After one full day of deliberations Wednesday, jurors in the trial of two Aurora police officers accused of causing the 2019 death of Elijah McClain have not reached a verdict.

Officer Randy Roedema and former Officer Jason Rosenblatt each face charges in Adams County of reckless manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and assault. Criminally negligent homicide is a lesser included charge for the manslaughter counts, which means the jury could choose to convict the officers of it if they decide the evidence doesn’t meet the burden for manslaughter.

The trial began Sept. 15. Defense attorneys presented no evidence or testimony.

With Officer Nathan Woodyard making the first contact, the three officers stopped 23-year-old McClain on Aug. 24, 2019 as he walked home from a convenience store after buying iced tea. He wore a mask covering most of his face, which prosecutors said McClain did because he was often cold, and was listening to music. The officers had responded to a 911 call by a person who reported McClain was acting suspiciously.

McClain had not been accused of a crime, however.

The officers took McClain to the ground, and Woodyard put him in a neck hold called a carotid hold that caused him to briefly lose consciousness. About 18 minutes into the struggle, a paramedic who responded to the scene injected McClain with ketamine.

He went into cardiac arrest and stopped breathing. He died a few days later in a hospital after being declared brain dead.

Prosecutors said in closing arguments Tuesday the officers chose to use force at every part of the encounter rather than de-escalate the situation. They argued Roedema and Rosenblatt violated their training by ignoring McClain’s cries that he could not breathe and not monitoring his pulse or breathing. They also had a duty to tell paramedics called about the signs McClain was in distress, prosecutors said, but instead said he was “on something,” behaving erratically and showing incredible strength.

Experts for the attorney general’s office testified the restraint and carotid hold used on McClain led to a cycle of elevated acid in his blood as he struggled to breathe and vomiting, which he inhaled, that made him more vulnerable to the ketamine injection.

The officers’ defense attorneys argued Roedema and Rosenblatt had to adapt to a rapidly evolving situation and believed McClain was violently resisting. Body-worn camera footage captured Roedema saying McClain tried to grab Rosenblatt’s gun, though prosecutors have countered there’s no evidence of that happening.

Two paramedics, Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec, also face charges and have a trial scheduled for November.

Former Adams County District Attorney Dave Young chose not to pursue any criminal charges in 2019, but the case was re-examined in 2020 after Gov. Jared Polis asked Attorney General Phil Weiser to investigate amid the 2020 protests over George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police. 

Roedema and Woodyard have been suspended without pay. Rosenblatt was fired in 2020 for responding “ha ha” to a photo texted to him by other Aurora officers re-enacting the neck hold used on McClain.

Jurors will continue deliberations Thursday morning.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.