‘Weaponization of medicine’: police use of ketamine draws scrutiny after Elijah McClain’s death

The sedative is used more often on Black people - and justified after the fact with questionable claims of excited delirium'

In the summer of 2019, 23-year-old Elijah McClain was stopped by the Aurora, Colorado, police while walking home, after someone called 911 saying he looked suspicious.

The incident quickly turned violent, with three police officers piling on the 140lb boy, twice putting him in a chokehold that has since been banned. After vomiting, coming in and out of consciousness and pleading for breath, paramedics arrived and injected McClain with an excessive dose of ketamine, a powerful sedative.