The jury selection in the final trial over Elijah McClain’s 2019 death in Aurora ended without a jury seated by the end of Monday, but the questioning revealed prosecutors’ likely strategy.

The eventual jury will have to decide if two Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics bear criminal responsibility for McClain’s death because of their decision to inject McClain with the sedative ketamine after a struggle with police officers that lasted nearly 20 minutes.

Questioning of the jury pool by Senior Assistant Attorney General Jason Slothouber hinted that prosecutors plan to argue the paramedics didn’t simply make a mistake by giving McClain the powerful sedative.

One potential juror, who said he is a retired emergency medical technician trainer, said he would stick to the presumption the defendants are innocent unless proven guilty and could apply his own knowledge in judging the paramedics’ decisions.

He added he believes safety officers have a responsibility to intervene in harmful conduct by fellow officers.

“You do have to call out bad behavior,” he said.

Judge Mark Warner agreed with the defense attorneys’ request to dismiss a juror who said she had developed strong feelings about the case and indicated she would hesitate to acquit the paramedics and would “probably stick with (her) opinions” if chosen.

She added she “would feel stuck” even if evidence doesn’t prove the reckless manslaughter charges against the paramedics.

The paramedics’ defense attorneys will do their own questioning of potential jurors Tuesday morning.

McClain, a 23-year-old Black man, went into cardiac arrest shortly after Cooper injected him with 500 milligrams of ketamine. He was pronounced brain dead in a hospital three days later.

Three police officers already have gone to trial and two were acquitted after prosecutors argued their forceful subdual of McClain kicked off a cycle of health complications that made him more vulnerable to the ketamine.

Paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Lt. Peter Cichuniec each faces charges of reckless manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and three counts each of second-degree assault. They have pleaded not guilty.

The assault charges include assault causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon (ketamine) and unlawfully administering the sedative without consent.

Whether they bear responsibility for McClain’s death loomed large in the police officers’ trials. Their defense attorneys sought to lay culpability squarely on the paramedics, arguing they did not examine or speak to McClain before making the decision to administer ketamine.

Attorneys whittled the panel of 130 potential jurors called Monday down to 18 by the end of the day.

In a jury selection process, attorneys on each side are allowed to make an unlimited number of requests to dismiss possible jurors for cause, such as if they believe someone could not make a fair decision or a person’s circumstances, such as their medical condition, would prevent them from serving.

Each side is also allowed to excuse a limited number of jurors without stating a reason. However, a dismissal without cause cannot be based on someone’s identity in a protected class of people, such as race or religion.

The case will be the first of several recent criminal charges against medical first responders to reach trial and could “set the bar” for prosecutors in future cases, according to Douglas Wolfberg, a former emergency medicine instructor and founding partner of a Pennsylvania law firm representing emergency medical services workers, as reported by the Associated Press.

The district attorney for Adams County at the time declined to pursue charges for McClain’s death because the forensic pathologist who performed his autopsy initially listed his cause and manner of death as “undetermined,” later amending the cause to an overdose of ketamine.

But in 2021, protests over the 2020 murder of George Floyd drew renewed attention to McClain’s case, and the Colorado Attorney General’s Office reopened the case and called a statewide grand jury.

“What we saw three years ago, that put a huge spotlight on the police profession,” University of Miami criminologist Alex Piquero told The Associated Press, adding that the McClain case “has the potential to do that for paramedics and first responders.”

Wolfberg said the thinking about such cases has changed, especially since Floyd’s death

“Obviously, there are political considerations. That’s not to deny Mr. McClain’s family the justice they are seeking,” he said.

Cases pending elsewhere include paramedics in Illinois facing first-degree murder charges after a patient they strapped facedown to a stretcher suffocated and an involuntary manslaughter charge against a nurse in California, who continued to draw blood from an unresponsive patient, while officers pinned him down.

“It’s exceedingly rare for EMS providers to be charged criminally related to providing inpatient care,” Wolfberg said. “That is normally a medical malpractice issue, a negligent case which is civil, and it’s rarely criminal. This breaks new ground.”

Attorneys for one of the acquitted officers brought in a paid expert witness who was hired to work on the paramedics’ case by the attorney general’s office.

Dr. Nadia Iovettz-Tereshchenko, an emergency room doctor who has worked as a paramedic, said Cooper and Cichuniec’s actions fell significantly below the level of care expected.

She testified the paramedics stood back watching McClain from a distance as he was restrained by police, did not examine him before the ketamine injection and did not monitor him afterward.

McClain was stopped the night of Aug. 24, 2019, while walking home from a convenience store. He was listening to music and wearing a mask, covering most of his face. The police stop quickly escalated after McClain, seemingly caught off guard, tried to keep walking. He was unarmed and had not been accused of committing any crime.

An officer used a neck hold that temporarily restricts the flow of oxygen to a person’s brain, prompting police to call for paramedics, while officers restrained him on the ground.

Cooper and Cichuniec denied being told the neck hold had been applied, according to their indictment. Prior to the ketamine injection, they stood near McClain and didn’t speak to him or ask him anything. Within about two minutes, they diagnosed him with “excited delirium.”

They had been trained to treat the condition, which allegedly can include a sudden onset of extreme strength and aggression.

The National Library of Medicine notes that neither the American Psychiatric Association nor the World Health Organization recognizes excited delirium as a medical or psychiatric diagnosis. The American Medical Association said in 2021 it had adopted a policy opposing it as a diagnosis, saying “excited delirium” is “disproportionately cited in cases where Black men die in law enforcement custody.”

Footage from the encounter captured McClain asking the police to respect his space, apologizing to the officers, crying out in pain and saying, “I’m an introvert and I’m different.”

Cichuniec, a supervisor at the scene, asked medics working for private ambulance company Falck Rocky Mountain to prepare the ketamine injection for McClain, the indictment said. Cooper injected him with 500 milligrams of the drug, a dose appropriate for someone who weighed more than 200 pounds, according to the indictment. McClain weighed 143 pounds.

Two days after McClain’s death, the Aurora officials put out a statement, saying “a standard medication routinely utilized to reduce agitation was administered (to McClain) and reduced the exhibited anxiety.”

The deaths of McClain, George Floyd in Minneapolis and others triggered a wave of legislation that put limits on the use of neck holds in more than two dozen states, including Colorado, which now also instructs paramedics not to give ketamine to people suspected of having excited delirium.

The city of Aurora agreed in 2021 to pay $15 million to settle a lawsuit brought by McClain’s parents.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.