had just saved his life. Police then regain ‘control’ by killing the now assailant.
… What’s the investigation? Lessons learned? Mass media coverage?
It seems to me the online discussion is focusing on all the wrong parts of why Cooper and Cichuniec’s prehospital care was so far below the standard of care. A 1.5x or even 2x “overdose” on something like ketamine is not the difference between life and death; it’s just light or heavy sedation. At worst McClain was ready for surgery. It’s not controlling the sedated McClain’s airway and not providing ventilation afterward that was the problem. This, and the fact that Cooper/Cichuniec apparently did not/barely medically assessed McClain before sedating him, do amount to unprofessional care.
My understanding is that egregious medical errors have always been prosecutable, whether from doctors, nurses or paramedics. I don’t think it’s clear where the line is, but I think it was reasonable to try Cooper/Cichuniec in this instance.