Nationally prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump and the family of Rajon Belt-Stubblefield, a 37-year-old Black man fatally shot by an Aurora police officer, said Friday that body-worn camera video shows the officer shot him three times.

The final shot was to the head, Crump said.

Crump and family members talked to the media at the New Nation Church in Aurora after having watched the video earlier in the week. and surveillance videos to the public Friday afternoon.

Belt-Stubblefield was shot after an officer tried to pull him over near East Sixth Avenue and Sable Boulevard around 7:30 p.m., just east of Interstate 225.

Aurora police said Belt-Stubblefield was speeding. He hit two cars trying to outrun a police car and then, instead of staying in his car as the officer ordered, started walking toward the officer. Video from the body-worn camera shows Belt-Stubblefield walking toward the officer, who punched him when he turned around.

Belt-Stubblefield then kept walking toward the officer, saying “You ready for this”? The officer shot twice, apparently striking Belt-Stubblefield in the upper torso.

After the third shot, Belt-Stubblefield fell to his knees and then back. He died at the scene.

“We’ve seen the video for ourselves,” Crump said, “and we know, just like other videos we’ve seen, once you see it, you know in your soul that it was unjustified.”

During the news conference, Crump stood next to the slain man’s wife, Tandra Blankson, and his 18-year-old son, Zion Murphy. His son was in a car behind his father’s car when the confrontation occurred and can be heard on the video yelling, “He just shot my dad. He had no gun.”

Crump is working with Colorado attorneys to monitor the case.

“We’re here to say we’re not going to let you sweep this under the rug,” Crump said of the police. “We not going to let you act as if Brother Rajon’s life didn’t matter.”

The attorney led the audience in the chant, “We’re going to raise the justice baton for Brother Rajon.”

When asked whether there are plans to sue the police department, Crump and other attorneys said they will let the investigation by the 18th Judicial District’s critical incident team proceed to see what happens.

“We will make sure that all the legal needs are taken care of, but right now our main focus is that the 18th judicial focuses on bringing charges for this crime,” Denver attorney Milo Schwab said.

Belt-Stubblefield’s death is the latest in a series of incidents that have put the Aurora Police Department’s actions under scrutiny.  The department entered into a consent decree with Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser in 2021 following national attention on the death of Elijah McClain after a violent arrest in 2019.

The department has been sued for other incidents involving excessive force, wrongful death and civil rights violations.

Aurora police officials didn’t comment Friday on the video or the press conference. Police Chief Todd Chamberlain previously said that the officer, whose name hasn’t been released, punched Belt-Stubblefield to try to de-escalate the situation, but the man raised his fist and kept walking toward the officer.

Chamberlain said, “It was the suspect¶¶Òőap actions that escalated into this.”

The officer has had personnel complaints filed against him. Chamberlain said those complaints were “nothing major.”

Pastor Aurthur Porter said Belt-Stubblefield was “a beloved member” of the New Nation Church and the community.

“This incident in our city has caused grief, pain, anger and confusion. Our commitment is to have justice,” Porter said.

include representing the families of Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black people whose deaths by law enforcement officials and vigilantes sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.

Mayor Mike Coffman said before Monday’s vote that allowing live phone-in participation leaves the door open to vile content that the First Amendment does not permit the council, a government body, to curtail.

“Somebody can call in from anywhere in the country and say whatever they want, and there’s nothing we can do,” he said. “I think showing up at a council meeting is sufficient.”

In recent years, several Colorado cities — — have been “zoom-bombed” by people making offensive remarks from afar while shrouded in anonymity. The Anti-Defamation League has , citing a group that calls itself the City Council Death Squad as being behind some of them.

Aurora also imposed stricter sign-up procedures for public speakers on Monday. It will now require people wishing to address the council to sign up in person with the city clerk between 5 p.m. and 6:20 p.m. on the day of a council meeting. Their name, address, phone number and email address will have to be provided to the city.

The resolution will limit total public comment on agenda items at a meeting to 30 minutes, except for comments taken on items scheduled for public hearings.

Councilwoman Crystal Murillo said the new rules were “an overreaction.” She was one of two council members to vote no on Monday. Seven council members voted in favor of the new public input regulations.

“We keep reducing the opportunities for the community to speak,” Murillo said.

But Councilman Curtis Gardner, who brought the resolution before the council, said the new rules were reasonable.

“In fact, most cities across the country have rules in place on time, residency requirements and more to ensure residents have an opportunity to be heard,” he said. “Due to recent similar events regarding racist behavior on call-in lines, several other cities have taken similar steps.”

Aurora’s council meetings have been raucous affairs of late, with dozens of residents and activists angrily addressing the city’s elected leaders over the May killing of 37-year-old Kilyn Lewis by an Aurora SWAT officer. Lewis, a Black man who was being sought on suspicion of attempted first-degree murder, was unarmed at the time of the shooting.

Over the summer, the Aurora council retreated to a back room on several occasions to complete meetings that protesters disrupted. On Monday, the meeting — from start to finish — was held remotely.

LaRonda Jones, Lewis’ mother, decried the elimination of call-in comments from the public during Monday’s meeting.

“I can’t physically be there every single time at every single meeting,” she said. “(Kilyn’s) life matters. His story matters. And yet it feels like your City Council is determined to shut us out as if my presence and my pain is inconvenient.”

The dismissal, in a court order filed June 5, concludes Anderson’s defamation lawsuit, which was filed in the wake of a 2021 investigation into his conduct while he was an elected member of the Denver Public Schools Board of Education.

Anderson had been accused in an April 2021 post on Black Lives Matter 5280’s Instagram account of sexually assaulting a woman. The school board hired an independent firm to investigate the claim against Anderson.

Mary-Katherine Brooks Fleming, a Denver Public Schools parent and community activist, followed with more allegations against him. Brooks Fleming testified before a state Senate committee in May 2021 that a predator was targeting DPS students.

She did not name Anderson in her testimony, but the school district later issued a statement saying she had been referring to him. She also posted claims about him on social media. The school board asked for the investigation to be expanded.

Ultimately, the independent firm’s investigation found that the claims by Black Lives Matter 5280 and Brooks Fleming could not be substantiated. However, the firm determined that Anderson had flirted on social media with a 16-year-old and had made intimidating posts. The school board censured him over those findings.

Once the investigation ended, Anderson filed a defamation lawsuit against BLM5280 and four of its members individually as well as Brooks Fleming and Jeeva Sinthilnathan, a Parker activist who made allegations against Anderson on her Facebook page.

A judge already had dismissed the claims against BLM5280 and its members, but an appeals court ruled that a portion of Anderson’s claims against Brooks Fleming and all of his claims against Sinthilnathan could be considered in district court.

However, Judge David Goldberg dismissed the remaining claims “for failure to prosecute” upon the request of lawyers representing Brooks Fleming and Sinthilnathan.

On Tuesday, Anderson, who did not run for re-election, told The Denver Post that he was relieved the court cases were over. Anderson also said he still owes BLM5280 money after he was ordered by the courts to pay its attorney’s fees incurred in the lawsuits and his lawyer continues to negotiate that amount.

“I’m grateful to close this difficult chapter, and people in the community can move on,” he said.

Experts say it¶¶Òőap a convenient way for officials to delegitimize the motivations of some political movements and justify calling in law enforcement to stop direct actions that are largely nonviolent and engaging in constitutionally protected speech.

“This tactic shifts focus away from genuine grievances and portray radical movements as orchestrated by opportunistic outsiders,” said Shanelle Matthews, a professor of anthropology and interdisciplinary studies at the City University of New York and a former communications director for the Movement for Black Lives.

Over the last few weeks, students on campuses across the country have built encampments, occupied buildings and led protests to call on colleges and universities to from companies profiting from the . Several college and city leaders have pointed to the threat of outsiders when describing the protests — and some have responded by cancelling or shifting plans for commencement ceremonies.

Here’s what to know about the phrase “outside agitators” used during historic student movements.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT (1960s-1970s)

Protest movements are typically comprised of local community members and organizers from other parts of the state or country that work together toward a common goal. In the 1960s, state and local officials often focused on this hallmark of community organizing and suggested that civil rights protests were organized by people outside of a given community.

In 1960, a group of Black college students took out a full page ad in Atlanta newspapers called “An Appeal for Human Rights” that expressed solidarity with students everywhere protesting for civil rights. Segregationist politician and then-Georgia Gov. Ernest Vandiver suggested it was created by foreigners and called it a calculated attempt “to breed dissatisfaction, discontent, discord and evil.”

“It did not sound like it was prepared in any Georgia school or college; nor in fact did it read like it was written even in this country,” .

The idea that outside agitators were involved in civil rights protests became so common that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out against the label in his letter from the Birmingham Jail in 1963.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” King wrote. “Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”

Former President Richard Nixon hoped to tie the 1970 by the National Guard to outside agitators, but the FBI was unable to provide such a link. The students had been protesting the Vietnam War.

During the Civil Rights Movement, the label was used as a weapon against community members who spoke up or provided support to protesters and organizers, said Dylan C. Penningroth, an author and historian who teaches law and history at the University of California, Berkeley.

“It delegitimizes internal dissent against the status quo. So anyone who speaks up against the status quo, whatever that is, is by definition an outsider,” he said.

It also ignores the fact that local civil rights organizers often take cues from other protest movements, Penningroth said, and building solidarity with others around the country is often an important part of enacting change.

BLACK LIVES MATTER (2013-present)

Nearly a half-century later, the 2014 killing of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked widespread protests against police brutality.

Again, outside agitators were frequently invoked and blamed for destruction, looting and the burning of buildings.

The same language was used to describe protests in the wake of the 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, which resulted in over .

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz suggested that 80% of those who participated in the unrest that followed in Minneapolis were from out of state. But an Associated Press analysis found that 41 of the 52 people cited with protest-related arrests had Minnesota driver’s licenses.

PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTS (2024)

The number of people arrested in connection with protests on college and university campuses against Israel’s war in Gaza has now topped 2,800. The Associated Press has tallied at least 70 incidents on at 54 schools since the protests began at Columbia on April 18.

Official have used outside agitator rhetoric in a handful of examples nationwide. After dozens of students were arrested in May 4 demonstrations at the University of Virginia, a top law enforcement official suggested outsiders had “bull horns to direct the protesters on how to flank our officers.”

“We’re receiving intelligence that outside agitators are starting to get involved in these campus protests,” Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares told Fox News on May 6.

In anti-war protests on campuses at Atlanta’s Emory University, Boston’s Northeastern University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, school officials and law enforcement have made inaccurate claims about the presence of non-students.

NYC PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTS (2024)

On April 30, New York City police officers in riot gear entered Columbia University’s campus and cleared an encampment, arresting more than 100 people. New York City Mayor Eric Adams has repeatedly cited the presence of “outside agitators” to justify the use of police force.

“There is a movement to radicalize young people and I’m not going to wait until it¶¶Òőap done and all of a sudden acknowledge the existence of it,” Adams said at a May 1 news conference.

Pressed for specifics, though, the mayor and police officials have had little to say. Adams has repeatedly said that he decided police intervention was necessary in Columbia’s demonstrations after learning that the husband of one “agitator” was “arrested for federal terrorism.”

But the woman referenced by the mayor wasn’t on Columbia’s campus that week, isn’t among the protesters who were arrested and has not been accused of any crime.

Nahla Al-Arian she was visiting the city last month and briefly stopped by the campus to see the protest encampment. She also said Adams was mischaracterizing the facts about her husband, a former computer engineering professor who was charged two decades ago with giving illegal support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group in the 1980s and 1990s.

Students involved in the Columbia protests have told The AP it is true that some people not affiliated with the university have been on campus and played an active role in the demonstrations, but they have vehemently denied that those allies were leading or “radicalizing” the students.

“While it¶¶Òőap true that people with nefarious intentions crash protests, it¶¶Òőap the exception rather than the rule,” Matthews said. “Given that, people should be wary of this narrative.”

AP writers R.J. Rico in Atlanta, Steve LeBlanc in Boston, David B. Caruso in New York and Jim Vertuno in Austin contributed.

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.

An investigation initiated by Denver Public Schools found the sexual assault allegations against Anderson to be unsubstantiated.

A Denver District Court judge dismissed most of Anderson’s lawsuit in 2022, except for a defamation claim against a Parker activist who made allegations against him on her Facebook page. Last year, the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld most of the lower court¶¶Òőap decision, but reversed the dismissal of part of Anderson’s claims against a parent who posted allegations about him on social media after testifying before state legislators. 

Friday’s order by Denver District Judge David H. Goldberg requiring Anderson to pay BLM 5280 and Brown’s legal fees was .

“I’m disappointed in the judge’s ruling but I don’t believe my team and I have exhausted all legal options,” Anderson said Wednesday, adding that he is considering appealing the order.

Representatives for BLM 5280 and Brown, who was a volunteer board member for the nonprofit, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Anderson filed his lawsuit after BLM 5280 relayed an anonymous allegation of sexual assault against him in 2021.

Denver Public Schools’ Board of Education hired an outside firm to investigate that allegation and others made against Anderson. Though the investigation found the sexual assault claims to be unsubstantiated, it reported that Anderson had flirted online with a teenage student and made intimidating social media posts. The latter findings led the school board to publicly censure Anderson.

DPS paid Anderson, whose term on the school board ended last year, a $3,500 settlement to help cover legal fees he incurred when the school board investigated the allegations against him.

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.

The two Aurora paramedics charged in the death of Elijah McClain testified Monday that they did everything they could to help the 23-year-old during the fatal 2019 encounter, taking the stand in their own defenses during a joint jury trial in Adams County District Court.

The two men said they followed their training and protocols. But prosecutors on cross-examination poked holes in the paramedics’ depiction of their own actions, using body-worn camera footage, reports and earlier interviews to contradict several details in the men’s accounts.

Paramedics Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper are each charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and assault in connection with McClain’s death. Aurora police officers stopped, tackled and restrained the unarmed Black man as he walked home on the night of Aug. 24, 2019, after a teenage 911 caller reported McClain was wearing a ski mask and acting strange.

On the witness stand Monday, the two paramedics testified they believed McClain was suffering from excited delirium during the police encounter and that a dose of the sedative ketamine was the only possible treatment.

Excited delirium is a disputed condition that describes someone exhibiting extreme agitation to the point where they are a danger to themselves and others. Colorado’s Board to strike the term from law enforcement training documents.

Prosecutors said the paramedics did not properly assess McClain, misdiagnosed him, overestimated his weight and ultimately gave him a significant overdose of ketamine, leading to his death. McClain stopped breathing in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and died after he was taken off life support on Aug. 30, 2019.

Cichuniec admitted on cross-examination that he and Cooper overestimated McClain’s weight and that the paramedics gave McClain a too-high dose of ketamine. Cichuniec said he was following his training — which was to give a general small, medium or large dose based on a patient’s size. He chose the largest dose, but McClain’s weight required only the smallest dose.

Cichuniec testified that he was concerned about giving McClain too little ketamine and didn’t think he had enough time to give a smaller dose, wait to see its effects, then call a doctor for permission to give more, as his training required.

“If we don’t work fast, he could die,” he testified. “…During our training, we were told numerous times that this is a safe, effective drug. …And ketamine is what is needed for excited delirium. That is the only drug we can carry that can stop what is going on and calm him down so we can control his airway, we can control him and the safety of him, get him to the hospital as quick as we can.”

But prosecutors sought to show that the paramedics wrongly concluded McClain was suffering from excited delirium. They pointed out that none of the paramedics asked McClain any questions that night — about how he was feeling, what was wrong, or even what his name was. None of the paramedics touched McClain until Cooper injected the ketamine, said Jason Slothouber, senior assistant attorney general.

Cooper testified that he did not ask McClain any questions because he was worried doing so would cause the police officers who were restraining McClain to be more violent.

“About the time I went to go do that, Elijah had just a little bit more of struggle or movement, and one of the officers picked him up and slammed him down to the ground, so I stopped,” Cooper testified. “…When I saw that, it was pretty shocking, so I told the officers, ‘OK, leave him here.’ That was my attempt to de-escalate things. They’re using violent control methods. That¶¶Òőap now harming Elijah, so that¶¶Òőap making my job more difficult.”

On cross-examination, Slothouber played body-worn camera footage that showed Cooper told officers to leave McClain on the ground before the officers body-slammed McClain.

Carotid hold and pleas for help

Both paramedics also testified that they did not hear Aurora police officers tell them that the officers had used a carotid hold on McClain — that is, that officers had squeezed McClain’s neck until he lost consciousness before paramedics arrived.

Cichuniec maintained that he did not hear it even after Slothouber played body-worn camera footage that showed him standing next to a police officer as the officer relayed the information.

In the video, Cichuniec is looking at the officer during the start of the conversation, then looks down at McClain as the officer mentions the carotid hold. Cichuniec testified that he heard the first part of the conversation but not the second half, during which the officer disclosed the dangerous carotid hold. Cooper offered a similar explanation.

“There were quite a few officers on scene, it was fairly hectic,” Cooper testified. “…So I’m getting bits and pieces from all these different officers. There’s obviously some things I missed.”

Both Cichuniec and Cooper testified that McClain was not making sense when he spoke that night. In response, Slothouber played body-worn camera footage that showed McClain repeatedly and coherently pleading with officers to stop hurting him.

“So all the clear statements Mr. McClain makes — ‘Ow,’ ‘Stop please,’ ‘I can’t fix myself,’ ‘Please help me’ — you don’t remember hearing any of those?” Slothouber asked Cooper.

“I remember hearing bits and pieces, but no full statements,” Cooper said.

“But you do remember well enough to know he wasn’t making sense and had excited delirium?” Slothouber said.

“At that point, I believed he was not making sense,” Cooper said.

Third of three trials

The paramedics are the last to stand trial of five first responders who faced criminal charges in McClain’s death. The three Aurora police officers stood trial earlier this fall, before the paramedics’ trial started in late November.

Officer Randy Roedema was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault in October. Former officer Jason Rosenblatt, who was fired from the Aurora Police Department before he was indicted, was acquitted of criminal charges during the same trial.

And a jury found Officer Nathan Woodyard not guilty of criminal charges on Nov. 6, and he has returned to work at the police department.

Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.

Jewish community leaders on Monday reported healthy turnouts at holiday gatherings and more menorahs in windows than usual. Seldom have Jews felt a greater need for this eight-day religious celebration, said Dan Leshem, the director of the , which represents 40 Jewish organizations in the state.

“We are in a very dark place and we need light, ” he said.

But the estimated 110,000 Coloradans who identify as Jewish also have braced against rising antisemitism and intense public criticism of Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Defense Forces launched the military campaign in Gaza after Hamas, which has been designated by the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization, attacked Israelis on Oct. 7, killing an estimated 1,200 people. Hamas fighters also took about 240 hostages.

Now more than 17,000 , many of them women and children, according to health officials in Gaza. The war 1.9 million Palestinians who live in Gaza — 85% of the population — prompting international calls for a cease-fire that the U.S. government has opposed. Secretary-General AntĂłnio Guterres has warned of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Over the past two months, pro-Palestinian rallies on college campuses and in cities have left Jewish Americans in Colorado, including some who have ties to Israel, feeling insecure and targeted themselves, Jewish community leaders said. And as Hanukkah began, one rabbi said, many were reluctant to display candles in menorahs.

“What¶¶Òőap happening is that there’s been a bit of an erasure between what is Jewish and what is Israeli,” Leshem said. “People who want to protest Israel are not pausing to consider the distinctions. … These are Jewish-Americans.”

A spike in antisemitism has spread into schools. Leshem said his 10-year-old daughter, a fifth grader in Denver, suffered a verbal attack by a classmate who saw her drawing the Jewish Star of David in her notebook.

“A lot of the anti-Israel activists have wanted to say Jews are implicated because Jews support Israel,” Leshem said. “But, of course, Jews in this country — even Israelis in this country — do not influence the policy in Israel because they do not get to vote. A lot of Jews are saying: ‘We have never felt so unsafe.’ ”

There’s a diversity of opinion among American Jews regarding Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks. This month in Denver, Jewish Voice for Peace activists rallied in Denver, calling for a cease-fire as part of pro-Palestinian demonstrations targeting the Global Conference for Israel hosted in Denver.

Hanukkah as a holiday celebrates freedom from oppression. It marks the rededication around 165 B.C.E. of Judaism’s temple in Jerusalem after Jewish fighters liberated it from foreign occupiers. The fighters found a tiny supply of ritually purified oil in the temple and relied on it to light a menorah that miraculously kept burning for eight days.

During Hanukkah, which began Dec. 7, Jews gather on each of eight consecutive nights to light a candle in a menorah and remember that ancient heroism.

Security officials at synagogues around Colorado were anticipating possible protests, aware of public ceremonies canceled in Williamsburg, Virginia, and Toronto.

No events in Colorado have been canceled, said Scott Levin, director of the Rocky Mountain regional headquarters of the , which combats antisemitism.

Hundreds gathered at the end of last week for Hanukkah first-night celebrations in Denver at and — where Rabbi Emily Hyatt saw these as especially hard times. Jews in Colorado “are thinking about the war between Israel and Hamas and they are thinking about the rise of antisemitism here in the United States,” she said in an interview last week.

Many in the Jewish community are torn as they weigh whether to display menorahs in home windows, fearful of putting themselves at risk, she said. Infusing light into the community during a dark time of year lies at the core of Hanukkah.

“The whole Jewish community feels different right now — the way we are talking in the community, and what we are talking about. It is all framed with great worry and awareness that the world feels different,” said Hyatt, who also serves as president of the Rocky Mountain Rabbis and Cantors. “So many people have been injured, or worse, in Israel. We have hostages that still haven’t been released. That is top of mind, and everybody is thinking about security here.”

Around Colorado, the number of people contacting the Anti-Defamation League increased fourfold over the already-elevated level a year ago, submitting 10 to 15 reports a day earlier this month about incidents such as harassing calls to synagogues, Levin said. The number of reported incidents has decreased to about five per day this week, he said. Those include a report of swastikas scrawled in a Denver-area elementary school bathroom and the tearing down of a mezuzah — parchment that displays Hebrew verses from the Torah — from an apartment door.

The war has inflamed tensions. Nationwide, the number of antisemitic incidents documented between Oct. 7 and Dec. 7 reached 2,031, according to . That’s more than quadruple the 465 recorded during the same period in 2022.

The new incidents included 1,411 “clearly linked to the Israel-Hamas war,” an ADL memo about the report said. Among the reported incidents were 40 physical assaults, 337 cases of vandalism, 749 incidents of verbal or written harassment, and 905 rallies where participants made antisemitic statements or called for terrorism against Israel.

Conflict over the war in Israel also was cited by the Council on American-Islamic Relations as a factor in targeting Palestinians and Muslims in the United States.

In Colorado, some Jewish students have been hiding their identity, tucking necklaces inside their shirts, Levin said.

“The best thing people can do is still engage in their community and try to show confidence in themselves and their positions,” Levin said, acknowledging anxieties around displaying menorahs in windows. “I don’t think people should hide their identities. It is understandable why people are questioning it. You have got to be safe and secure in your home. But it is a great symbol to put in your window.”

At Temple Emanuel, Rabbi Hyatt said more community members are requesting consultations with her this year compared with the past. Religious matters are intertwined with conversations about Israel, where “the fate of the Palestinian people, and Gazans, is directly tied to Hamas more than anything else — a hard place for them to be,” she said.

“I feel a great sense of grief for what we have lost in Israel and for the continued war and pain and loss of life — loss of innocent life,” Hyatt said. “As humans, we are complex thinkers. We can deeply mourn the loss of all innocent lives. No one loves war. This is hard and painful and heartbreaking and challenging. We can love and support Israel and its right to exist and defend itself, without having to sign off on every decision the IDF makes,” she said, referring to the Israeli Defense Forces.

The public criticism of Israel’s war seems to have revived antisemitic tropes that, to Hyatt and other leaders, seemed deliberate. They arise from more than confusion or “a feeling of standing up for Palestinians” who are seen as “the underdog,” Hyatt said.

And Jews in Colorado, who often have stood with and marched with U.S. minority groups fighting for social justice, now feel abandoned and left out, she said.

“It is a mandate for us that we stand with other people who are fighting for rights, equality and the life they want to build,” Hyatt said. “But the Jewish community now wants to know: Where are our friends that we stood with? We feel pretty alone right now.”

The pathologist who performed Elijah McClain’s autopsy testified Tuesday that he was unsure if a police neck hold contributed to the Black man’s 2019 death as attorneys for two Denver-area officers on trial for homicide sought to cast doubt about the prosecution’s case.

Pathologist Stephen Cina initially ruled in 2019 that McClain’s cause of death was undetermined in a case that along with the killings of George Floyd and others galvanized critics of excessive police force against Black people.

But in a revised autopsy report from 2021, Cina said the cause was an overdose of a sedative, ketamine, that was injected by paramedics after the 23-year-old massage therapist was stopped and put in a neck hold while walking home in the Denver suburb of Aurora. He also noted that ketamine was given after McClain had been forcibly restrained by police.

Cina said Tuesday that he didn’t have enough evidence to determine if McClain’s death was an accident or if the neck restraint used by officers contributed to it.

The trial is expected to continue into next week and defense attorneys for the officers have not yet presented their case. Their questioning of prosecution witnesses already has revealed their strategy: Shift blame to the paramedics who injected the ketamine and even to McClain himself, by saying his struggles against the officers left him weakened and more susceptible to an overdose.

Here’s what you need to know about McClain’s death and the trial underway in state court:

Did ketamine or the police neck hold kill McClain?

The neck hold maneuver, called a carotid control hold, restricts the flow of blood to a person’s brain, rendering them temporarily unconscious. Neck restraints have been banned in many states following the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests.

McClain had been kept on the ground for 15 minutes when paramedics gave him 500 milligrams of ketamine. He weighed 140 pounds (64 kilograms) but received a higher dose of ketamine than recommended for someone of his size and overdosed, Cina said.However, Cina said that the levels of the drug found in his blood were within the range that would not be harmful to most people.

If the neck hold caused McClain to vomit and then he inhaled his vomit into his lungs while being restrained by police, the hold could have contributed to the problems caused by the ketamine, Cina said. While Cina said that McClain had inhaled his vomit, he said that could also have happened after being given the ketamine and put in the ambulance while laying on his back.

“Some forensic pathologists would consider this whole case an accident. I believe some forensic pathologists would consider the whole case a homicide,” Cina said. “I’m in between. The restraint may have done something, but that¶¶Òőap not enough for me to make it a homicide.”

Earlier, pulmonologist David Beuther testified for the prosecution that McClain threw up repeatedly and inhaled vomit into his lungs that made it hard to breathe. Even before the ketamine was injected, McClain’s health had deteriorated to the extent that he belonged in a hospital intensive care unit, he said.

Why did police stop McClain?

A 911 caller reported McClain, who was wearing earbuds and listening to music, seemed “sketchy” and was waving his arms as he walked home from a convenience store in the city of Aurora, a suburb of Denver, on the night of Aug. 24, 2019. The 23-year-old massage therapist was often cold and wore a runner’s mask and jacket despite the warm weather, according to the indictment.

Jurors were shown surveillance video from the store of McClain wearing the mask and waiting to pay for three cans of ice tea. No one else in the store appeared concerned that he was in a mask, although the clerk’s back was to the camera.

Three officers approached McClain after he left the store. Within 10 seconds Officer Nathan Woodyard put his hands on McClain, turning him around. As McClain tried to escape his grip, Woodyard said, “Relax, or I’m going to have to change this situation.”

The encounter quickly escalated, with officers taking McClain to the ground and putting him in a neck hold, pressing against his carotid artery. Paramedics arrived and injected McClain with the sedative ketamine. He went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and was taken off life support three days later.

Why were the officers charged?

A Colorado prosecutor initially decided against prosecuting McClain’s death largely because the initial autopsy did not determine exactly how he died.

Following the protests over Floyd’s death in 2020, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis directed Colorado’s attorney general to open a new investigation. Two paramedics and three officers were indicted by a state grand jury in 2021.

Cina testified that he received deaths threats because of his original autopsy report. He also said people upset about it showed up outside his home and that a “self-proclaimed witch” from New England sent him a lock of her hair and put a curse on him.

Cina later revised his report based on additional medical information and more extensive body worn camera footage than he initially received, he said.

The officers now on trial — Randy Roedema and Jason Rosenblatt — are charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent reckless homicide and assault, all felonies. They pleaded not guilty.

Roedema, a former Marine who is currently suspended without pay, had been with the department for five years before McClain’s death. Rosenblatt worked for the agency for two years and was fired in 2020 for making light of other officers’ reenactment of the neck hold.

The two officers have not talked publicly about McClain’s death and it¶¶Òőap unknown if they’ll take the stand to testify. Their lawyers told jurors that the officers’ actions followed police policies and weren’t responsible for McClain’s death.

Body cameras worn by the officers captured the confrontation and the footage is being used by both sides to bolster their arguments.

What about the other officer and the paramedics?

Woodyard’s trial begins later this month month and paramedics Cooper and Cichuniec are scheduled to be tried in November. Judge Mark Warner ruled in January that there would be separate trials to ensure fair proceedings.

Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.

The settlement was never intended to be made public, according to the legal agreement, which specifies Anderson and DPS can’t acknowledge its existence or release the document — even under Colorado’s public records act — unless required by law or court order.

With Anderson’s consent, DPS released a copy of the settlement agreement Monday after The Denver Post and published stories detailing the transaction and the district¶¶Òőap repeated refusal to release the settlement.

“It is unfathomable that any public school district would include a provision in a settlement agreement by which it commits to withhold that public record from disclosure under the Colorado Open Records Act unless ordered to do so by a court,” said Steve Zansberg, an attorney representing The Post and Chalkbeat Colorado through the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition. “Colorado’s appellate courts have declared, unequivocally, on several occasions, that such contractual commitments are unenforceable because they are contrary to the state’s public policy.”

The settlement was signed in March and came out of the school board’s budget, which was more than $232,900 last fiscal year, according to expense transactions reviewed by The Post.

“I was reimbursed for the out-of-pocket expenses I paid for representation during the ILG investigation,” Anderson said in a statement, referring to Investigations Law Group, the firm hired by the school board to conduct the 2021 investigation.

That months-long investigation found all of the sexual assault allegations to be unsubstantiated.

DPS Board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said she was unaware of the settlement until recently and noted that the school board did not take a vote to approve the payment.

“The state statute allows for a school district to reimburse a Board of Education director for expenses incurred as a result of their duties,” DPS spokesman Scott Pribble said in a statement. “The amount that was reimbursed was under the threshold that requires Board approval.”

Denver’s school board hired outside firm ILG  in April 2021 after Black Lives Matter 5280 circulated an allegation on behalf of an anonymous woman alleging she had been sexually assaulted by Anderson. The investigation was later expanded to look at additional allegations.

Though the ILG investigators concluded the sexual assault allegations were unfounded, they did report that Anderson had flirted online with a 16-year-old student and made intimidating social media posts, actions that led the school board to publicly censure Anderson.

The $3,500 settlement, agreed upon in October 2022 and signed March 17, represents only a portion of the legal fees Anderson incurred during the investigation. He said they totaled more than $40,000.

Anderson also filed a defamation lawsuit in 2021 against BLM 5280 and others who made allegations of sexual assault. Most of Anderson’s claims were dismissed, but the Colorado Court of Appeals last week revived part of the lawsuit by reversing the dismissal of his claims against a parent over a comment she posted on social media after testifying before state legislators.

By signing the settlement agreement, Anderson waived any claims and demands for damages, costs or expenses that he might have against DPS and board members related to the ILG investigation, including expenses he incurred himself, according to the document.

The claims he waived included any under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, as well as any based on wrongful discharge, defamation, or invasion of privacy, according to the settlement.

Anderson also agreed in the settlement that he would not seek further reimbursement or any other payment via the school board or state statute.

Repeated refusal to release document

The Post first requested a copy of the settlement agreement in May under Colorado’s open records law after seeing the payment listed as a line item among the school board’s expenses. That list was last month.

But district officials repeatedly denied the request — offering varying justifications — including as recently as Monday, before finally releasing the document.

The settlement included a stipulation that its existence would not be made public, including “the circumstances or facts that led to this agreement” — even if it was requested under the Colorado Open Records Act, or CORA, unless required to do so under court order.

The district initially denied The Post¶¶Òőap requests by citing a provision of CORA that allows officials to withhold personnel files. But courts repeatedly have said personnel records only pertain to employees’ personal information, such as addresses, and that settlement agreements are public records, said Jeffrey Roberts, the executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition.

“Auon’tai Anderson is not an employee of the school district; he is a school board member who is not paid,” he said, adding, “So that makes you wonder how they can claim a settlement is a personnel file that cannot be disclosed under CORA.”

DPS last week provided The Post with a copy of the invoice that Anderson submitted for reimbursement. It shows the school board director made a $3,500 payment to the law firm Decker & Jones in April 2021.

On Monday afternoon, DPS general counsel Aaron Thompson said in an email that the invoice shows Anderson paid the attorney who represented him during the ILG investigation.  But he once again denied access to the actual agreement, saying the document is “akin to a record of sexual assault or harassment protected from disclosure” under state statute.

Settlement agreements rarely go into detail about such claims, said Zansberg, who represented The Post and Chalkbeat in their efforts to obtain the document.

“I don’t think under any fair reading that this can be considered a record of a sexual harassment investigation,” he said.

Two hours later, with Anderson’s consent, the district released the settlement agreement.

Public interest in settlement

There is legitimate public interest in why a school district reached a financial settlement agreement with one of its elected board members, Roberts said, adding, “There’s a question about why the board would agree or decide to pay a school board member.”

Gaytán said DPS paid Anderson the settlement without a vote by the board and that she did not know about the settlement until she requested a copy of the board’s transactions after receiving media requests for the records.

Anderson said board approval was not needed for the settlement because it was under $1 million.

But Gaytán said members should have been given a chance to vote on whether to approve the settlement given it was related to a previous board’s decision to conduct the 2021 investigation.

“We deserve that opportunity to have a discussion whether or not there was a majority or consensus,” said Gaytán, who has called for a new policy on directors’ expenses after members spent more than $40,000 traveling to conferences this past year.

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our Mile High Roundup email newsletter.

Updated 6:15 p.m. Oct. 2, 2023: This story has been updated to clarify that while the settlement between Auon’tai Anderson and Denver Public Schools was reached in October 2022, the agreement wasn’t signed until March of this year.

The judges upheld the lower court’s decision to dismiss most of the claims in the defamation lawsuit Anderson filed against Black Lives Matter 5280 and its leadership, an activist and a Denver Public Schools parent.

But the Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of part of Anderson’s claims against parent Mary-Katherine Brooks Fleming, specifically regarding a comment she posted on social media after testifying before state legislators, according to the summary.

“I’m grateful that the court is allowing me to hold (Brooks Fleming) accountable for the things she said on social media,” Anderson said, adding, “I hope that we are able to start moving forward in a place of closure.”

A Denver District Court judge dismissed most of the lawsuit last year, except for a defamation claim against a Parker activist who made allegations on her Facebook page. The Court of Appeals upheld the lower court¶¶Òőap decision and denied Jeeva Senthilnathan’s motion to dismiss Anderson’s defamation claim against her.

Neither Brooks Fleming nor Senthilnathan immediately responded to requests for comment Thursday.

Anderson filed the lawsuit after BLM 5280 and others made allegations of sexual assault against him in 2021. An investigation by an independent firm hired by the Denver Public Schools Board of Education found those allegations to be unsubstantiated.

The investigation also found Anderson had flirted online with a 16-year-old student and made intimidating social media posts. The findings led the school board to censure Anderson.

During the investigation into the initial allegation made by BLM 5280, Brooks Fleming testified before a state Senate committee that a predator was targeting DPS students. She did not name Anderson in her testimony, but the school board later issued a statement saying she had been referring to him and that the independent investigation would be expanded to look at those allegations, too.

The Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court that Brooks Fleming’s testimony before the state legislature was protected speech because it related to legislative proceedings.

But the court found that a statement Brooks Fleming made on social media about her testimony was not privileged and that the district court erred when it concluded Anderson could not prove the comment was false and made with actual malice, according to the summary of the opinion.

As a result, the court is sending that particular defamation claim against Brooks Fleming back to the district court, which also will determine whether Brooks Fleming is a partially-prevailing party and able to recover any attorney fees and costs related to the still-dismissed claim, according to the summary.

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our Mile High Roundup email newsletter.