A 23-year-old Aurora man will be taken off life support Friday after a violent arrest last weekend by Aurora police officers left him brain dead, family members said.
Elijah McClain suffered a brain injury in the confrontation and was scheduled to be taken off life support Friday afternoon, his younger sister Samara McClain said.
“This was a case of police brutality of someone so sweet,” she said. “He doesn’t deserve this. He shouldn’t be in a hospital.”
Aurora police spokesman Anthony Camacho said Friday he couldn’t confirm the extent of McClain’s injuries. He said three officers are on paid administrative leave while the incident is investigated by Denver and Aurora police as well as the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office. He declined to name the officers involved.
Aurora police officers responded at 10:32 p.m. Aug. 24 to a call of a “suspicious person” who was walking in the 1900 block of Billings Street near East Colfax Avenue. The caller said the person was wearing a ski mask and waving his arms.
McClain routinely wore masks when he was outside because he had anemia — a blood condition — and became cold easily, his sister said. She said her brother had gone to a corner store to purchase some tea that night for a cousin.
“The next thing you know he was in the hospital,” Samara McClain said.
Police said that McClain refused to stop walking when they asked him to and that McClain fought back when they attempted to take him into custody.
Shortly after, officers called an ambulance company and Aurora Fire Rescue due to the “level of physical force applied while restraining the subject and his agitated mental state,” a police news release states.
Paramedics gave McClain a “standard medication routinely utilized to reduce agitation,” according to the release. Police have declined to say what that medication was.
McClain suffered cardiac arrest during the ambulance ride to a local hospital.
Aurora Police Chief Nick Metz said in an interview Wednesday there were no allegations that McClain had done anything criminal. He said the agency will release the body camera footage of the incident after prosecutors complete their review.
Samara McClain said her brother worked as a massage therapist and was planning to go to college soon and earn a degree.
“He was a really good person,” his sister said. “He didn’t argue with anybody. If you tried to argue with him he would just say ‘I love you’ and walk away.”
