Colorado Public Radio filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Adams County coroner for refusing to release an amended autopsy of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who died after being violently restrained by police and sedated in 2019. 

Colorado Public Radio reported that coroner Monica Broncucia-Jordan changed the official autopsy report for McClain after receiving new information from the ongoing grand jury investigation into his death. The original autopsy report from 2019 found both the cause and manner of McClain’s death to be “undetermined.”

According to the lawsuit, Broncucia-Jordan declined multiple requests from Colorado Public Radio to obtain the amended autopsy report between Aug. 12 and Aug. 29. In Colorado, autopsies are open records and subject to the Colorado Open Records Act.

“Defendant’s withholding of the entirety of The Autopsy Report from Plaintiffs … was and is not proper,” the lawsuit states. “The Plaintiffs are entitled to inspect and copy The Autopsy Report in redacted form, and the Defendant has violated CORA by denying the Plaintiffs’ right to do so.”

Colorado Public Radio alleges that Broncucia-Jordan refused to provide the amended autopsy report citing a judge’s order sealing materials from the grand jury, saying her “hands are tied.”

The lawsuit argues that autopsy reports are subject to no exemption from the disclosure requirements under the Colorado Open Records Act.

Broncucia-Jordan did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Colorado Politics.

McClain died in the hospital on Aug. 30, 2019, days after Aurora police officers forcibly restrained him, put him in a neck hold and paramedics injected him with 500 milligrams of the sedative ketamine. McClain was not suspected of any crime at the time of his police encounter.

Judge Priscilla Loew decided in late July a grand jury had found probable cause to indict the five officers and paramedics involved: Jason Rosenblatt, Nathan Woodyard, Randy Roedema, Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec. The grand jury returned 32 counts altogether last year, including a charge each of criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter, as well as assault counts.

The arraignments for the three police officers and two paramedics are currently scheduled for Nov. 4.

Colorado Public Radio called changing an autopsy report after a death “extremely rare,” suggesting that amending the “undetermined” manner of death could strengthen the case for charging the individuals involved in McClain’s death with manslaughter.

In autopsy reports, manners of death are limited to homicide, suicide, accidental, natural or undetermined.