Elijah McClain (Courtesy of McClain family)

The only police officer convicted in Elijah McClain’s death was sentenced Friday to 14 months in jail and four years of probation.

Adams County District Court Judge Mark Warner sentenced former officer Randy Roedema during a two-hour hearing in Adams County District Court.

The 41-year-old was convicted in October of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault in McClain’s 2019 death. Roedema faced between one and three years in prison on the homicide conviction and up to 24 months in jail on the assault conviction.

Warner sentenced Roedema to four years of probation with 90 days in jail, during which he will be eligible for work-release, on the homicide charge, and 14 months in jail, also with work-release eligibility, on the assault charge.

The sentences are to be served concurrently.

Roedema must report to the Adams County Jail by March 22, the judge said.

He also most complete 200 hours of community service.

Roedema did not appear to visibly react when the sentence was imposed.

People on both sides of the case cried during the sentencing hearing.

Warner noted that Roedema would have been eligible for parole in about 13.5 months had he been sentenced to three years in prison, the maximum allowable and the term requested by the prosecution.

“The court was shocked by what appeared to be indifference to Elijah MClain’s suffering,” Warner said.

Sheneen McClain, Elijah’s mother, addressed the judge before he handed down his sentence. Her son, she said, “was murdered with intent and malice.”

“My son, Elijah McClain, was a healthy young man the night Randy Roedema chose to show my son the power and privilege of the boys in blue,” she said.

Roedema also addressed the judge, saying the situation that night in 2019 had a “horrible outcome that no one intended or wanted to happen.”

“I cannot imagine the agony they must feel,” Roedema said of McClain’s family.

Some 75 people submitted letters of support for Roedema before the sentencing, court records show.

Roedema was the only one of three Aurora police officers charged in McClain’s death to be convicted. Two Aurora paramedics also were convicted of criminally negligent homicide.

McClain was walking home on Aug. 24, 2019, when officers contacted him after a teenager called 911 and reported McClain as a suspicious person. The 23-year-old unarmed Black man was wearing a ski mask, listening to music and waving his arms as he walked home.

Within seconds of reaching McClain, Aurora police officers threw him to the ground and violently arrested him. Roedema helped to restrain McClain and Aurora police officer Nathan Woodyard used a carotid hold on McClain, squeezing his neck to force him to lose consciousness.

McClain vomited after the neck hold and inhaled that vomit into his lungs, testimony at trial revealed. He begged the officers for help, repeatedly telling them that he could not breathe, but the officers did not give him any medical aid, instead calling for paramedics.

After McClain was subdued and handcuffed, Aurora paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec injected McClain with a dose of the sedative ketamine, and he suffered a heart attack. He never recovered and died in the hospital days later.

Three officers and the two paramedics were criminally charged in connection with McClain’s death. Roedema, Cichuniec and Cooper were convicted. Woodyard and former officer Jason Rosenblatt were acquitted.