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 Elijah McClain

Feb 25, 1996 ­– Aug 24, 2019

23 year old Massage Therapist, played violin, Aurora, Denver

Here is good news about the trial to find justice for Elijah McClain’s murder by police:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/us/elijah-mcclain-officers-charged-colorado.html

“…Mr. McClain had been walking home from a convenience store when he was stopped by three Aurora police officers responding to a 911 call about a suspicious person. The officers tackled Mr. McClain and put him in a type of chokehold that restricts blood to the brain. Paramedics arriving at the scene then injected Mr. McClain with ketamine, a rapid-acting anesthetic commonly used during surgical procedures in both animals and humans.

Mr. McClain was taken unconscious to the hospital and never recovered. He was taken off life support and died on Aug. 30, 2019.  Mr. McClain was unarmed and had not been suspected of committing any crime. As officers used force to subdue him, Mr. McClain repeatedly apologized to the officers and said he could not breathe: 'I can’t breathe, please!' he said at one point.”

In my opinion Elijah was killed August 24, 2019,  day of the brutal police encounter, so I chose that date for our Memorial Mural.

Comments

  1. nicole gervacioSeptember 11, 2021 at 8:08 PM

    rest in peace, rest in power Elijah McClain.

    we inherited such violent systems and toxic cultures, that some people are desensitized and unable to recognize the horrific things that have become "normal"...none of this should have happened to Elijah. so immersed in the normalcy of this man-made culture, justice right now seems to people: the murderers are charged, the murderers are imprisoned. that is all some people know and can imagine.

    here's to creating new futures where justice is something more expansive, integrated, embodied, where culture nourishes us in ways that horrific violence is no longer normalized. lift up movements toward a future where justice is dignified and equitable relationships to Black lives, to each other. a future where justice looks like thriving spectrums, diversity, abundance, empathy, understanding, a reality where the oppressive, violent, & racist systems of white supremacy are dismantled and no longer exist. while we dismantle, we also create and build. we need imagination, we need intergenerational wisdom, ancestral wisdom, collaboration, tolerance, artists, singers, builders, return of land to indigenous stewardship, respect to land, our own bodies & other beings, and so many more seedlings of ideas & practices that already exist...

    ReplyDelete
  2. KarinaSeptember 11, 2021 at 9:17 PM

    Thank you Nicky for imagining better futures. We need to keep imaginative prayers with us. These kind of trials are important to bring accountability into the picture. I keep coming back to the Nuremberg trials in Germany after the war. After a time of murders and atrocities, society and individuals need rituals to establish a sense of what it means to be human. I insist on bringing updates of trials or indictments into the blog to remind us that the families are still and will be impacted big time, life long.

    At best the trials could become rituals for envisaging a better future and society. I was very affected by watching the whole George Floyd trial this spring. It was a time of grieving actively and collectively, i wish more people would have watched. It showed the senselessness of a defense when senseless murder has been perpetrated. But as humans we need to stop and grieve, so we can envisage a way forward. so we can even imagine healing....

    ReplyDelete

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