Officer acquitted in Elijah McClain’s death resigns from Aurora Police Department

An Aurora police officer acquitted in the death of Elijah McClain resigned from the department Friday.

Nathan Woodyard, 34, who put the 23-year-old McClain in a neck hold during the violent 2019 arrest, was found not guilty in November of criminally negligent homicide and reckless manslaughter in McClain’s death.

After the verdict, Woodyard requested to rejoin the police department and was owed $212,546 in back pay. He’d been suspended without pay since September 2021, when he was indicted on the criminal charges.

He could have returned to the department after completing a reintegration process, city spokesman Ryan Luby said in November. Instead, he resigned on Friday, Luby confirmed.

McClain was walking home from a gas station — wearing a black ski mask as he often did, and dancing to music — on Aug. 24, 2019, when someone called 911 to report him as a suspicious person.

The responding officers detained McClain, violently forced him to the ground and handcuffed him before paramedics injected McClain with the sedative ketamine. Woodyard used a neck hold on McClain, who had committed no crime. The 23-year-old suffered cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital, where he was later declared brain dead. He died Aug. 30, 2019.

With Woodyard’s resignation, none of the three officers charged in McClain’s death will be returning to work at the Aurora Police Department.

Officer Jason Rosenblatt, who was also acquitted of criminal charges, was fired before the jury trials for responding “ha ha” in a text to a photo of three officers reenacting the choke hold on McClain. Officer Randy Roedema was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and assault in McClain’s death, and was fired after the verdict. He was sentenced to 14 months in jail.

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