Attorneys spent much of Thursday arguing over the admission of body-worn camera footage in the trial of the two Aurora police officers charged in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain.

They spent hours questioning an expert hired by prosecutors from the Colorado Attorney General’s office to enhance and splice together footage from several officers at the scene of their encounter with McClain.

Randy Roedema and Jason Rosenblatt each face charges of criminally negligent homicide, manslaughter and assault causing serious bodily injury in connection with McClain’s death. Their trial is being held in the 17th Judicial District Court in Brighton.

Opening statements given in trial over Elijah McClain’s death

Defense attorneys for the two officers fought against the admission of several clips of enhanced footage created by David Notowitz, the prosecutors’ forensic expert in audio and video. They grilled Notowitz on precisely what he had done to each clip, and whether he worked with prosecutors to decide what to compile.

His testimony lasted from late in the morning Thursday until the end of the day, and the day ended without the jury seeing any of the footage Notowitz edited.

Notowitz said he synced video clips together that showed the same moments from different officers’ cameras, as well as improving audio by taking out unnecessary distracting noises and “compressing” loud and soft sounds. But he insisted he made no alterations to the contents of the videos.

Judge Mark Warner said he would allow the jury to see the enhanced videos, but ordered jurors not to consider any details in the enhanced footage that they could not see or hear in the original footage.

McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, sat in the front row of the courtroom for a second day Thursday.

Prosecutors showed clips of the original body camera footage from several officers at the scene during testimony of their first witness, Lt. Delbert Tisdale, a 12-year veteran of the Aurora Police Department who administers the agency’s body-worn camera system. He was not present during the night of Aug. 24.

McClain died several days after the encounter with officers that started shortly before 10:45 p.m. on the night of Aug. 24, 2019 as he walked home from buying iced tea at a convenience store. A teenager had called 911 to report a person acting suspiciously. McClain wore a running mask and a jacket because he was often cold, prosecutors said, and was dancing to the music in his earphones. A Black man, he was 23 at the time.

Roedema and Rosenblatt, along with Officer Nathan Woodyard, responded to the call. Woodyard was the first to contact McClain, and body-worn camera footage captured McClain refusing to stop at first, saying, “I have the right. I’m just going home.”

Opening statements expected Wednesday morning in Aurora police officers’ trial

The encounter quickly escalated. Officers took him to the ground, handcuffed him and put him in a neck hold intended to gain control of a person. When their sergeant got to the scene a few minutes into the encounter, the officers told him McClain was using extreme strength to resist them. 

Body-worn camera footage captured McClain saying several times while he was on the ground he could not breathe and asking for help.

An Aurora Fire Rescue paramedic called to the scene, Jeremy Cooper, injected McClain with 500 milligrams of ketamine. By the time the paramedic administered the ketamine, McClain was unresponsive.

He stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest, and died in a hospital on Aug. 30.

Woodyard, Cooper and paramedic Peter Cichuniec also face charges in connection with McClain’s death. Woodyard has a trial set for October, and the paramedics have a trial scheduled for November.

Jury pool whittled in trial of Aurora officers charged in Elijah McClain’s death