Elijah McClain’s Family Reaches Settlement With City of Aurora, Colo.
The family of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who died in 2019 after the police in Aurora, Colo., restrained him with a chokehold maneuver that has since been banned, has reached a settlement with the city, an official and lawyers for his parents said on Tuesday.
Ryan Luby, a spokesman for the city of Aurora, confirmed in a statement that the settlement had been reached in principle over the summer to resolve a civil rights lawsuit that Mr. McClain’s family filed in 2020, after Mr. McClain’s “tragic death.”
Mr. Luby said that city leaders would sign it after family members agreed on how the settlement money would be allocated. He said the parties could not disclose the amount of the settlement “until those issues are resolved and the agreement is in its final form.”
The settlement was discussed earlier this month in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. A court filing says that Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter held a hearing on Oct. 8 to discuss the logistics of how the lawsuit would be resolved
Mr. McClain’s parents, Sheneen McClain and Lawayne Mosley, filed the lawsuit on Aug. 11, 2020, seeking damages for the family. The city of Aurora, 12 police officers, two Fire Department paramedics and the department’s medical director were named as defendants.
Separately, a Colorado grand jury indicted three police officers and two paramedics last month on charges including manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.
The settlement brought some relief to Mr. McClain’s relatives, lawyers for the family said.
Mari Newman, the lawyer for Mr. Mosley, said in a statement: “Nothing will bring back his son Elijah, who he loved dearly, but he is hopeful that this settlement with Aurora, and the criminal charges against the officers and medics who killed Elijah, will allow his family and the community to begin to heal.”
Iris Halpern, who is representing Ms. McClain, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that Elijah’s mother “feels that at least some justice has been done” after the settlement, but that it was not as important to her as the criminal case.
“Elijah McClain is not with us, and her family is going to have to live with that forever,” Ms. Halpern said.
She said in a statement that the court would determine how to allocate the funds between “Ms. McClain, the parent who raised Elijah McClain by herself, and Lawayne Mosley, the absent biological father.”
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